EP #294] [ENG] - Strategies to expand your brand beyond Amazon - AJ Saunders

EP #294] [ENG] - Strategies to expand your brand beyond Amazon - AJ Saunders Unknown Speaker: Welcome to The Ecommerce Lab By Ecomcy. This is the place for everything related to Amazon private label and e-commerce. Learn exactly what you need to start or scale your business. Get insights from the top industry experts who will discuss the latest trends and best practices in the world of Amazon. From choosing products and sourcing from a supplier to setting up your Amazon account and marketing your business, you will hear it here. Let's get started. Here is your host, Vincenzo Toscano. Speaker 2: Hello guys, welcome to another episode of The Ecommerce Lab By Ecomcy, the place where everything related to Amazon, FBA, Parallel and Ecommerce. My name is Vincenzo Toscano, founder and CEO of Ecomcy and today we bring you for a second time now Very close friend of mine, AJ Saunders, founder and CEO of Audacious Commerce, which I would say is one of the top consultancies out there to really support your growth in ecommerce, specifically things that have to do with D2C, which is going to be a very interesting conversation today in terms of why you as a brand had to be in D2C. And then we're going to mix the conversation with a little bit about the panorama, you know, the tariffs, what is going to happen this year? Are we going to make money? We're not going to make money. So, you know, all of that. So, AJ, pleasure to have you on the show. How are you doing? Speaker 1: I'm doing well. It's so great to be back here. I know we lost talks on the podcast, it feels like three years ago. Speaker 2: I know. Time flies when you're busy, no? Speaker 1: Indeed it does. Speaker 2: It's been a pleasure, man. Speaker 1: I always try and catch what you're doing, I always try and watch the podcast. Speaker 2: I know, I know, I know, I know. So good. So let's start with a quick intro by yourself. You know, tell us a little bit about you, the company. Yeah, sure. Speaker 1: So I, I, I care about kind of three things and that's what I helped collapse with. So A is growth, B is profitable growth and C is I'm the CEO of Northstar, which is basically whatever your Northstar is. So a lot of my clients have, you know, they're trying to get to an exit or they're trying to get to a point where they can back out and therefore have a team running it. And so my whole thing is, can we figure out what you need to be doing to get you there and how does that look and what kind of numbers you need to be hit, what team you need, what kind of supplies do you need, what kind of marketing do you need to be doing? That's what I really, really help people do. And so I'm a consultant. I'm not an agency, but we work in partnership with great agencies like Economy. I can't think who runs that. And lots of others. So yeah, that's kind of me. About 10 years ago, I founded an e-com company that went global. We had customers in 12 countries. I've done other e-com projects since then. And now I have clients all over the world like you do. So yeah. Speaker 2: Thank you so much. I love it. I love it. Speaker 1: I have a very slow boring life. Speaker 2: I mean, at the end of the day, you know, I love the concept of what you're trying to do with so many brands because the consulting approach, first of all, allows so much more intimacy with the client and so much a tailor approach in terms of figuring out, you know, what is the right strategy for them, which is why I wanted to bring you on board because I know You're in-depth when it comes to that, especially figuring out how certain brands can keep expanding, especially beyond marketplaces. And that's something I feel a lot of brands struggle and they need a consultant by their side to really help them figuring out what is the right journey that they have to pursue. So let's start with that. I mean, what has been your conversation lately with ecommerce sellers? How is the D2C kind of expansion going for a lot of them? Do you feel this year is getting tougher, is getting easier? What are some of your takes there? Speaker 1: Yeah, sure. So I think I think the market in 2024, I think it's probably good to reflect first. So the market in 2024 was difficult. We had over 100 elections across the year last year, across the world last year. And so it was not a politically stable time wherever you looked. I know we had elections in Italy, we had UK elections, we had EU elections, American elections, Russian elections, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I think last year was really, really, really quick. I think this year is gonna be more stable in a lot of ways. I think in other ways we're seeing that it's been quite unstable in the last six weeks. We'll come on to that, I'm sure. And so for me it's I think the next four years are going to be really, really good for growth and good for getting closer to what you're trying to achieve. I would say that Amazon is becoming more and more competitive year after year, but also Amazon keeps changing the goalposts. And I know, for example, with TikTok, for example, I know TikTok Shop is one of your big things. The reason TikTok didn't actually get banned, and I never think it will, is because of how many small businesses are actually using it to transact. And so I think there are headwinds in terms of what marketplaces are doing, and governmental kind of headwinds. And so we need to kind of adjust to be more prevalent in terms of understanding there are other channels we can go down. And so I think Amazon is still a fantastic channel. Walmart, I know you do a lot with Walmart. I know you do a lot with TikTok Shop. All of those channels are really, really fantastic. But I think you can go DTC, so you have your own Shopify store, or WooCommerce, or BigCommerce. And what I mean by that is it may, you know, having a Shopify store, for example, may not drive the same amount of sales as Amazon does, but it may actually drive more profits, right? It may actually drive better customer loyalty who are buying multiple times from you. You know, things that you can't do on Amazon, but you have the flexibility to do with a D2C site. And so I'm really excited for 2025 in terms of helping people to understand