If you are considering selling (or already doing so) your brand of products to Amazon Vendor, you may want to think twice.
I remember a few years back getting that email from Amazon saying that they wanted to on-board our entire catalog via the Amazon Vendor program, and I remember thinking to myself, “this is going to be HUGE for my business and brand”. What I didn’t realize at the time was how wrong I was.
I did not realize that “selling products to Amazon” meant a lot of file work, it meant that they (Amazon) disregarded my MOQs, it meant that they disregarded my MAP rules, and it meant that their accounting was going to be a nightmare!
At first, when Amazon disregarded my MOQ, I thought that they were just being smart and would ramp up. And when I saw my products being sold for well under MAP (and in some cases, under their cost), I thought something must be going wrong, but they will fix it. And then when it was time for invoicing, I thought “what did I get myself into??”. But lets face it, its Amazon. It is their rules and their marketplace.
I was just another one of their thousands (if not millions) of brands that they carried and they really didn’t give a crap about me and the work I had done to build a brand. I immediately began looking for other solutions.
Common business sense tells you that selling B2B is not nearly as lucrative as selling B2C, but their is so much to do to create a robust B2C infrastructure that can handle the Amazon order volumes not to mention the other marketplaces around the world.
If I sell a product to Amazon for $5, and Amazon turns around and sells it for $15, why could I have not sold it for $15? Well, the truth is that you can, but you really need either a multi channel fulfillment partner like MarketPlace Valet, a different kind of 3PL service, or you really need to invest a lot of time, funds, and IT in creating a fulfillment center yourself.
When you are creating a product or brand, one of the last things you really consider is your logistical infrastructure. Sure, it is fairly simple to fill orders to a few of your vendors, but what if you want to expose your products to the rest of the world via marketplaces?
It is a daunting task, really. You need to hire, you need to train, you need to figure out what software programs you will use, etc… It can be a real distraction from what you set out to do in the first place, which is create a product or build a brand.
Selling B2B is great, don’t get me wrong, but in this day in age, your customers expect to find your products at their mobile fingertips at any given time. Brick and mortar stores are great for large upfront sales, and your website is a great way to speak to your customer, but now that you have built a brand your customers are going to expect more.
Is selling your products directly to Amazon the answer? Kind of, if you like leaving money on the table. You only get wholesale and are missing all of the financial opportunity by eliminating the B2C online market. Although it sounds like a pain, unless your retailers include Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and other big box chains, you probably need a solution that can put your products in front of customers 24-7, even while you sleep.
So why use Marketplace Valet?
We let you do what you do, which should be focusing on marketing, branding and connecting with your customers. Let us handle your marketplace business all over the world by listing and marketing your products via all of the major international marketplaces and the best emerging channels. We store your products, pick, pack and ship them and even handle the customer service for your marketplace orders. If you have a website, or get wholesale orders, we handle that too.
I guarantee that we are easier to work with, accounting is a breeze, and you will have dedicated account reps to hold your hand, if you need hand holding at all. Our philosophy is simple, “you do what you do best, and let us do the rest”.
Back to the lesson at hand. If you think that selling to Amazon.com is the answer, consider this: most of our clients sales are not from Amazon. In fact, most of our clients see sales from marketplaces and regions of the world that they probably cannot pronounce. Our marketplace selling experience spans over 13 years, so we know how to handle your marketplace fulfillment and logistics.
Why sell wholesale when you can sell retail? Seriously ask yourself, what is stopping you from selling your products world wide? Now stop thinking and contact us.