All right, guys, I have a very special episode for you all today. Scott Needham and I from the Smartest Amazon Seller podcast have partnered together, where he interviewed Amy Wees, and she delivered some amazing, actionable strategies as to how you can grow your brand off of Amazon. I feel like this message is super timely for what a lot of us are experiencing massive amounts of overseas competition, a lot of margin reduction, an increase in FBA fees, etc. the list continues to go on and on, and while many people look for what's going to be the next best sales channel for me to get into, Amy shares some actionable tips and strategies, and I think you can experience a mindset shift in terms of understanding that getting into retail can open up some massive doors, an opportunity even bigger than what you're experiencing on Amazon. So go ahead, sit back, listen to this episode, take down some notes, and then when you're done, go ahead and follow the smartest Amazon seller podcast by Scott Needham.
Intro (
00:01:09) - One, two, three.
Scott (
00:01:12) - Welcome to the Smartest Amazon Seller podcast. I am your host, Scott Needham, an Amazon seller. And I have with me Amy Wees from Amazing At Home. She has been giving such amazing advice. I was at a conference with her 2 or 3 weeks ago in Boston, and when I heard her talk, I was like, all right, I've got to get her on the podcast to talk about this subject. I've never talked about it, and I know there's a few people that are probably at this threshold of how to take some of their products, some of their brands, to the next level, understand, what it can mean to branch outside of Amazon and perhaps even into retail stores. Amy, welcome to the podcast.
Amy (
00:01:57) - Thank you for having me, Scott. It's great to be here.
Scott (
00:01:59) - So, you know, I like to think that I'm, pretty good at selling on Amazon, but, the more I've been doing this podcast, the more that I like, I'm like, there's just way more things to consider.
Scott (
00:02:14) - in how to, you know, grow a brand and actually maybe turn a product into a brand. And, one of the first things that you think of in, in answering that question is like, well, are you just on Amazon? You know, have you if you expanded and like, have you found the best fits off of Amazon? So, let's just do a thought experiment where, you know, I have grown to, say $500,000 a year in sales, and it's all just on Amazon doing, you know, private label. What would you think be, you know, the next step.
Amy (
00:03:00) - Well, I think always you have to look at your customer base, right? who is your customer and where do they shop? What are their brands? Do they follow, you know, where do they expect to find you? and of course, we all love Amazon. I love Amazon too. I'm an Amazon seller as well. but when it comes to expansion, we really have to think and remember that e-commerce is 10% of all of retail.
Amy (
00:03:31) - E-commerce is 10% of all retail. So it's like, whoa, you know, and then Amazon is a little over half of the e-commerce chunk, but there's still so many cool places that we can sell our products both online and offline, in brick and mortar channels as well. So when you're thinking about, okay, you know, could I do something off Amazon? I know a lot of people too. They don't want to keep all of their eggs in the Amazon basket right now because it's just been yeah really crazy. Amazon's changed a lot right.
Scott (
00:04:03) - That's not a yeah it's not a great idea. now so expanding off Amazon and you know figuring out where your customers are or how to get to them, you know, the most natural might be, you know, Walmart Shopify but like and then the rest of, you know, brick and mortar you could set up wholesale. So say you're approaching you're approaching that question right there. what are some factors that you should be considering?
Amy (
00:04:34) - Yeah. So I mean, the first thing that you should consider is your margin.
Amy (
00:04:39) - So if you're on Amazon and you have just A3X, so you're sourcing it for $5, you're selling it for 15. If your margins are really narrow, you might not have enough margin to actually expand into retail and sell your products at wholesale prices. So when you're selling your products wholesale, in general, the general rule and of course, there's exceptions to this rule. But the general rule is you're selling that product for 50% of the retail price, and the retail price is whatever you're selling it for on Amazon. So it's not like you can say, oh, well, my MSRP is $40, but I sell it on Amazon for $20 on average because yeah.
Scott (
00:05:23) - That won't that won't fly.
Amy (
00:05:25) - No. Yeah exactly. And we know that Amazon's already doing you know comparison pricing across major retail channels. So the first thing that you should think about if you're going to start selling your products wholesale is do I have the margin to sell this product for 50% of that retail price? And, and still make a profit there? So that's, that's the.
