A Little Diddy On Probiotics On Amazon

Do You Want To Be In The 1% Club?

The Amazon Problem

Update to the last newsletter we released.

For June 2018 this is the data directly from Amazon:

• Over 7,000 Products (SKUs) reported under general search term "Probiotics"
• When searching under "Probiotics", Amazon returns 193 pages of search results (at the time of this search). the top 20 search result pages revealed:
• 510 unique SKUs sold 485,000 units producing $13.4MM in product sales.
• Average SKU price is $27.94 and the median price is $23.65 (meaning half of all the SKUs are priced below $23.65)
• Average # of units sold per month was 950 (range was 0 to 8,900). Median # of units sold was 427 (half of the SKUs sold less than 427 units)
• Amazon itself sells 146 SKUs so it had 29% of the number of SKUs (via Vendor Central) and produced $5.7MM in product revenue (42% of the $13.4MM).
• Average revenue per product was $26.3k and the median revenue as $10.5k per product. 59% of private sellers sold below the median (16% of the non-Amazon revenue or just 9% of total revenue).

What the data suggests is that the majority of private sellers on Seller Central are performing below average. Selling products that Amazon sells itself puts the brand's products at a large disadvantage due to Amazon's internal algorithms.

It is to the advantage to the brand's owner to be a seller on Amazon and not a vendor to Amazon.

CNBC reports there may be up to 4 million small businesses selling on Amazon and that only 20,000 small businesses worldwide generate more than $1 million in sales revenue.

In the last 10 years, we have achieved $250MM in sales with our brand partner brands across various niches.

Your Brand May Be Disadvantaged Due To:

• No Or Poor Sales History
• No or Poor Traffic
• No Or Poor Best Sellers Ranking 
• No Customer Reviews
• Not Familiar How To Sell Successfully In The Amazon System
• The Brand is in its own store and stores with fewer than 100 SKUs are at a disadvantage.
• Ineffective Marketing Outside Of Amazon

Important Metrics To Be Successful On Amazon
How Do You Get Your Brand In Front Of Amazon Customers To Be Successful?

• Continuous Product Sales
• Amazon Will View Your Product More Popular Thus Elevating Your Product In Search Results
• Be In The Buy Box
• 82% Of Amazon’s Sales Go Through The Buy Box, And The Percentage Is Even Higher For Mobile Purchases. A Lot Of Sellers Do Not Even Realize What The Buy Box Is Or How To Get Eligibility For It.
• Be FBA (Fulfilled By Amazon)
• It Is Amazon’s Informal Stamp Of Approval Of Your Product And Builds Trust With The Customer. It's Our Experience That Paying Amazon To Fulfill Your Order and Ship Is Cheaper Than You Doing It Yourself.
• Be Prime Eligible
• When Ever Possible Cater To The Amazon Prime Customer. There Are Over 100M Of Them In The US
• Increase Your Best Seller Rankings (BSR)
• Tells The Customer How Well Your Product Is Selling Compared To Other Products In Your Category Which May Create Incentive To Purchase
• Ongoing Positive Customer Reviews
• Amazon Will View Your Product More Popular Thus Elevating Your Product In Search Results 
• Marketing Your Brand Outside Of Amazon To Drive Traffic To Your Amazon Product Page
• It Is The Way To Begin Building Sales History, Customer Reviews, Both Resulting In A Larger BSR

Outside of Amazon Marketing Issues

• Web Store
• Is It Compliant With Amazon? Are You Selling Products Or The Way You Are Selling Violating The Terms Of Service Of Amazon?
• Are Your Webstore Promotions Complimentary To Your Amazon Presence Or Do The Two Platforms Compete / Cannibalize Each Other?
• Google, (Search Engines et al)
• Organic Searches: Classic Issues Of What Is Your Page Ranking? This Is More Than SEO On Your Webstore, Backlinks, Overall Traffic On The Webstore, 
• Adwords: Are You Display Or Network Or A Combination. How Are You Selecting Keywords, Demographics And Times Of The Day And The Week To Run The Ads? How Much Are You Spending And What Is Your ROI From The Expense? Are You Remarketing?
• Google Shopping: Are You Utilizing It And What Results Are You Getting?
• Email Campaigns
• Client Database: How Large Is Your Database? How Effective Are You Getting New Addresses? How Do You Know The Addresses Are Valid And Truly Potential Customers?
• Are You Using Analytics To Analyze And Measure The Results? 
• How Much Are You Spending To Do This? How Many “Unsubscribe” Do You Get? 
• Are You Generating More Leads? Are You Improving Sales? Are You Improving Your Conversion Rates?
• YouTube
• Branded Video Channel: Do you have one? Are you involved with influencers there? How many views and subscribers do you have. How quickly are you growing your channel?

Pinterest, Instagram

• Is your account a Business Account with Shoppable Pins
• Are you Converting browsers into buyers and Providing referral traffic to your site
• Do you have Consumer and your competitors insights
• Develop inbound link opportunities and Developing content? 

Affiliate Marketing

• Do Creative Ads
• Are you paying PPC or for actual conversions?
• Are you Developing partnerships and collaborations

Facebook

• Business Page Not Fan Page: Do you have all the business features initiated and are you using them? Do you analyze the Facebook “Insights”?
• Social Posting: Are your social postings (Free Postings) generating significant “Likes” and “Follows”? How often are you posting?
• Ads: How are you measuring the results of your paid ads? 

Outsource Amazon Marketing? Should You?

• Are Basic And Core Skills Of Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning A Product, Brand Management, And Consumer Behavior Core To Your Business Idea Formulation? Does Your Company Internally Know How To Do This? Many Think They Do Or That It Is Simple To Do.

• Are You Going To Hire An Intern Or An Inexperienced Cheap Employee To Perform Your Marketing Tasks? This Is A Point Of Failure Of Small Companies That Is A Contributing Cause For Lack Of Success And Even Failure. 

Is Your Marketing Making You Real Profits?

A Social Media Manager Is A Professional, Not Someone Who Casually Posts To Family And Friends, And Is Not Someone Halfway Across The Planet Who May Not Understand Your Perspective And Culture.

Amazon Solution: Epoch BG

• Choosing The Right Marketing Agency To Work With Your Business Is As Important As Picking The Right Employee. They Need To Be A Good Fit And Mesh With Your Company. 
• Epoch BG Shall Strive To See Your Company’s Vision And Be Able To Execute Your Ideas With Ease. 
• Epoch BG Shall Strive To Understand Your Company's Short-term And Long-term Goals, Shall Remain Focused On Your Needs As A Business, And Shall Work Hard To Understand Your Business And Customers.
• Epoch BG Shall Perform In A Methodical Way That Removes Risk And Improves Results, While Giving You An Appropriate Level Of Input At Key Points Throughout A Project.

Contact Epoch BG To Resolve Your Amazon Outside Marketing