Last week my business partner Megan spent few days at Amazon HQ in Seattle. Apart from exciting things, like visiting the Spheres (look it up!) she learned what will work in Amazon 2020, and what is Amazon itself is doubling down on.
Here are some valuable takeaways to share with you.
Amazon biggest investment in 2020:
Amazon is going all on Amazon Live. What is Amazon Live? It’s live streaming from brands on a dedicated Amazon page. Think Amazon’s Live as Amazon’s version of QVC.
Brands can use it to launch products, demo and talk through the products’ features. Once live stream is over it can be placed on the brand’s product pages. Currently there is no fee to use Amazon Live.
On a macro level we see Amazon Live as Amazon’s attempt to keep buyers longer on the platform through live stream. Does that sound familiar? Yes, social media does that. But Amazon IS vested in giving brands more ways to be discovered within Amazon ecosystem.
Side note: We do a lot of testing with video placements on product pages, so if you want to boost your sales and conversion rates using video – let’s chat.
Verdict still out on:
Amazon Launchpad. Launchpad Program helps start ups and new brands get discovered and grow on Amazon. Some of the benefits are waived fees on promotions like Lightning Deals, free A+ pages even if a brand does not trademark/Brand Registry, access to Amazon Launchpad team
In return Amazon charges 5% of revenue as a program fee.
Why we are not convinced? Having worked with a number of brands in Launchpad brands we see first hand how benefits of the program can be outgrown fast.
And, spending a full day with the Launchpad team was proof that we know more about the Launchpad team that the Amazon internal team does. That really undermines quality of support advertised as one of the benefits of the Launchpad. Shall we say, Experience is the True Authority.
Wild card:
Amazon B2B.
It is not be fair to call e-commerce market that will hit $1.8 trillion by 2023 a wild card.
It is also probably not fair to call a wild card revenue unit that has been growing faster than the retail or cloud services arm of Amazon.
We call it a wild card because it is very under-appreciated and under-tapped market on Amazon, and visiting with Amazon teams confirmed that.
Traditional B2B companies often don’t even contemplated Amazon as a distribution platform. We have leveraged B2B program for clients where appropriate, as it can be very instrumental for sales growth.
These are just few of takeaways, and we are off to strategize and implement another round of learnings for our clients.
Have questions on what will work for you on Amazon in 2020? Set up a free, no obligation call here.