Scott (
00:05:52) - Well, even take your, take your scenario of a $15, retail, and your, your, cost of goods is $5 per unit. if you were to sell it to a brick and mortar store for 750, is that worthwhile or is that good enough?
Amy (
00:06:12) - I don't. It wouldn't be for me. No. You know, that's the good thing about selling wholesale is that, that usually those brick and mortar stores pay shipping. So you're not paying for shipping, right? Okay. that's helpful, but, you know, that's a very narrow margin, right? I like to have enough profit to at least buy one more unit even on Amazon. Right. So, you generally want to be able to cut it in half from your retail price and then cut it in half again. to be able to, you know, make a, make a profit there. So, that's just a general rule. So pricing is your first. Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead.
Scott (
00:06:57) - So what you're saying is if, say, your cost is $5, if it was wholesaling for $20, you're like, okay.
Scott (
00:07:04) - That starts to make sense.
Amy (
00:07:05) - Yes. Exactly. Well no. If your cost is if your cost is $5, you want it to wholesale for ten, right? So you want to be able to double that, right. So if let's say I'm selling a product for $40 retail, the wholesale price is $20, I should source that for ten okay.
Scott (
00:07:27) - Yes. Right. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I, I think, we're just dancing around. Yeah, yeah, I understood you. and. Yeah. So, you know.
Amy (
00:07:40) - That's the, the first consideration is that you want to think about your margin and you know, whether you have enough margin there. and then the second thing is think about how your customers shop. So, you know, where do they shop? Do they mostly shop online for your type of product? And if so, what are the other, types of online channels that might be beneficial for you? So maybe you're selling a home decor item, right? Home decor.
Amy (
00:08:10) - And even on Amazon, home decor isn't really the best product. Those aren't the best products to sell on Amazon, because American consumers usually go on websites like Overstock and Wayfair to buy home decor type of goods. And if you'll notice, if you go to those online websites and you check out the prices of home decor compared to those prices for very similar products like I did an example of a gold vase. it was a, you know, on Amazon, these types of gold vases were like $19, right? Very cheap. You find the same thing on Wayfair and it's like 73 to $100. so if you are selling a home decor item, you might be surprised Amazon might not be the best place for you to sell your products, and you might discover that there are other really, really great places to sell. yeah. And then same thing. There's brick and mortar opportunities as well. little chain stores like Tuesday morning, for example, a really great places to put those type of items for in the home.
Amy (
00:09:26) - Right.
Scott (
00:09:26) - Well, let's hit Wayfair. is that as simple as just like setting up a, do you do the product page? Do you set up the dropship?
Amy (
00:09:37) - Yeah, you do get set up on Wayfair. You just scroll down to the bottom of the website and you click on Sell on Wayfair. And, you lie and it's, it's a drop shipping site. So you list and then you ship it to the customer when it sells.
Scott (
00:09:52) - Okay. so let's see, Wayfair and Overstock, what are their fees?
Amy (
00:10:02) - So I don't know, off the top of my head, I sell pet products mostly, so I don't really, sell a lot on Wayfair, but, but their fees are we? We did open up our account on Wayfair. We do have some home goods. and their fees were really reasonable, so, The only thing is that you're doing the fulfillment. So that's the second thing, that if you're going to sell your products, to other channels, that you may want to consider your logistics as well.
Amy (
00:10:33) - So first you want to make sure you have the margin, to be able to, you know, offer wholesale prices. Secondly, if you're going for brick and mortar, you want to make sure that you have retail ready packaging, because a lot of us just have, you know, kind of the Amazon brown box or the Amazon poly bag. And we're we really don't have, you know, if you walk into a brick and mortar retail store, you'll notice that your product is probably presented differently on the shelf than you present it on Amazon. So you might have some work to do there. So it's a great exercise to do. Go walk through a store and see how products like yours are presented. you can Google or look up on YouTube unboxings of competitors products that are selling in retail. but you definitely want to make sure that your retail ready. And that means that you have kind of really great packaging and that your product is presented in a way that makes that will make sense for a brick and mortar retailer.
