Best vs. Worst Brands on Amazon: 5 Clear Clues That Predict Success (Or Failure)

The Brands that do the Best on Amazon.

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The Brands that do the Worst on Amazon.

There are fantastic Amazon agencies.

There are terrible Amazon agencies.

But no agency can absolutely guarantee success.

Macro decisions are made by the brand.

And those macro decisions can be quite deterministic.

Even the best, most expensive agency is a waste if a brand isn’t ready to engage.  

Now I’ve had the pleasure of working with hundreds of Brands.

I’ve helped Brands double year over a year.

And I would love to take credit for all of it.

The truth is, an awful lot of that success goes to the brand.

Founders, leaders, and execs.

And as Jim Rohn once said, “Success leaves clues.”

Here are 5 Clues successful Brands leave behind:

1.  They are extremely engaged and involved in their Amazon activity.  (The attend calls, communicate, and generally know what is happening on their account.)

2.  They test everything; DSP, price changes, A/B tests, new product, etc.  

3.  Their Amazon and their Retail are tightly connected.  Think economy of scale, compelling buyer data, awareness, new product test / launch, regional sales data, etc.  

4.  They obsess over unit economics.  Costs, pricing, and margin.  They’re committed to the math.

5.  They subscribe to the Universal Commerce Concept.  Every channel is as connected as possible, and they let their customer flow to where they are most likely to pull the trigger.

Here are 5 Clues unsuccessful Brands:

1.  They are checked out, and expect their agency to turn Amazon into mailbox money.  

2.  They are extremely slow to try new things (or too bureaucratic). 

3.  Their Amazon channel is a silo.   they don’t want customers or resources to cross in from others.

4.  They won’t disclose unit costs, wing it, or paint themselves in a corner with self imposed rules (retail parity, etc.)

5.  They guard their website customers as if those customers are too dumb to find them on Amazon.  

The truth is, I have learned something from every founder I’ve ever worked with.

Every VP of marketing or VP of sales or whomever their Amazon lead is.

But I’ll be damned if there aren’t some people that we ought to be closely emulating.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Brian Tracy.

“𝘐𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘥𝘰, 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯, 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘱 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘴.”

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We drive velocity in Sprouts, Whole Foods, Walmart, Target, Walgreens, CVS, Kroger, Sam's, COSTCO, and lots of other retailers.

We grow brands on Amazon.