Home improvement brand established in California, is a 3rd-generation family-owned brand with a history of selling premium home construction goods to wholesales and distributors with the traditional model, lacking a focus on eCommerce and digital. The changing landscape in the way their customers would purchase inventory was changing throughout the years, with their customers in rural areas across the country now opting to purchase directly from the brand online than through traditional distributors. The company CEO was adept at managing the old-school retail channels, but knew that true growth would be online and into the digital eCommerce marketplaces, starting with the largest – Amazon.
The brand was no stranger to eCommerce as their wholesales and distributors were already selling the brand’s products on marketplaces like Amazon and Wal-Mart. Because there was no clear brand owner, these distributor accounts would often times create the listings with incorrect product information, older packaging images, and sometimes even selling a discontinued product that the brand has no control in editing to match their current product specs. The changing of the Amazon regulatory landscape over the last 10 years also negatively affected the brand, as UPC requirements and brand registry enforcement rules changing over time which caused for incorrect product information and incorrect brand name on listings which proved even difficult for them to fix and update.
The brand CEO knew that when their customers in hard to reach and rural areas were looking for replacement parts or repair parts, the first place they would look online would be Amazon. Without the brand officially selling their own products, what the customer got left was a mismatch of old and new inventory, sometimes without even product images, model number, or product information. Company CEO knew that this sloppy brand representation was hurting the company’s image, and customers would not be able to accurately make the correct product purchase. They knew that they had to do something about this, but lacked the internal expertise and bandwidth to tackle this project.
What they needed was an Amazon CMO and that is where they found their fit with Lab 916.
Our client’s words:
“Before working with Lab 916, we basically let our Amazon channel run on autopilot without really strategizing and thinking about what levers to pull to truly scale on the platform. We partner with Lab 916 to manage our entire Amazon and omni-channel eCommerce divisions and leverage their expert team, insight, and personal consultation that helps guide us in our Amazon conquest.
We used to spend over 10 hours per day working on the Amazon channel, on the phone with support, and really not being able to focus on the important parts of our business where could truly drive a difference and let Lab 916 manage the channels in which they excel: Amazon & omni-channel.
With the assistance of LAB916, we now have all the necessary resources to establish ourselves on the Amazon platform and rule over the competitors. We can proudly say that they’re our business partner in all matters relating to that platform.
Weekly meetings with LAB916 Account Employees lay the groundwork for the collaboration because they analyze the Seller Central account and build a strategy based on their comprehensive performance indicators.”
Lab 916 first cataloged every single active brand listing being sold by a distributor and audited the listings for their respective errors in images, product description, and brand name. With this audit catalog in place, we were able to cross-reference that same active inventory with the items that the brand was looking to begin selling on Amazon. Lab 916 opened up support tickets for every ASIN with the incorrect brand name, and worked with every active ASIN on a case-by-case basis to categorize the ASIN under the correct brand registry and thus the correct ownership from the brand. After establishing brand ownership through brand registry, Lab 916 was able to claim priority on listing detail changes and began updating the inventory with new keyword copy, optimized product thumbnails for mobile conversion, A+ content, adding video, and re-designing the Storefront from scratch. After 2 months, searching the brand name on Amazon would give you a full and unified brand identity with all space from the sponsored brands ad, to the top 4 rows in the sponsored products listing,
These listings also lacked reviews and sales history which caused for these same ASINs to be buried in the search results and overshadowed by the competition.
With all new title, bullet points, product description, and backend inventory details powered by competitor strategy research and keyword research to identify the most effective keywords to be inputted into the listing. Lab 916 also took new product photography, then created new product thumbnails and A+ content that was relevant to the brand and optimized for conversion. With both the front and backend fully optimized, this was the best time to strike with aggressive PPC and Amazon Vine to get the initial reviews on the listing.
Upgrading the listing content allowed for us to increase our conversion rate on their listings by an average of 15% while also growing the average order volume
by 65%, and even getting the “Amazon’s Choice” badge on their brand’s best sellers. New inviting A+ content, and storefront page increased their visibility by 300% (YoY).
Lab 916 also provided expert consultation to refresh the brand’s inventory strategy to only stock their top projected sellers and decreasing the amount of SKUs to send to Amazon FBA for their first Amazon FBA shipment.
This simple SKU simplification along with the transition into using Amazon FBA as their logistics resulted in efficiency improvements and a monthly estimated savings of $5000 per month without the need to focus on their own warehouse shipping for Amazon customers.
“We discuss which seasonal events we want to promote and which keywords we like to work on, and then we plan. Those sessions are pretty beneficial in determining what is going on with our investment.
Lab 916 also keeps us up to date on new Amazon functions and programs, and we talk about how we could handle them in the future. On the advertising side, everything works perfectly.”
The brand owner relies heavily on the Lab 916 team for expert guidance, with our weekly meetings and ad-hoc reporting as needed. “I can get the most up-to-date data on our AMS to spend for meetups with senior management.” The data gives us the cost, the return, which campaigns are the most effective, and the return on our advertising costs.”
Lab 916 is also in charge of the restocking inventory via Seller Central. “The service of Lab 916 provides us with significant operational and inventory management advantages”. You don’t want 6 months’ worth of stock items or inventory that don’t sell well.” said Mr. Abdul.
You want to stay in stock for your most popular products which Lab 916 excels at bringing in inventory where needed and reducing inventory for slower-moving items.”
Because of the brand’s partnership with Lab 916, the inventory management system is 35% to 40% more effective in improving Amazon’s marketing and sales efforts.
Lab 916 Managed Service provides our client with on-demand Amazon experience, expert knowledge, and practice guidelines derived from operating with Amazon sellers of all sizes and across a wide range of product categories.
“Working with Lab 916 is great because you will get a group of experts who really understand the business,” said the brand owner. “And they appear to genuinely care about our company. They have sent us emails with suggestions or ideas on a regular basis. They are constantly pointing us in the actual direction of what is possible” he also added.
We bring our clients real-world experience in product branding, storefront and product listing management.
We bring our clients real-world experience in product branding, storefront and product listing management.