Amy (
00:11:35) - and that you have the margin there. Right? And so that you're ready to provide a quote, you also need a catalog. most buyers in retail expect you to be able to send them a catalog of your products. so that's something.
Scott (
00:11:49) - This could be a physical catalog or like a digital.
Amy (
00:11:52) - So I use a digital catalog. yeah. But, you could have both. You could have a digital version of it, but most of the time you just send a link to your catalog. Yeah. And what's great about a catalog is that you can put different products in your catalog that you haven't even launched yet, and you can get orders from retailers. So if, for example, you have a really great relationship with your supplier, and you know that you'd be able to expand into different colors of your whatever, you know, your widget that you're selling, you'd be able to expand very easily. Maybe you sell little Bluetooth speakers for the shower. Okay, well, now you can mock them up in every color in your catalog.
Amy (
00:12:37) - And, or maybe you're going to change the shape your supplier has the ability to, to offer you different shapes. You can put all of that in your catalog and put it out there, to different retailers and different buyers and see what they're interested in. And then, you know, you can because most of the time retail buyers buy ahead of the season. Right. So they're going to ask you for quotes on certain products. And in that way you can actually sell products that you haven't launched yet. ahead of the game.
Scott (
00:13:08) - Well, you know, that happens in the software space as well. But my brother is often like sold a feature like that doesn't exist yet. And we're like, oh crap, here we go. no, that's a really smart thing. and I. Yeah. So I just want to I think Wayfair and you know, Overstock are slightly different than they're different than because that's that's dropship. They're different than you know going to going to brick and mortar. So but what's, what's a good first step with brick and mortar.
Scott (
00:13:48) - And we talked about, you know, retail ready packaging is pricing parity across channels. And but like, how is someone else making a judgment on whether to buy on your stuff? you got your catalog? Is there a gatekeeper? Is there? or and how do you find that person and how do you persuade them?
Amy (
00:14:15) - Yeah. So you're right. There is there is a good first step in retail. And that is smaller, more specialty and chain stores. So there's over I think it's like 120,000, chain stores, small, more like mom and pop stores in the US alone. you know, if I just looked for pet retailers in my region of the US, there's over 10,000 of them. so there's a tremendous opportunity when you think about Amazon is one store, if you can get your products into if you can be selling regularly to multiple stores, you know, or you can get those reorders in bulk and they're paying for shipping and you have decent margin. You could have yourself a decent amount of revenue every year added to the pie.
Amy (
00:15:14) - And then once you start, getting some of those orders and really kind of showing up in retail, you can expand fairly easily. So you should be thinking about logistics as well, because you're going to be shipping from wherever. So for me, I have a warehouse in San Antonio. I can't we can't ship from Amazon. Right. We can't use Amazon FBA to send our products to retailers. So we need to have logistics. We need to have we're a warehouse. So I have my own warehouse. And when I quote retailers, it's FOB San Antonio. I live in San Antonio. So so that's something else to be thinking about. But once you have all of that setup you've got, you know, you're ready to start quoting, you're ready to start talking to a few buyers. So the first thing you want to do is really start the research process. Right. Look around your area. There is there's a library database called reference USA. And you can use this at any public library.
Amy (
00:16:15) - It's like a business database. It's like the yellow pages or the white pages on steroids. Right. For businesses. And so you could definitely utilize that with your public library card. You can go and look for that. But also Yelp is a really great resource. Go on Yelp and search for, pet stores, go on Yelp and search for those kinds of things for squares and other great resource. but just look for stores in your area first. If you live overseas, you can utilize those same databases to send emails, give them a call and say, you know, I love your small pet shop. Right? I have a great product. I would love to send you a sample. So that's how you open the conversation. It's very short and sweet. LinkedIn is a really great resource. So let's say you found, you found you did. You went on Yelp and you search. Let's say you have an automotive product, right? and you go on Yelp and you search for like, small little automotive shops, around you.
Amy (
00:17:17) - Okay? You found ten of them, and you look at their website and you're like, oh, okay, this is great. This seems like a great fit.
