Ecommerce merchants looking to scale should adopt a one-two punch strategy, according to Sean Stone. The founder of Spillover Commerce advises businesses to launch a profitable, branded website first. Then, merchants should capture the likely spillover traffic on Amazon, using the marketplace as a secondary channel rather than a primary one.
Different skills for different platforms
Stone has managed Amazon advertising campaigns since 2017, starting as an agency employee and later founding his own firm. He notes that consumers trust Amazon shipping and customer service. If an item fails, they will be made whole. This trust is difficult for many brands to overcome. Stone recommends treating Amazon as a secondary channel where shoppers can purchase a version of a product, or perhaps only one item from a larger catalog, rather than the full solution.
The approach requires merchants to bridge a gap between different skill sets. Success on Amazon and on Shopify comes from different areas of expertise. What wins on Amazon is the opposite of what wins on Shopify and Meta. Stone argues that many merchants excel at both, creating a dominant one-two punch that avoids being trapped by a single platform.
Creating platform-specific offers
Sean Stone suggests that merchants should create platform-specific offers rather than selling the same product in both places. Whatever is sold on Amazon will be price-compared against similar items. The goal is to create an offer that makes sense for that specific environment, which might be a lesser version of the full product sold on the domain.
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Incentives should be provided for shoppers to buy directly from the site, such as a full bundle with the complete experience. Stone cites the example of Gymreapers, a company that generates $10,000 in monthly revenue from wrist straps on Amazon. Shoppers searching for the brand name on Amazon are likely to find these straps, even though competitors sell similar items for half the price. Gymreapers drives this traffic using roughly 200 Facebook ads and TikTok influencers. The Meta ads are for high-priced powerlifting bundles sold on Gymreapers.com.
Bandholz asked about bundling on Amazon to acquire customers. Stone responded that bundling on Amazon does not really work well. The organic ranking on Amazon is driven by the conversion rate. Having a high-converting offer on a product detail page is the best play to drive organic sales, even though a seller can certainly bundle products on Amazon.
Building a direct relationship
Amazon sellers should focus on three things to build a brand beyond the marketplace. First, they need Amazon product-market fit, which they likely have if they have been selling there for years. Second, they need a Meta market fit, meaning a product that benefits from Meta advertising. Stone notes that you would not advertise a mop on Meta, but a cool robot vacuum cleaner would perform differently.
All sellers should have a website to identify offsite opportunities, even if they do not buy a lot of products from it. Sellers should engage with these customers and ask about their preferences, such as likes and dislikes on Amazon and product suggestions. Stone suggests thinking creatively about how to use this data.
