<\/p>\n
Sean Stone advises ecommerce merchants to adopt a one-two punch for growth. Punch one is developing a profitable, branded site. Punch two is converting the likely spillover traffic on Amazon.<\/p>\n
That tactic inspired the name of Sean\u2019s latest agency, Spillover Commerce. He\u2019s a longtime Amazon consultant who now says brands should focus on their own domains while selling Amazon-only items secondarily.<\/p>\n
In our recent conversation, he addressed one-two strategies, commodity goods, traffic sources, and more. The entire audio is embedded below. The transcript is edited for clarity and length.<\/p>\n
Eric Bandholz:<\/strong> What do you do?<\/p>\n Sean Stone:\u00a0<\/strong>I\u2019m the founder of an Amazon-focused agency launched in 2021 as Stone\u2019s Goods and rebranded in January of this year to Spillover Commerce. I\u2019ve managed Amazon advertising campaigns for clients since 2017, starting as an agency employee and then, again, with my own firm.<\/p>\n The best way to grow an ecommerce business is to launch a profitable Shopify website and then leverage the spillover traffic that inevitably occurs on Amazon. It\u2019s a powerful one-two punch.<\/p>\n We work with Shopify brands that struggle on Amazon but know it\u2019s too big to ignore<\/a>. We also work with Amazon-first sellers that want to diversify.<\/p>\n Consumers love Amazon shipping. They trust it. If something doesn\u2019t work out, they\u2019ll be taken care of and made whole. And that trust is insurmountable for many brands.<\/p>\n We recommend treating Amazon as a secondary channel, where shoppers can purchase a version of a product, not the full solution, or maybe only one of many items that you sell. Regardless, merchants need to have something on Amazon. People trust the shipping too much.<\/p>\n Bandholz:<\/strong> It makes sense. But the only people making money on Amazon are selling cheap, junk products. The shipping is good, but the entire experience trashes my brand. I don\u2019t see how merchants can build something of value on Amazon. Many\u00a0Amazon sellers are data- and spreadsheet-savvy<\/a>. They aren\u2019t trying to build a brand.<\/p>\n Stone:<\/strong> We try to bridge that gap. Success on Amazon and on Shopify comes from different skill sets. What wins on Amazon is the opposite of what wins on Shopify and Meta. But many merchants excel at both. That\u2019s the one-two punch that can dominate, not being trapped by one platform over another.<\/p>\n Bandholz:<\/strong> Says I own a direct-to-consumer brand launching an ABC widget. I want my domain to drive 60% of revenue, with Amazon generating 40%. What\u2019s my strategy?<\/p>\n Stone: <\/strong>Create platform-specific offers. Don\u2019t sell the same thing in both places. Whatever you sell on Amazon will be price-compared against similar items. Create an offer that makes sense for that environment. Perhaps it\u2019s a lesser version of what you sell on your domain.<\/p>\n Provide incentives for shoppers to buy directly from your site. Maybe it\u2019s a full bundle with the full experience.<\/p>\n Take weightlifters\u2019 wrist straps, for example. It\u2019s a commoditized product. Shoppers have many choices on Amazon, all more or less the same. Yet a company called Gymreapers generates $10,000 in revenue from wrist straps on Amazon each month. That\u2019s a ton of wrist straps, even though competitors sell the same thing for half the price.<\/p>\n Gymreapers\u2019 strategy is obvious. They get huge sales on Amazon from roughly 200 Facebook ads. I checked last week in the Facebook Ads Library. They also use TikTok influencers.<\/p>\n But the Amazon sales are indirect. The Meta ads are for high-priced powerlifting bundles, such as belts, knee and elbow straps, and deadlift straps, all sold on Gymreapers.com.\u00a0 People seeking only wrist straps are searching for \u201cGymreapers\u201d and landing on Amazon.<\/p>\n So they sell the same product for 50% more than Chinese competitors by having a strong brand and external traffic sources.<\/p>\n Bandholz:<\/strong> What about bundling on Amazon to acquire customers<\/a>?<\/p>\n Stone:<\/strong> Bundling on Amazon doesn\u2019t really work. What drives organic ranking on Amazon is the conversion rate. In our experience, the best play is to have a high-converting offer on a product detail page and drive as many organic sales as possible. You can certainly bundle on Amazon, but it won\u2019t perform as well as a single item with a strong conversion rate.<\/p>\n Bandholz:<\/strong> How should Amazon sellers prioritize building a brand<\/a> beyond the marketplace?<\/p>\n Stone:<\/strong> This is our sweet spot. The sellers should focus on three things.<\/p>\n First, they need Amazon product-market fit, which they presumably have if they\u2019ve been selling there for years. Then they need a Meta market fit, which is our way of saying a product that benefits from Meta advertising. Don\u2019t advertise a mop on Meta, but do advertise a cool robot vacuum cleaner.<\/p>\n Third, the sellers need platform-specific offers.<\/p>\n Bandholz:<\/strong> Without data, how can Amazon sellers identify offsite opportunities?<\/p>\n Stone:<\/strong> All sellers \u2014 on Amazon or otherwise \u2014 should have a website. People will buy products from the site (even if your priority is Amazon), just not a lot of them. Then engage with those customers. Ask about their preferences, such as likes and dislikes on Amazon as well as product suggestions. Just think creatively.<\/p>\n Bandholz:<\/strong> Where can people follow you, hire you, or reach out?<\/p>\n Stone:<\/strong> Our site is SpilloverCommerce.com<\/a>. I\u2019m also on LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n