Scott (
00:17:23) - So for example, my actually my private label, we have a auto repair kits, you know, they're very, you know, almost like people really repairing like they're I don't even understand these tools, but, they've got a good fit. yeah, exactly.
Amy (
00:17:40) - So you, you would go and research those. There's so many of those little, like, auto body shops and a lot of times even like, the bigger ones like advanced auto and stuff like that, a lot of times they're locally owned and their buyer can be local or you can find a distributor for that chain. Right. So you're just going to, you're going to first find out what your target store is, by doing your research. And then you can actually get on LinkedIn and you can search for that category buyer. So let's say your automotive tool, whatever type of tool repair kit it is, is in the tires category at Advanced Auto.
Amy (
00:18:24) - So what I mean by tires category is you go on their website and you look and you see the category breakdown is tires. And I know you love categories in some categories with smart scouts. So you're all about that. But that's really it's really important to know what these stores call their categories. Why. Because they're buying. They hire buyers in those categories. So now you can go on LinkedIn. Let's say that you found your tool or something like it right in the tires category at Advanced Auto. Then you go on LinkedIn and you search for tires category buyer Advanced Auto.
Scott (
00:19:05) - And would this I mean like what kind of What kind of revenue would this drive? You know, if you're going to boutique stores, you know. Yeah, maybe they order 30 units. Yeah. but if you go to these, like, regional chains, what are we talking about? What is, in your experience.
Amy (
00:19:31) - When you're first starting? And that's another thing that you really want to think about is how your products are case packed, because you will now have to be the one to set the mocks, right.
Amy (
00:19:42) - You know, we all didn't want to deal with mocks with our Chinese suppliers, but now you're responsible. You're the supplier you're responsible for. So in the beginning, when you first start selling wholesale, it's it really just depends on the channel. Like you were saying, Scott, if it's a very small boutique store, you know, I, I found a really cute pet store, in North Carolina. I was looking in industry magazines, and I found one, and I just reached out to this lady on LinkedIn, and I said, hey, I love what you did in this industry magazine. I saw you in Pet Page, and I love what you said there. And I have an innovative pet product. I love your store. I would love to just send you a sample. And she was like, sounds great. You know, she responded right to me. she said, yeah, go ahead and send it over. I sent her a sample. I followed up and, and she made an order.
Amy (
00:20:34) - Now, in her case, she was a small she only had three stores right in North Carolina. So she was just ordering. She just wanted to try a few. So it's it was a very small order, but it was an opening to a relationship. And if my product sells well there, she'll be reordering. Right? and so that that is a little opening for a bigger store. Now, if I, if I find a larger chain store, I can say yes, I'm already selling in several, you know, smaller shops in, you know, and you can almost.
Scott (
00:21:05) - Give you and you've got validation, you know, you're like, hey, you know, this is what they're doing. This other type of store, different part of the state is selling, you know, 60 units a month. And, but.
Amy (
00:21:18) - When you get to the point, though, Scott, you think about like some of the bigger chains, like think about CVS, right? CVS has 9400 stores in the US.
Amy (
00:21:28) - I mean, that's humongous. Of course, they would want to start you with a regional test. But if you pass that regional test and they roll you out nationwide, we're talking container loads at a time. Being ordered. That's serious. Right? I have a client that they connected with a major. They actually sell funeral products and they connected with a major distributor in another country. major distributor, of these types of products. And they used our, our retail tips to kind of, you know, be able to quote and set their prices right. And they this distributor has already placed three orders from them, and they're placing them right from their supplier in India. So literally they're just getting a check. That's it. They're getting a check. And they they've already gotten three orders in one quarter big, you know, orders. So it's once you get set up it can become a lot easier. The hard part is changing our mindsets and our setup from like, okay, I'm sending it to FBA and I'm launching over here and I'm getting this going.
Amy (
00:22:38) - And so now every time I launch, I make sure that that launch is also retail ready. Right. So I have some in a warehouse, I have some that I can sell in retail, and I have my cattle. I add that to my catalog. Right. And then I have some that go to Amazon and you know, but the packaging is retail ready, which actually helps me on Amazon, you know. Oh, are.
