Why Amazon is the Best Place to Launch a New Product and Build a Brand
Amazon is not usually synonymous with the idea of a brand launch. Traditionally, a stand-alone website would come first as a foundation for your new brand. I’m here to tell you to abandon tradition. While you should have a website set up in the background, your product launch has a far better chance of being successful if you set your focus on Amazon, first. Here’s why:
1. Discoverability
Your brand will be exposed to the right people.
Amazon.com is the most visited online marketplace in the United States, with 2 billion visits per month. Statistically, your target customer is already shopping on Amazon. Add a good Amazon Advertising strategy into the mix to ensure that your brand is reaching your ideal customer, and you have just honed in on your target audience.
2. Learn Quickly
You’ll make mistakes, learn, and refine your product more quickly.
Bad products don’t make the cut on Amazon, and this is by design. Amazon revokes privileges from brands whose products perform poorly or fail to meet requirements. For those who are launching new products, this is a good thing. Even the most carefully tested and planned products can run into new challenges after an initial launch. Problems will be identified quickly – either through customer feedback or returns – and you’ll be forced to fix issues quickly. This test/refine/re-test approach will allow your brand to evolve to suit customer needs rapidly. You’ll be able to perfect your product and messaging much more rapidly on Amazon.
3. Compete With Big Brands
Amazon makes small brands look like big brands.
There aren’t many places where small brands can stack up against the big ones, but Amazon is one place where customers have largely abandoned their loyalty to big brand names. Instead, customers rely on ratings and reviews when deciding on purchasing a product.
Here’s an example of how this can play out: When shopping for coffee, the customer sees a brand that they’ve never heard of before, but it has over 1,000 ratings averaging 4-stars and the listing is well-optimized. Alternatively, they see a listing for a household coffee name like Folgers, with less reviews and a less-than-stellar listing. To the customer, this makes your brand look better than one of the most-recognized coffee brand names. This opportunity for small brands seldom exists outside of Amazon.
Listing optimization is another huge factor that allows small brands to shine on Amazon. Many big brands neglect listing optimization entirely, while small brands are nimble enough to optimize their listings to highlight product benefits and answer customer questions. Small brands also have the ability to more easily alter and enhance these optimizations as time goes on and their customers continue to define their needs.
4. Customers Trust Amazon
Consumers will trust your brand because they trust Amazon.
89% of consumers are more likely to buy products from Amazon than from any other e-commerce site. Why is that? Because people trust Amazon.
Consumers believe that products that they’re buying are credible. Even if someone has doubts about a product, shopping through Amazon gives them enough peace-of-mind to go through with a purchase they aren’t fully convinced of, because they know that they are safe-guarded by Amazon’s policies. As a new brand, gaining consumer trust will be one of your most difficult challenges. While you’ll still need to prove yourself on Amazon to get your desired star-rating and number of reviews, consumers will be more willing to give your new brand a chance than they otherwise would be off of Amazon.
5. Formulaic Growth
Formulaic growth is possible on Amazon.
Growing a brand on Amazon takes time. It’s not a get-rich-quick scheme. If done correctly, it is a reliable path to real brand growth that can eventually forge paths to success outside of the realm of Amazon. We’ve identified a clear path to growth on Amazon that has turned our clients into top performers in their respective categories.
The path is defined in 6 steps:
Research
Product Prep and Positioning
Getting to Retail Ready
Keyword Discovery
Advertising & Promotions
Brand Growth
Find out more about if your brand is a good fit for our 6-step program →
6. Amazon FBA Brands Are Still a Hot Commodity
One of the most lucrative ways that Amazon can lead to success outside of the platform is through the sale of your Amazon FBA business. It’s likely that the shift to e-commerce during the pandemic influenced the uptick in the number of aggregators buying these businesses, and this trend isn’t predicted to lose traction anytime soon.
Caitlin Banas
Caitlin serves as the main point of contact for clients and project manages their custom growth strategies. Caitlin‘s experience working in a variety of marketing roles across multiple channels has allowed her to gain a big-picture perspective when working with clients to propel their brand forward.
