Inc. Magazine Reveals Annual List of America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies—the Inc. 5000. BrandCentric ranks 288 overall and 18 in retail.
Inc. Magazine Reveals Annual List of America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies—the Inc. 5000. BrandCentric ranks 288 overall and 18 in retail.
In the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic and a near shutdown of most retail operations, Amazon has reported seeing significant increases in demand. As doorstep delivery becomes more of a necessity than a luxury, Amazon is rising to the challenge.
You might remember the 2016 study by Bloomreach that claimed 55% of all product searches start on Amazon. If you are in Amazon circles, there’s no doubt you’ve heard the 55% number thrown around. The news shocked the retail world because it challenged the common conception that search engines, namely Google, dominated product search.
While Google is the most dominant search engine overall, Amazon is finding its niche along the search giant as the preferred search engine for non-branded product search. This means Amazon is the leading digital platform for appealing to customers who do not have your brand in mind when shopping.
Why is Amazon advertising a big deal for my brand?
MAP integrity is key for any brand that is positioning itself as a NON commodity brand. This is much easier said than done. Especially since some online marketplaces allow 3P sellers that may not be known or authorized and therefore may not have knowledge of a brand’s MAP policy. For this post we are going to use Amazon as the online channel example and why it is so important to have ALL online and traditional brick and mortar sellers comply with your MAP policy.
Most brands are thoughtful in evaluating the best way to optimize their Amazon catalog, but the decision process often takes months and there is a high occurrence of buyers remorse because the management solution they chose is unable or unwilling to complete the catalog implementation. This blog is intended to help brands thoroughly and expeditiously make this evaluation to determine the best management solution for them. There are five primary criteria for making this evaluation: amount of catalog needing optimization, incentive alignment, support, cost, and time to implement. The three catalog management options are managing in-house, delegating to an existing 3P seller, or working with a professional catalog agency. We have seen all three options work out, and all three options fail, so you’ll also hear about the key indicators when each option is best for brands. There is a comparison chart at the end of this post to accompany the material.
Enforcing MAP and overhauling your brand’s presence in the wild west of Amazon is an overwhelming task. Because of the lack of controls Amazon provides to brands, the lack of experience brands have with these endeavors, and the lack of time to dedicate to doing it well, these topics are rightfully overwhelming. Their long term implications for your brand are obvious and because of that, brands are courageously tackling these projects like their future depends on it. Because it does.
Amazon is big and only getting bigger. In fact, half of all online purchases in the US are now made on just this single platform compared to the rest of the web, and globally Amazon is seeing close to 200 million unique visitors each month. With such an overwhelming number of people shopping on Amazon, odds are your customers are among them. However, when searching for your brand on Amazon, what are your customers finding? Do they come across your brand, but only a handful of products, or less than flattering images of your products? Or even worse do they not find your brand at all, but rather your competition? I feel these questions suggest the more important reasons to be on Amazon is not just pure sales growth (although that is definitely a large byproduct if done well) but rather increasing awareness of your brand and the full selection of products you sell.
Your brand has as rich legacy with years of reputation and quality product. Over the years, you have refined your messaging to find your unique market niche and then developed a media and communication strategy around that messaging. Significant time and resources have been invested into producing beautiful marketing assets to tell your story well and connect to customers. Now honestly ask yourself, “how is my brand doing at implementing this investment on Amazon?” For most brands in 2019, their Amazon presence is…well…not up to brand standards.
