5 Major Pitfalls to Avoid When Negotiating With Amazon This Year
Look out, Vendors. Here comes Amazon. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock It’s that time of year again (groan) – annual negotiations. Here are a few big mistakes we see vendors make, updated for 2019. Don’t get taken! 1. Not knowing your cost to serve Amazon Amazon only includes selected terms in their email asks for a reason – hoping […]
Amazon Private Label Plans Are Bigger Than Anyone Thinks
I’ll be speaking at the Path to Purchase Expo in November, sharing my predictions on where Amazon’s headed in 2020 and beyond – hope to see some of you there!
Amazon’s rumored impending supplier purge: Why, and what should vendors do?
“Third-party sellers are kicking our first-party butt. Badly,” Jeff Bezos wrote in the 2019 annual shareholder letter. This is an important statement, the first of its kind, followed by hard data – yes, data! – detailing the size of Amazon’s third-party platform – meaning, the amount of total sales generated by third party sellers on Amazon.
Why “Share” is a totally BS metric on Amazon
If I had a dollar for every time I heard a client—mostly CPGs—talk about their “fair share” on Amazon, I’d be a very rich woman, sitting on a beach watching my three kids play in the sand, and not writing articles about Amazon and eCommerce. Today, we’ll explore why market share on Amazon is an almost meaningless metric and discuss what you should use instead.
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.
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.”