The Challenge
This pet shampoo and conditioner brand approached us to help them get control of their online pricing environment by removing unnecessary 3rd party retailer sellers on Amazon, and selling directly to customers themselves using Amazon 3P. As price is a large factor in Amazon’s featured offer (Buy Box) algorithm, many of their retailers were in a race to the bottom to offer the lowest price on Amazon in order to win the Buy Box and make the sale. This was putting other online retailers, and even physical stores, in jeopardy as they felt pressure to lower their prices to match the prices products were listed for on Amazon.
Planning and Consulting
After a full scoping conversation to understand their goals, challenges, and limitations, a plan was put in place to set up a 3P Seller Central store and begin offering their items via FBA, while phasing out the other unauthorized 3P sellers. We began building out their store with the product listings from their brand and then planning and building the FBA Shipment Plans to get inventory into Amazon distribution centers.
As part of the phase out plan for resellers, a new MAP policy was developed and communicated to all authorized resellers. Then, a full research project to uncover who the Amazon sellers were and where they were receiving inventory from was conceptualized, approved, and executed. After quite a bit of detective work, the supply chain leaks were identified and cut off. Unauthorized sellers began to run out of inventory and their pricing environment on Amazon stabilized. This took the pressure off of other online resellers and physical stores and gave them a platform to start increasing sales again.
Listings Marketing and Catalog Management
While undertaking the pricing stabilization efforts, a plan to grow the brand awareness and brand representation on Amazon was concurrently put in place. The first major concern was that all of the resellers attempting to sell the brands products had made a mess of the product listings for the brand. In order to reliably clean up the listings, we gathered all of the information and applied for Brand Registry. After being approved for the program, we built out a large list of optimization and began strategically executing on initiatives ranging from title optimization, bolstered key product features, update product descriptions, improving and expanded variations, and a series of image layout designs in order to improve the image galleries and better communicate the key product benefits for each shampoo or conditioner line.
Brand Marketing
In addition to the core product attribute optimizations, we leveraged the branding assets available to Brand Registered sellers by concepting, designing, creating and applying a Brand Story for the brand and unique A+ Content for each product line.
Driving Traffic and Conversions with Amazon Advertising
Finally, strategic Amazon Advertising campaigns were developed through extensive keyword and audience research. A strategy utilizing all three Amazon campaign types (Sponsored Products, Sponsored Display, and Sponsored Brands), was launched over the first 12 months.This allowed the brand to continue to expand its brand awareness while rebuilding its reputation and pricing on Amazon and beyond.
The Results
In their first two years of selling directly on Amazon, this brand has gone from $0 in direct to customer Amazon sales to over $820,000 last year. This year they are on a trajectory for over $1.3 million. Beyond that, brand sales on Amazon in total (from all sellers) have increased dramatically, and their online pricing environment is back under their control, allowing them to better sell to other online and physical retailers.
