Is Amazon the Right Choice for Your Brand?

There’s no denying or ignoring the absolute behemoth that Amazon has become as their already enormous catalog of products is growing every single day. The thing that makes Amazon so relevant is the millions and millions of shoppers that range across many different demographics, who are searching for a wide variety of both high and low quality products. These days brands have a choice; they can choose to be involved in and learn how the Amazon platform works or they can choose to ignore the world’s largest and fastest growing eCommerce company. Year after year we see eCommerce sales inflate to higher and higher projections, and those projections are consistently shattered.

On Black Friday 2016 total U.S. eCommerce revenue was a record high $3.34 billion; a healthy year-over-year growth rate of 21.6 percent over last year’s sales. Also on Black Friday, for the first time ever, shoppers in America spent over $1 billion via mobile devices; a staggering 33 percent increase from last year.

Again, on Cyber Monday 2016 yet another record was shattered when the U.S. eCommerce sales exceeded $3.45 billion; the largest online sales day ever in the United States.

One more piece of data to think about: a recent BloomReach survey revealed that as many as 55% of all shoppers begin their online search on Amazon, even when the final purchase is made elsewhere.

If nothing else, these statistics should serve as a reminder of how imperative it is that your brand has a presence on Amazon that is tailored to your values and goals. Brands should make an investment into Amazon to ensure that their prices, image, customer service options, and performance points of their products are portrayed accurately and in line with their other sales outlets. With technology growing as rapidly as Amazon, it is important for brands to represent the same things among all devices and platforms because your customers have so many different buying options nowadays.

There’s no doubt that you have either experienced or witnessed major frustrations with Amazon, but the truth is, the real problem is not Amazon.

Let’s face it, your brand’s products are going to be sold on Amazon through a variety of anonymous sellers whether you like it or not. The time is now to take action and take control of your brand’s presence on Amazon. Sure, brands can choose to disengage and claim that Amazon is not a viable channel for their products, but the truth is that most brands don’t want to put in the effort to make it work. Amazon is a huge wave taking over the eCommerce space; and you’re only hurting yourself by not learning to surf and riding the wave.