Scott (
00:23:00) - You packaging on Amazon is huge. Like if you're able to have I mean this goes into photography. But if you have a picture of the product and the package behind it, it gives 3D and it just really shows your brand a lot.
Amy (
00:23:12) - Or you can like highlight a feature or a heavy benefit of your product like I have on one of my products. I have cleans the litter box in under 60s like a big timer on the box, you know, and that just stands out. And my competitors, they just have a product with a, you know, it doesn't stand out.
Amy (
00:23:30) - It doesn't look retail. The other thing, the other channel that I would love to just bring up is subscription boxes. So we talked about like online retailers as far as like drop shipping like Wayfair and stuff like that. Yeah, we talked about brick and mortar like small chains and kind of how to reach out to buyers, send a sample, follow up with the catalog, you know, then work out that first order, give them a quote and work at that first order plus shipping. But don't forget about subscription boxes too, because there's like for example, Ipsy, is like a major subscription box. They have over, I think, 3 million subscribers. It's a beauty subscription box. and they're always looking for products. Their minimum order quantity is 50,000 units. So if you have a cool, innovative beauty product and you're looking for channels to sell it, and there's so many beauty subscription boxes, if you have a cool, small, innovative pet product, there's so many. There's bark Box, there's all these different pet subscription boxes.
Amy (
00:24:35) - Those subscription boxes need products, and however many subscribers they have, they're going to want that many units from you. So that's another really great way.
Scott (
00:24:45) - That's insane. Yeah. that's I mean those that's a, that's a big, list right there. And then again, you know, I feel like subscription boxes again. It's just like you're selling, you know, to someone that is essentially just judging, an opportunity. And, there I have to mention there is work that you can do to like, make that look better. It's, actually just thinking out loud at your website, if you have a website that is like a direct to consumer website and you really show off your, your products really well, they're going to study you out. yeah. I, I've, come across I can criticize my, one of my own businesses by boxer our recycling business. And I do think that our website, we could have invested a lot more into it because, yeah, they're not studying us in our conversation, but afterwards, they're just getting a feel of like, hey, is this like someone like that? We want to entrust with this, you know, relationship.
Scott (
00:26:00) - And I'm sure we've, kind of dropped the ball a little bit by not like, just really, you know.
Amy (
00:26:09) - And that's such a good point, Scott, because, when it comes to your website, retailers do look at your website and your web presence and your social media presence. so it's it is important that you don't have your website set up to just sell your Amazon products. Retailers do not like that. You know, if you just if you go to your website and it's just like, go to Amazon, you know, it's it's not it's not good branding for you. It makes you look like you're just an Amazon business. And you, you know, and and that doesn't look good for them either because, you know, they if you have a really great social media presence or and it's okay if you don't if you have a great product, that's okay if you have a great product.
Scott (
00:26:51) - But if you have a fledgling social media experience, where say you have like, you know, 200 people.
Amy (
00:26:59) - That's okay. It doesn't they don't judge you necessarily by that, but it can also really help you, like if you are going for a bigger fish, you know, if you are going for that, that subscription box and you're like, you know, people love we have a unique color of lipstick that, other beauty brands don't have. It would be great for your subscription box. we'd love to send you a sample. And our, you know, when you're, when you're mentioning, you can say, you know, our 50,000 Instagram followers absolutely love it. They voted it their favorite color. We'd love to send you a sample to consider for your subscription box. You know what I mean? Like that. I'm sold.
Scott (
00:27:38) - Send me some website.
Amy (
00:27:40) - Exactly, exactly. So, you know, it's not as important that you have the perfect website, but it is something to keep in mind. Your packaging, your website, your wholesale catalog, right that you're ready to go there, your ability to send a price quote and understand kind of the lingo.
Amy (
00:27:57) - All of that is going to help you, but don't let it stop you from just having a conversation.
