Thinking of Launching on Amazon? Why Timing is Everything...

In my last article, I explained why it’s so important for brands to start thinking about Amazon early on in the startup process; starting with the right foundations is critical. But there’s more to it than that – part of investing wisely in your brand’s Amazon strategy is a question of understanding market timing. To approach this the right way, there are a couple of key questions to ask:

Is there a market on Amazon for this product right now?

Amazon is on the up, but do all ships float in a rising tide? This depends on the size of the market for your product and category within Amazon. What sales volumes are your competitors achieving? If there is no significant market, it may not be right to launch whole hog right now. But at the same time if you’re launching a completely new category of product, consider if there is existing demand you can tap into, piggy backing as an alternative or even a completely better offering.

How big exactly is the opportunity? Is it growing?

If the market for your product is small, you might wonder whether it’s worth investing in Amazon right now. This will depend on a few factors - is it growing quickly? Can you tap into other search terms to increase awareness? Categories in their infancy are quite unknown, and their trajectory is not certain. But, they are bound to gain momentum at some point with money being invested into them newer categories. In situations like this, brands have to take some level of risk when deciding to invest in Amazon; some traffic will come in time, but how much you should invest depends on how much traffic will come, when it will come, and the likelihood of your brand being the number 1 when that market evolves. Like any decision, there is always risk involved.

If you’re present on Amazon when there aren’t many competitors and then demand (search volumes) increase, you are poised to benefit massively and become the market leader (assuming your product is actually good), owning multiple search terms, and likely with the most reviews. If yours is the first brand in a growing market, a solid Amazon presence could be a very small investment with great payouts later down - the question is whether or not the market will be big enough in future to justify further investment. My view is that if you’ve started a business and you believe in the product, this should be a no brainer - if you don’t believe that there will be a market in future, what’s the point?

Timing is so important when thinking about launching on Amazon, as is making a measured investment; It’s worth putting in some effort or small investment now to understand the size of the market right now first before you throw everything into it. There’s no point spending ￡thousands on expertise or an agency if that decision doesn’t make sense in the current market conditions ie. if we’re too early (or indeed late – thousands may not be enough therefore!) for the category.?

I see Amazon businesses working a little bit like compound interest. The more you invest up front in getting it right at the start, the greater the payouts in the later years. The earlier you get your strategy right and maximise your representation and metrics (because explaining your brand and product well on Amazon’s, lets be honest, ugly interface is no small feat), the more likely you are to generate clicks, increase sales and hence ranking and more traffic over time. If you pay attention to those metrics early on, your trajectory will be much faster than if you just leave the listing there (which brands used to be able to do when it was the wild west 5 years ago!) and hope for the best while your competitors overtake you.

Having built and launched multiple brands on Amazon, I’ve made my fair share of mistakes; it’s helped me understand what really matters on Amazon, and this is why it’s so important to start thinking about Amazon early! Beginning with good foundations really does pay off. I know my business would have grown a hell of a lot faster if I had known this at the beginning! If you’re curious as to how you can do Amazon better, then please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me.

Cheers!

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