The way that we shop has changed astronomically in the past decade. Shopping trends have seen a huge shift from shopping at malls and in physical stores to online shopping.
This trend has increased exponentially in the last couple of years due to global events. One of the main stalwarts of online shopping is Amazon.
If you are a brand owner and you are looking for ways to take your own slice of the e-commerce pie Amazon is the platform for you. This can be a daunting task, especially with all the different categories that are available on the site.
Thankfully, there are a few options to help you out, including an Amazon agency.
What Is An Amazon Agency?
An Amazon agency is similar to a marketing firm or agency. An Amazon agency is made up of experts in the field of marketing, specifically marketing on Amazon.
The role of the agency is to support business owners in making the most of the Amazon platform and securing as many sales as possible.
When using an Amazon agency, the business owner retains complete control over the product listings, logistics, and visibility of your brand on Amazon.
An Amazon agency is an alternative to hiring an internal marketing expert. Using an agency is often a much lower cost option and allows the business owner to still make decisions for themselves.
What Do Amazon Agencies Do?
Now that we know what an Amazon agency is, it is important to understand exactly what they do.
The role of an Amazon agency is to help business owners make the right decisions to support their business on Amazon. They also help to create, optimize, and execute product listings and storefronts to generate the most traffic.
It is also possible to use an Amazon agency to help create successful Amazon ad campaigns to boost the profile of your business. This is great for inexperienced sellers or businesses that lack resources.
Using an Amazon agency allows you to focus on other aspects of running your business without your Amazon shop suffering.
How Can An Amazon Agency Help You?
There are many ways in which an Amazon agency can help you and your business to thrive. Below are some of the main ways in which an Amazon agency can help boost your business.
Convenience
The main thing that an Amazon agency does that helps your business is to provide you with convenience. Although online shopping is incredibly popular, selling online can actually be quite difficult.
There is so much competition out there after all. Often, a full-time team of experts is required to successfully sell products online.
Managing your business’s supply chain, inventory, marketing, listing optimizations, case management, customer reviews, and reporting requires its own set of skills.
This can be incredibly overwhelming when you are trying to do everything else as well.
While it is possible to hire employees to do all of this for you, it can be expensive and time-consuming to find someone who has the expertise that you require and get them trained to do things your way.
With an Amazon agency, staff, strategy, experience, and software are all provided for a fraction of the cost and time of hiring.
Time
Because of the nature of the Amazon platform, it is not a case of choosing your settings and leaving them alone. It actually takes a lot of time and effort to become a successful seller on the platform.
Each item in your inventory, for example, requires its own Amazon Standard Identification Number which needs to be reviewed and managed.
There is also sales forecasting, plenty of optimization, and other tasks that take up the majority of your time. This can eventually affect the rest of your business.
This can be particularly detrimental if you also have a physical storefront to run.
Hiring an Amazon agency is quick and simple, you can leave the online sales aspect of your business in safe hands.
Having a huge section of your business being looked after by an agency frees up more of your time to focus on other important aspects of your company while retaining a robust online presence.
Control
When you hire a marketing professional as an employee, they are likely to have the expectation of being given primary control and responsibility for product listing, logistics, and the visibility of your business on Amazon.
Without this control, they would likely only be able to do a fraction of the work they would be expected to do.
With an Amazon agency, as the business owner, you get to retain control over these aspects of your business.
This means that you get full control of the decisions that are made regarding your business profile on Amazon without having to do the time-consuming work that goes with it.
Affordability
Finally, it is significantly cheaper to work with an Amazon agency than it is to hire a full-time, dedicated, individual employee for your online marketing and shop maintenance.
With an agency, you also get the benefit of multiple experts in different fields for a cheaper price. Something you don’t get with an individual employee.
What To Look For In An Amazon Agency
As with hiring any employee or agency to help your business, it is important to do your research to make sure that the agency you choose is the right fit for your company.
Below are some of the main things that you need to look out for when searching for an Amazon agency.
How Valid Is Their Experience
This might sound like a bit of an odd one and we are not talking about validity in general. What we mean by how valid is their experience, is how relevant the company’s experience is to your business’s field.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to marketing online with Amazon.
The type of product that you sell and the type of business you have will influence the types of marketing strategies and tactics that are likely to work best for you.
While there will be Amazon agencies out there that function as a jack of all trades business, this might not be the best way to get the results that you want.
It is better to search around and find an Amazon agency that has hands-on experience in the areas you need help with. This will help you to get an idea of how useful the agency will be for your goals.
Track Record
Another important thing to look out for when searching for an agency is its track record.
This is much easier when the agency has experience within your industry or niche because you can see how they transformed similar businesses.
Most reputable agencies will have evidence of their track record and testimonials from clients readily available on their websites. This makes it easy to weed out unsuitable agencies before even reaching out.
If you cannot find any evidence of success stories or client testimonials, it is best to keep looking.
Examples Of Work
Once you have made contact with potential agencies, it is a good idea to ask for some examples of their work to gain a better understanding of how they work and what they produce.
This can help you make an informed decision.
Final Thoughts
There are plenty of Amazon agencies out there that can help you to make the most of your business on the Amazon marketplace.
This can be a huge boost for your business and using an agency makes the whole process super simple.