Scott (
00:28:02) - I tell you, I'll tell you what, if I just could, you know, just restart over my Amazon career, I, I do it way better because I'll tell you what I would do right now just after this conversation and maybe a few others. But like, I personally hate it setting up a retail website, I hated it. I used some sort of, prestige shop or whatever. And, right now I would hire a Shopify website designer and, you could probably find cheap to expensive. and if you're, you know, you're smaller or newer, you know, you go to cheap, but like, it, like you said, like you don't want a website that just is selling your Amazon product. If you get someone that really, like, fleshes out these details, makes you look good, and functional, I you just be in a better spot. It's kind of like all these, like, small assets.
Scott (
00:29:00) - Yeah, they are kind of tedious, and they can cost you money, but, like, you need that leg up at certain some points. So. Yeah, I mean, I go into Upwork right now or Fiverr and just like, find me a Shopify website designer and just go to town.
Amy (
00:29:19) - I think that if you could spend money on anything, it should be your branding. yeah, that's key. it's so key. We have a retail ready service where we like, you know, we'll, look at your products and see if they're very retail ready, you know, in terms of, like, packaging and stuff like that. 90% of the people that are like, well, I'm selling like crazy on Amazon. I'm doing so good, you know, and 90% of them are not retail ready, meaning their packaging isn't ready to go. They, you know, they don't have a catalog. They're not, they're not. Ready to start the conversation? Yeah. so the thing is, if I had to spend money on anything.
Amy (
00:30:02) - Yes. Websites. Okay. But it's not the most important thing, because it's not like a wholesale buyer is buying from your website. They care that your product has a good backing, right? That that it's selling well on other retail channels. They care about that. Like if it's selling well on Amazon, that's good. That's a good sign right. If customers like it if the reviews are good. I pitched a Walmart buyer and they love the product, but sure enough, they went online and they wanted to see how that product was doing and whether people liked it, you know? But they looked at the packaging, they looked at the size of it for the shelf, all of that, you know, so you want to make sure. And then they want to know. They want to know the pricing. They want to know the terms. You know, so that kind of stuff is important. So if I had to spend money on anything, it would be branding. Because that while branding, if you have even a simple beauty product, you know, it's like putting lipstick on the pig, right? If, if you have a very simple product, which most, lotions, topicals, those kinds of things are, it's all about, you know, I got Vaseline on my desk here, right? It's all about that clean, awesome branding.
Amy (
00:31:13) - And if you look at even a product like Vaseline, their logo and stuff has changed over the years, right? They've modernized this jar. This jar didn't used to look so modern and clean. Right? But if I could spend money on anything, it would be branding. And from the start, making sure that my logo looks good, making sure that I actually understand the target customer. you know, all of the branding experts that I've become friends with over the years that have helped many of my clients and have helped me, you know, they just think on a different level and they know, like, okay, no, your product needs to your packaging needs to be green because of X, Y, and Z. You know, they know like brand color wheels. They know the fonts that should be used. They know all of that. And I have a close friend that, that was on Shark Tank and she did very well. But her branding is not great. And I think she lost in a retail order, a major retail order, because of that.
Amy (
00:32:08) - You know, another product was chosen over hers. So we sat down the other day and we studied her customer and we said, you know, let's modernize the font and let's change up the box. Let's change up the packaging. Just changing that can make all the difference in the world, in how much you sell and everything else. And then when you take those pictures to put them on your website, that alone is going to just. So if I just one thing to spend money on, that would be it.
Scott (
00:32:33) - I'd love to do an episode just on packaging. I mean, it's it is kind of like the 21st century. I mean, I say the last 20 years we're packaging is like, really just been recognized as a differentiator. I mean, Apple's proved it. And, that doesn't mean it doesn't apply to Amazon as well. You know, if you want to create an experience with a product like that's one of the first things and showing it off, you can show it off everywhere.
Scott (
00:33:03) - So why wouldn't you invest so much? on on that side as well. And, you know, say your manufacturer says, no, we can't do that type of manufacturing will be so that type of packaging be like, turn it, turn around and tell them like, no, no, tough luck. Like we're going to we're going to get this packaging right.
