SELLING ON AMAZON Fitting Amazon into the Direct Sales Model by Julie Cabinaw, Vice President of Marketing, Tastefully Simple
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n 2018, while many companies had made the move to sell directly to clients on their websites, few were selling on Amazon. Tastefully Simple’s leadership team made the bold decision to sell on Amazon and lay the foundation for a modern multichannel brand, offering more ways to meet customers where they are to learn about and purchase Tastefully Simple products. To launch this channel, Tastefully Simple had to deeply understand how selling on Amazon really works and what resources were needed to manage the channel. We also had to proactively prepare our field for the Amazon launch and address fears they had about our commitment to them. Would it truly be possible for a direct sales channel to coexist with an Amazon presence? Spoiler alert: the answer is yes. The Amazon Machine: How It Works Selling on Amazon is not a “set it and forget it” proposition. You’ll need to determine what success looks like for your business and dedicate both strategic and operational resources to the effort. You’ll need to work through your marketing strategy, product offerings and pricing, and decide which Amazon programs are right for your brand. Developing a plan to optimize your marketing presence on Amazon is critical. On Amazon, your goals are to: 1) Own the Buy Box 2) Get great reviews 3) Be top of the first page for branded search terms
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4) Work to get top of the first page for non-branded search terms The Buy Box: For most items, there will be several buying options. When a buyer selects “Add to Cart,” the seller who has the Buy Box wins the sale. Eightythree percent of Amazon sales come from the Buy Box. Even if you are not selling your brand on Amazon, someone likely is, and by owning the Buy Box, you can make it far less appealing for unauthorized sellers to sell your products.
Would it truly be possible for a direct sales channel to coexist with an Amazon presence? Spoiler alert: the answer is yes. Reviews: Reviews are essential to the Amazon flywheel. Higher numbers of reviews, and the overall rating of your products, play a huge role in consumer purchase decisions. Persistent and focused efforts toward gaining reviews increase your product’s ranking and presence to potential customers. Organic and Paid Search: Just as you invest in both organic and paid SEO efforts for your website, plan to invest 8–10 percent of your forecasted sales in marketing your brand, and most of that budget will be in paid search. It is easy to own branded searches, such as your product names. It requires focused effort to increase ranking for non-branded search terms. For example, Tastefully Simple developed a campaign to get to the top of the first page for the term “Seasoned Salt.” Within a space of about three months, we went from being on the third page of results to being the second result on the first page, second only to a major CPG brand. For a smaller
