Am I going to lose my Vendor Manager? What Amazon’s increasing move to self-service means for your brand.
Several brands have reached out to us in a panic this week after reading some recent news claiming that they would no longer have access to a Vendor Manager at Amazon. Here’s what you need to know.
Roundup: Hybrid Selling Accounts, Q4 Earnings, and Acquired Pillpack
ROUNDUP: Amazon announced their Q2 earnings, and the big story is that they posted their largest quarterly profit ($2.5B)…ever. Wall street is happy, as they’ve now been profitable for 13 straight quarters – thanks in large part to their ad business (growing at 100% Y/Y), AWS, and the “squeeze” they’ve been putting on all of you, manufacturers.
How to not get eaten alive during your annual Amazon negotiations
Check out my recent episode on the Jason & Scot show on Negotiating with Amazon. Also, next week, I’ll be speaking at ChannelAdvisor’s Catalyst conference in San Diego – hope to see some of you there!
Why Your Brand Should Care About Amazon’s Item-Level Economics (i.e, CRaP)
If you are a brand selling on Amazon through their retail channel, chances are you’ve heard about CRaP. CRaP is an acronym that stands for Can’t Realize any Profit, Amazon’s label for items that are structurally unprofitable for them to sell in their retail channel. In case it isn’t clear from the acronym, CRaP items are candidates for removal from Amazon’s retail channel. Here’s why this matters to your brand.
7 Things Brands Must do to Prepare for Q4 on Amazon
The fourth quarter of the year, starting October 1, is the largest selling season of the year on Amazon, with many of our clients driving up to 75% of their annual traffic and sales in three short months. It’s an incredible opportunity to grow share and increase your customer base! With that in mind, there are several “watch-outs” that can trip you up and dampen sales performance. Below you’ll find a list of best practices, tried and true across both our clients as well as brands I managed back in my Amazon days…
The Secret Behind Amazon’s Success Isn’t What You Think
Hint: It’s all about risk and reward! In 2005, I joined the ranks of a company called Amazon.com – a company that was, at that time, a retail underdog. Their stock price was laughable at $25/share (vs. nearly $1,000/share today), and their annual revenues definitely weren’t keeping Walmart up at night.
How Scrappy, Disruptive Brands are Stealing Market Share on Amazon
Both in my consulting practice and during my ten years at Amazon managing categories, I have repeatedly witnessed the remarkable rise of a certain type of brands to large, competitive players in their categories. The Grocery Manufacturer’s Association and BCG released a report that stated, “…brick-and-mortar market share and shelf-space prominence do not translate into digital sales, and nimble new competitors with disruptive strategies…stake out leadership positions and are then hard to dislodge.”
Amazon’s New End Game is Likely Third Party Sellers. What Retail Brands Should Do About it
If you aren’t already a manufacturer AND a seller, you need to be! I just returned from ChannelAdvisor’s Catalyst Conference in Nashville, TN, attended by hundreds of third-party sellers on all major marketplaces: Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Sears, Alibaba, etc.
Hybrid Selling Models on Amazon – Why the Hype?
The single biggest growth opportunity for your brand might be opening a third-party seller account. More and more brands (including some of my clients) are seeing significant sales uptick by transitioning to a “hybrid” model to address a variety of challenges on Amazon – persistent out of stocks/inventory management, circumventing Amazon’s aggressive price matching strategy, a means to manage products requiring special handling, getting more direct access to their customers, and to keep selling their CRaP on Amazon (no, it’s not potty talk – if you don’t already know about CRaP, see my previous article).