Amy (
00:33:22) - Yeah, exactly. And the thing is, I with my products, sometimes I've had to go outside of that manufacturer for packaging, but a lot of times people aren't even asking their manufacturer about packaging. You know that manufacturer, they know packaging because they work with tons of different brands. So just sitting down on a video call with your supplier and saying, like, hey, let's talk packaging today. Show me all your different, options for packaging that can change the game for you. I did that with a client, and, this particular, supplier also supplied for high end brands that sold their products for four times in retail. What she was selling her product for on Amazon.
Amy (
00:34:10) - And I was like, what are they doing for packaging? Show us what they're doing. And they showed us they were so happy to show us, like, they're doing this with their boxes. They're doing this over here. This is what this looks like, you know? And so we discovered all this new type of packaging and design, all because we just sat down with the manufacturer just to talk about packaging options. And if your manufacturer, maybe they're smaller, maybe they don't know. Maybe they aren't working with some of those bigger brands. Definitely. Don't be afraid to reach out to a packaging company, because another consideration for retail is a lot of times people will ship their products out in something called a shippers. You know, when you walk through Walmart and there's these, cardboard kind of displays in the middle of the aisle with all the different products on them. So you can actually sell your products. You can have a packaging company do a mockup of your products inside of a shipper and put that in your catalog, and then you can get these retail stores to just buy the whole thing, right, displaying everything and put it in the middle of their floor.
Amy (
00:35:12) - They love it. You drop off the pallet, they perk it, you know, drop it down and they've got this really great. They've got your product already just looking great. This is the kind of this nice wrapping around it. And so you can mock those up. You don't even have to have your packaging perfect for retail. You can mock it up. You can work with a packaging company to mock it up and put it in your catalog. And then the retailer says, oh, I like this shipper that you put in here. you know, can we change it up a little bit? I would like one for a smaller aisle, you know, and then then you actually get your packaging company to do that. So don't be afraid to look at those options too.
Scott (
00:35:51) - So we were working, pretty close with an aggregator recently. this deal didn't actually go through. But, what was really interesting, their perspective of, like, what they call the rest of channel. Yeah, they're buying Amazon brands, but like, they had experience, they knew how to like, take things off of Amazon and really like, you know, soak up and grab more brand equity.
Scott (
00:36:17) - this is a very interesting area. You know, for some people, this is the stage that they're at and they, need to get a few things right so they don't fall on their face. Amy, thank you so much for coming on talking about this. Like, I think there's like, 4 or 5 takeaways that are very, relevant for most people. and, you know, there's more to learn and there's actually, you know, I know that you were talking about how you've helped other brands. What's your preferred way of people getting Ahold of you and continuing this conversation?
Amy (
00:36:53) - Yeah. If you guys want us to review your products for retail, you can go to amazingathome.com forward slash retail. And we have a, you know, a free review service there where you can just say, hey, I'm interested in doing this. And I just don't know like if I'm even eligible right. Or what I need to do and just give you an idea of, of whether or not your brand is ready and what you could do to make it ready.
Amy (
00:37:19) - so that's one way and, and otherwise just go to amazing@home.com and click the contact button and send me an email anytime. Yep.
Scott (
00:37:27) - Perfect. all right. Well thank you so much guys. If you want to learn more, if you're ready to go retail, if you're at the tipping point, then reach out to her. Super valuable, knowledge. And I, I do think that success off of Amazon is, you know, the brand direction that you should think about. And, because that's how you increase the multiple on, you know, your business if you if you're up selling it. Boy, am I tired of just only thinking about businesses through the lens of selling it. But, boy, that's the conversation right now. And, but before you could even get to that, you have to create a valuable brand. So, you know, let's get, the meat and potatoes first. well, and that wraps up for this episode. everyone, thank you for listening. And, hope that, you know, if you're listening to this in the in 2021 Q4, that you are really nailing this Christmas and, getting the most of it.
Scott (
00:38:33) - And I will catch you on the next one.
Outro (
00:38:37) - Take care. Thank you for listening. Visit Ecomm Breakthrough. Com for more information. If you've enjoyed today's episode, the best way you can show your appreciation is by clicking the subscribe button and quickly leaving a review. See you again next time!