In early November, Kaspien attended and spoke at the Outdoor Retailer Winter Market in Denver, CO.
Keri Rhodes, Kaspien’s Marketing Director, presented “Understanding Amazon and its Impact on Your Business,” wherein she discussed hurdles for the outdoor industry on Amazon and practical solutions.
During the convention, we heard many brands express interest in two topics: Amazon’s private label brands and channel management.
Amazon’s Private Label Brands and the Outdoor Industry
After the presentation, many attendees had questions about Amazon’s private label initiative and how it will affect the outdoor industry. The short answer: It could prove to be serious competition across the marketplace.
With access to an enormous amount of data from consumer searches and reviews, Amazon is able to identify products and features that consumers are already searching for, and then create those products. Needless to say, the initiative has been highly profitable, and Amazon shows no signs of slowing down. AmazonBasics, one of Amazon’s many private label brands, has already spread to the Outdoor Recreation category. However, threatened brands are not without recourse.
Amazon’s search algorithm favors listings that have been on the marketplace longer and had time to build relevance. If companies want to stay one step ahead of Amazon’s private label brands before they grow any bigger, they should proactively take their products to Amazon and begin building their relevance. As Amazon inevitably introduces more private label brands and products, existing brands will have the advantage for organic SERP placement, minimizing the impact of the new competition.
The Key for Selling Apparel on Amazon: Channel Management
Many brands within the apparel space expressed dissatisfaction and frustration at how their product lines are being represented on marketplaces, particularly regarding how only select size and color variations are offered via Prime. This pain point is the result of the economic risk retailers inherit when they carry slow moving products, which can subject them to Long Term Storage (LTS) fees from Amazon warehouses.
As such, many of these brands were excited to learn about Marketplace Growth Partners, an Kaspien division that provides end-to-end channel management for brands who want to represent themselves on the marketplace.Without taking an inventory position, Marketplace Growth Partners serves as a channel manager, deploying Kaspien’s decade of expertise and proprietary technology to drive rapid revenue growth.
For brands selling apparel, representing themselves on Amazon means they can carry their entire catalog, provide a consistent customer experience, better control their pricing, and make their marketing efforts more effective. Marketplace Growth Partners helps them do it better and increase profitability.
As with all trade shows Kaspien attends, we were excited to engage directly with the industry and learn how we can better serve our partners.
