Pathfinder Bulletin - April Recap 2022
AMZ Pathfinder
We help great brands scale with Amazon advertising | Amazon PPC Management | Amazon DSP Services | Amazon Store Builder
Fresh Amazon Info???
Looking to improve freight costs, transit times, and inventory stability? We had a great chat with friend of the business and logistics expert,?Brian Miller?from?Easy China Warehouse. Brian has lived in China for years, is fluent in the language, and has a deep understanding of the culture which helps him grasp the evolving situation there quickly. He's also run a Chinese-based 3PL for years and seen the rise of Amazon.
We peppered him with questions about freight issues during world events, how to improve freight efficiency, cost considerations, arrival times, working with a freight forwarder, and more. Hit the link above to get some of his unfiltered expertise.
Among the many advertising tools that sellers can use for increasing conversions and boosting their voice in the crowded Amazon search results stands one of our favorites: Sponsored Brands Video. Seeing effective ROI with video ads is not nearly as intimidating as it sounds and this guest post from Zonguru sheds light on all aspects of it here in 2022. The timing couldn't be better now that we're seeing SBV ads starting to show up on product listings and Amazon's reports deliver more data on how videos are actually watched by shoppers.
Every Amazon customer goes through different stages in their purchasing journey. Due to the uniqueness of these interactions, it's tricky to launch one-size-fits-all advertising strategies. Amazon DSP can help us reach shoppers earlier in the purchasing journey but how exactly does it help advertisers accomplish that?
In this article, we discuss all the ways you can use Amazon DSP to boost your existing advertising strategies and how that can maximize long-term outcomes.
If you’re a brand selling on Amazon you may want to consider setting up your own database to store and analyze your advertising and account data outside of the limitations of any specific tool. This webinar covers how to wrap your head around this topic and how you can get started. It's moderated by Intentwise CEO Sreenath Reddy and features two panelists (one of them being me, Brent) giving their input from the agency and large CPG brand sides.
We are rolling deep this year in charming?Tallinn, Estonia?for the?AMBIZION?Amazon Seller conference. If you’re planning to attend (seaside saunas, anyone?) Wave us down and say hi. We're using this unique setting as an opportunity to do a mini team meetup so 8 of us are attending.
Amazon News???
Amazon’s stock suffered a?nasty?drop on April 29th after announcing its Q1 results, but does this have any impact on sellers using the platform? I agree with Web Retailer in saying "probably not" for the same reasons they highlight. How could growth post-COVID?possibly?match that during the last two years? Demand for eCommerce will continue to grow along a pre-pandemic trajectory harmed only by ongoing supply chain disruptions.
Related aside: one aspect of the Q1 results which was in some places overlooked is Amazon’s investment in the electric car maker?Rivian?which has dropped more than $7 billion on their roughly 18% stake in the company when their stock?also?sank (and continues to do so). Has Rivian actually shipped anything? I understand Amazon needs last-mile electric delivery vans, but I remain skeptical.
Our friends over at?Empire Flippers?have done the hard work of collating all information related to the sale of Amazon-focused eCommerce businesses on their marketplace. You know we love data and the numbers here tell a?very?interesting story indeed. Multiples in 2021 were at an all-time high and the YoY increase in the average sale price is?shocking?(111.9% up from 2020!). The short time that some of the largest businesses spent on the market are also telling, some of those were 8-figure transactions that were snapped up in less than two weeks(!!). They cite the number of and increased competition between Aggregators as the primary reason.
This all seems obvious if you have paid any attention during the last 2 years, but seeing it tracked over a longer time period paints a clear picture. The whole thing serves as a sanity check if you’re even considering an exit or just want to understand the market. We’ll see how things shake out in 2022 as Aggregators are facing serious headwinds.
Ouch. I get it that they have to offset fuel and inflation costs somehow but pushing them onto sellers with short notice is unwelcome. Someone will have to feel the impact of these increased costs and I guess it will be the end consumer. 5% of FBA fees isn’t that much but the speed with which they implemented it suggests they didn’t think that people would be too concerned or cause a fuss.
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A brilliant move if you consider the possibilities it opens up.?Marketplace Pulse?is spot on as usual saying that this?could?be the first step on their path to push into DTC off-Amazon channels. The only obstacle is that you must be an FBA user to use Buy with Prime on your website, which is how it differs from Amazon Pay which I’ve used several times in the same way that you’d use Apple Pay or the PayPal button on a website you’re not familiar with - it adds a layer of trust and convenience.
Buy with Prime ties the payment and?fulfillment?pieces together. Long term I could see Amazon launching a Shopify competitor. Imagine how easy the integration would be if you’re already using FBA. Many of you reading this would have one major issue with such a platform: Amazon would now have their eyes on your website data where previously that was a safe space free from their prying.
Nerd Zone???
This is from late last year and we’ve used it on the Pathfinder team for months, but I don't think I’ve ever highlighted it in the Bulletin. This is a free browser extension from?The Markup?that detects what brands are from Amazon and places a bright?orange box?around them as you browse the search results. It doesn’t profess to be flawless at catching every single product from Amazon but it gets most of them.
What it demonstrates is that:
1.?Amazon does not consistently identify which brands/products come from their brands. AmazonBasics is by far the most popular but there are dozens of other brands with no easily identifiable markings or filters that indicate they are from Amazon.
2.?There are many products in high-demand subcategories and associated with high-volume keywords sold by Amazon.
I don’t think this is some grave sin, just look at all the in-house private label brands you can find walking through a Walmart, Target, or these days most other retailers online or otherwise. The difference is that Amazon has a?documented history?of using 3P seller data to make decisions about what products to bring to market from their own brands and I think this costs them more in reputation than they gain in $.
For us on the advertising side, we like to know when we’re carefully allocating client budget and going up against somebody playing with house money???
Amazon Fresh store experience
As alluded to in the last Bulletin I was keen to try out an Amazon Fresh store while in London. This might seem pedestrian to those of you in cities where these are common but in France, we don’t have such things. The process to get it working was a bit involved:
The "just walk out" part is a bit surreal if you’ve never tried it but nobody shouted at me and all I got was a smile from the attendant who patiently taught me how to get it all working. I found the selection to be pretty good despite it being a small store and grabbed a light lunch. Now I can say I’ve enjoyed an Amazon sandwich. Next time I'll keep my eyes peeled for some new advertising placements in-store.
That's all for this month. Thanks for reading! - Brent
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