In the past Amazon was the place to buy books, movies and cell phone cases, but in recent years it’s expanded to pretty much anything you can imagine. Amazon’s interest in the food space has been apparent, from the Whole Foods acquisition to building and refining several different options for food distribution, including Prime Pantry and Amazon Fresh. They are changing the way people shop and grocery shopping is no exception.
My guest on this episode, Jennifer Ruscin of Jennifer Ruscin Enterprises, reinforced what many of us already know — Amazon is one of the fastest growing places to distribute your food product, and shouldn’t be overlooked as a potential distribution channel for your product. As an Amazon expert and sales broker, she helps businesses gain distribution for their brands – and keep it — at Amazon, Walmart, Walmart.com and Jet.com.
While there are some additional challenges for perishable products on Amazon, there are generally fewer hurdles than entering into a national retailer. And once you’re in, not only have you set up a new platform to market and sell your products online, but you can use it as a springboard to gain recognition for your brand to help you gain retail distribution as well.
While you want to have your brand and operational strategies in order before pursuing distribution on Amazon to make sure you can generate and then meet demand, strong sales on Amazon can help you demonstrate that your story resonates and your product actually moves. Once you know your product sells, you can use that story with retail buyers as well.
While the big name brands are no longer controlling the shelf space in many cases, especially online, it’s worth reinforcing that in terms of brand strategy, you still have to be able to tell your story in order to help differentiate your offering from all the other products competing for your ideal customer. In that way online is no different than a retail store. If you don’t have a compelling story, your ideal audience will either find a brand that does or start shopping on price, and price is a very dangerous place to play.
In episode two of this podcast, you can read more about How to Start Building & Documenting Your Brand Strategy, but to get started, when you’re talking about your point of difference and brand story, it has to go beyond “high quality ingredients.” Describe what makes them high quality? And even more importantly, what’s in it for your customer?
With some research and planning, Amazon can help put your food brand on the fast track from a local startup to having national distribution. But first, it’s critical to first have a clearly defined brand, a strong knowledge of your competitive set and all of your operations set up to support sales before you pursue selling on Amazon. Depending where you are in your business, it may be worthwhile talking with a few brokers who specialize in Amazon to help you speed your learning curve and navigate the complexities that can exist when selling through Amazon.
In This Episode:
- Why it’s important to have a clearly defined brand
- How a broker can help you approach marketing for e-commerce
- Why you should be considering selling through Amazon for your food brand
- How to choose the right platform when selling through Amazon
- How selling on Amazon can help you get placement in retail stores
- How Amazon’s Whole Foods acquisition is mixing natural food distribution with non-food items
Quotes:
“E-commerce is all about the bullet points, the description, and using keywords that convert to a sale.” — Jennifer Ruscin
“Clearly the future is e-commerce, not only for hardline items and apparel, but for our food.” — Jennifer Ruscin
“Amazon can be used as a launchpad to gain sales and brand recognition to get buyer meetings and store placement.” — Jennifer Ruscin
Resources:
- Jennifer on Linkedin
- Jennifer Ruscin Enterprises
- Soulful Business Podcast
- Puracy
- Katie on Linkedin
- Real Food Brands Marketing Roundtable
Grab your seat at the table — join the Real Food Brands Marketing Roundtable, a free Facebook group where natural food entrepreneurs and select industry experts continue the conversation from the podcast, share ideas and ask questions. Hope to see you there!