that You don't have to A, B everywhere, but you can B, take a multi or an on-the-channel approach where you're on your own marketplace or in a couple of marketplaces and you've got a team or an agency running that. You have a D to C, which is kind of the backbone and actually you're then building It's a really, really healthy productive business that is able to insulate from if Amazon decides tomorrow that they don't want to sell your category anymore, or you get somebody, or they change the rules slightly behind how you're doing things. That's what I'm finding. What are you finding? Speaker 2: Yeah, so from my side it's the same. I feel this year with all the things that are happening with the tariffs and all the things that happened last year politically and economically, now the conversation is not always around what ecommerce has always been about, especially Amazon, or keywords and the money. It's also about how macroeconomics are impacting some of these niches from the perspective of pricing and from the perspective of You know, the taxes associated with it and the future of some of these categories. So I think now that has to be part of the research from very beginning because otherwise you're going to encounter a lot of people which they're going through that pain that they started selling a product and now because of the tariffs, because of what happened on the region politically or economically, now they're going to have a very hard time to economically make the brand successful. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 2: So now something I would like to add as well, and then I want to hear your take on this. On the P2 side of things, I experienced that because we have so much more flexibility in terms of what we can do, because in Amazon, let's be honest, you don't own the client. So there's a lot of limitations of things that you can do. But outside of Amazon, you can be very clever with Meta, Google, email marketing, SMS, influencer marketing and all of that. What is your take in terms of how, in the first place, somebody like an Amazon seller, which only know the Amazon way of doing things, can get even a grasp on understanding in terms of how to transition to D2C because it's very difficult, you know? Yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah. So there are a few things. So I think if you have a good amount of traction on Amazon, so you have some good reviews, you have some good So good case studies, you have some good product listings. A lot of that can be imported onto whatever platform you use, obviously Shopify, because everybody's on Shopify. So a lot of that can be imported very, very easily using the Amazon widget, right, for reviews, you know, be able to tweak what you've done to the product descriptions. And so that's a great starting point. The other thing to do is to be methodical in how you approach the marketing element of things. And so with Amazon, it's very, very easy because you're on one channel. They do a lot of things for you. You can do a bit of PPC, right? But what some people may not understand is the PPC skills that you have on Amazon, running PPC on say Google or Bing or, you know, on some of these other platforms, that the skills are pretty similar. There's not too much differences. And so actually you can start to run, you know, like shop and listing ads, which are cost effective. You can then start to do some things like, you know, make sure that people are aware that you've got omni talents, you can do some PR, you know, there are lots of things that you can do to then start to build up repeat customers, you know, a database of contacts and try and suss the market out and suss whether there is an opportunity there for you. What I'd advise against, and I feel this is super important, is It's going all in and just being like, well, we're now, we're now a DTC company, right? Because I don't think that benefits anyone. And I'm sure you've seen, I'm sure you've seen just as many horror stories of people doing that as I have. And so for me, it's that whole, can we do things in a small measured methodical way that then we can build up over time? Because actually, if you start with, say, 50 grand, and you say, right, we're going to start with 50 grand, we're going to try these three products. We know they sell really well on Amazon. We're going to market them in a slightly different way than what we do on Amazon, but we're going to use what we've learned from the customers that we've been serving to really inform our research or methodology. And then that works out, then you can go, right, hey, in the next quarter, we spend another 50 grand, we can go up to 100 grand, right? And we can start to scale that way. Whereas I think if you just go, you know, if you say, right, we're all in on this and this is happening, you know, I think you'll lose your shirt. I'll just give you a real quick example. About 18 months ago, I was approached by a friend of mine who, one of his potential clients runs a $4 million outdoor store in the middle of nowhere in Idaho, right? They do guns, they do fishing. And he was saying, the guy's parents were about to retire and were going to hand it over to the son and the son was thinking, we should go e-com. And I said to my friend Nate, I said, Nate, look, That's going to be a half a million pound and 18 month task. It's not going to be something we're going to do overnight because at that point they're so big, right? And I said, you know, if they want to do that, great, happy to have a conversation, happy to figure out what the plan and what the milestones look like. But it is not as simple as you're saying, well, we're going to show up at the Shopify store and we're going to make things happen because, you know, they've got all the stuff that they need to retrain, they need to do a new ePoS system, they need to do... Speaker 2: Adaptation, they have to go through the whole adaptation period, which takes... Speaker 1: Yeah, 100%, 100%, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're a small brand, you can go through those growing pains because it's just a little bit of extra work. It's not a monumental shift in your business. Speaker 2: Yes, I agree, which is something I wanted to add here is when somebody is doing the jump from Amazon to, in this case, DTC, they need to start essentially doing all the advertising and all of that. What is your take in terms of the type of advertising that could potentially give a faster return investment? Because then you have Meta, you have Google, you have email marketing, influencer marketing. So there's different avenues that you can effectively use to maximize your exposure in terms of your website and go from there. So from your experience, have you seen one that has been consistently been the best one when it comes to getting the ball rolling? Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, absolutely. That I'm a massive fan of picking three or four kind of channels, right? So I would say your number one channel has to be hustle, right? And so it's trying to talk to customers. It's trying to talk to people who may be interested. It's trying to get in front and do PR and digital social media and do all that stuff. But that will take a long time for you to figure out what works, what doesn't work. And I bucket SEO in that bucket as well. SEO is going to take at least maybe a year, maybe two for you to actually start seeing some traction, actually start to see some follow through. What will work now is so on Google, Google PPC, from my historic experience, running text ads never works, running shopping listing ads. And so I'll just explain that. So when you go on to Google and you type, you know, I'm looking for a green pair of trainers, you get all those ads right beneath the search bar, that's shopping listing ads. And those things are And I'm here to talk to you about how you can get a high intent, high conversion rate and actually then get a really high click-through as well. Because people are ready to buy what they're searching for. So I've found, if you're on a small budget, running those sorts of apps are really, really amazing in terms of converting. The other thing that I would say is, so yeah, so I bucket that as like kind of like my fast wins, my easy, you've got to have some money to do that, of course, right? But it works. And then I would say things like doing email marketing, SMS marketing, direct mail. People who have agreed to get all that information from you will never get out of fashion. I think people don't think about SMS, especially here in the UK. And they don't think about direct mail as well. But I think The three of them, email, direct mail, and SMS. If you can figure out a mix that works for your customer, right into how frequently you want to contact them, what they want to contact you about, actually that can really drive growth. Because I don't think people expect to get SMSs, especially if they've opted in, right? People definitely don't expect to get a sweet in the post. And so I think that can be a great way of you saying, A, we've got something great to offer you, and C, we're using something that used to be cool and now isn't very cool. But in my opinion, that makes it cool again, right? Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: And then I think email marketing is about trying to be more More structure. So I think having a great welcome sequence, having a great purchase sequence, having a great cadence of what you're doing, whether that's weekly, bi-weekly, you know, every month, by having something decent to say, you know, you'll probably get this as much as I do. I have brands that email me every day and they don't have anything to say. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: It's another discount or it's another, we've got, we've released it in new color. Right. And for me as, as a marketer, I want to tear my hair out as a consumer, I want to just slap them. Speaker 2: Right. Speaker 1: Because they're not, they're not adding something of value to the conversation. They're just trying to get me to buy more stuff that isn't productive. Right. Speaker 2: Yeah. I agree. I agree. I agree. It's something that actually makes me think as well, which is This clearly showcases that when it comes to, especially the D2C sort of things, it's not like Amazon that is usually a very, you know, there's like a template you follow when it comes to Amazon. You do these on the listings, the PPC and everything. D2C seems is where it's actually you have to go where your consumers are, because as you say, some consumers are more in SMS, depending on the age bracket as well, or email and everything. You need to be proactive when it comes to adjusting the strategies on the fly. Which brings me to my next thing, which is. You know, the timelines associated with all these things, because you gave the example of your partner that he was asking to do this and this takes, you know, some time to really reflect results. But I feel we Amazon sellers struggle with that because we have the mindset of Amazon sellers that, you know, things have to be fast. I put a list here, I have sales, I have results, and we need to see if things take time. So how do you navigate those objections, I guess? Speaker 1: Sure. So I think I think it's mindset, so I think a lot of people need to get into the idea that they're building a business that has a value to somebody else, not a value to their bank account, right? Obviously, it does have a value to the bank account, but the greater value is to somebody who wants to think, you know, somebody who wants to come in and say, right, that's worth X time your revenue and I want to buy it at that figure. And I think the more you can do to get out of the, well, we're just hustling. We're just trying to make a quick buck kind of mentality. I'm not accusing anyone of doing that. Right. But I know that's stereotypical. And actually say, right, you know, there are lots of people who are looking to buy Amazon FBA businesses or are looking to buy omni-channel retailers or I'm looking to acquire those sorts of customers because they don't have access, right? They've got a great product, but they don't have the access to the capital to do it properly, or they don't have the skill set. I'll just say this, you know, in the business life cycle, we have the start phase, the growth phase, the maturity phase, and then the decline. You know, and lots of people have different skill sets that fit into different Different eras. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: And so I've met and you've probably met loads of people that are great startup founders, but are terrible when it starts to actually grow, because they just want to hustle, they just want to make money and they, right. But actually, in that start of phase, they think, right, you know, I'm, I'm in this till we get to a million turnover. And actually, when we get to a million turnover, we could sell out for a million and a half, right. You can then start to put in processes, systems, documentation in place to allow you to get to that point far quicker, which then means you can sell off, you can then start and get back on your lane. And so for me, it's that whole Get out that mindset, get into the mindset of we're building to sell, we're building something that has equitable value to somebody else. And actually, if that's the lane you're going to play in, and everybody else is trying to just make quick money, you'll actually be able to exit out for more money because people will want people will be attracted to the way you do things. And the other thing is, and this is really important, is if you build, if you build to sell, The next time you do it, it'll be far faster, far more profitable, far easier, right? Because you're just following the same methodology. Speaker 2: Yes, I agree. I agree. Now, another thing when it comes to DTC, the complexity around the logistics of things, I just want to quickly bring this to the table because it's not only the marketing and adjusting the strategies based on the type of consumer, it's also making sure you can provide an experience when it comes to the purchasing and receiving the product that is as seamless as Amazon. So how do you actually also navigate those friction points like when it comes to, you know, the logistical side of things? Speaker 1: Yeah, sure. So I think There's a few things. So I think making it easy for people to say yes, you know, so making sure that your checkout process is streamlined, it's not eight steps. I bet we've all seen checkout processes that are eight steps, right? When two will do. It's about having a sensible amount of delivery options. I can give you an example, a company that I was looking at before Christmas, I was just doing some research, They had 43 different shipping options. Speaker 2: Wow. Speaker 1: And a bunch of them were, if you were based in London, because it was like cash on delivery type of like, you can order now and you get it within an hour, right? Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Speaker 1: Delivery. Which I'm guessing 90% of their consumers are not in London. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: And actually we have better apps like Uber Eats that you can retail through, right? That would actually do a lot of that heavy lifting for you. And so for me, that is a massive friction point. And if they were to hire me as a consultant, I would go in and say, right, we're going to slash it down to three options. And these are the three options, and this is how it looks. Because then it's easy for people to say, ah, right, I want it tomorrow, click that button, right? Or, you know, I need the next one, so click that button, right? Or I'm in London, click that button, we'll go purchase somewhere else. So I think that, I think also, Think about the delivery options that people are going to find appealing, not the cheapest to the customer. So when I looked at this particular brand, they're using ever or every, which is £2, £2.30, you know, about $3, right? And therefore it's a low cost network. It's great if you're selling parcels, you know, as a solopreneur or as a small business. It's not great if you're selling luxury products like they are, right? Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: And actually a lot of their Trust Pilot reviews mentioned how terrible the delivery was. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: And so I think, I think, yeah, optimize your checkout, optimize your delivery options, make sure you're using a high-class delivery that matches the intent and the sophistication of the product. And then number four is actually ask and listen to, this is the important thing, listen to feedback. It doesn't take a genius to go on to Trustpilot and to read through three pages of reviews and gather some really, really good, insightful data. Speaker 2: But it's something people get very defensive. Correct, correct, correct. Issues, issues, and people don't take action, you know. Speaker 1: But also, also, and I know you'll see this as well as much as I do, people say it's a tick box exercise. Right, we've reviewed last month's, you know, reviews on Trustpilot or on wherever, right? And they just tick the box and go, well, we've done that. Nothing. What actions have we taken to actually do something about it? Nothing, right? Well, actually, they can say, right, dispassionately, right? There's a slightly negative review they've complained about, right? The packaging was ripped, right? Could we have done something about that? Probably not, right? Could we have done something better when their package turned up three days late? Yes, we probably could have, right? As it's about, you're spot on, it's about trying to balance I'm trying to balance the emotion and balance the reasonability of somebody's complaint with what you can actually achievably do the next time. Speaker 2: Yes, I agree. Speaker 1: So yeah, so I think you just keep thinking of those sorts of issues. And again, I don't think retail is difficult. I think that retail is about detail. I think it's even more prevalent if you're doing stuff online, right? Because people are not dealing with another human being who can show empathy, they're dealing with a screen that doesn't, right? Speaker 2: Yes, I agree, I agree. Super, super, yeah. Which now, to start concluding, another question I get when it comes to this is Given that you're being a consultant with all these brands and most likely they ask you this question a lot, it's like how do I make sure I choose the best provider for hosting my website to have the most seamless experience for my consumers and also how I manage my D2C experience. So you know the Shopify, the ecommerce, the WordPress, is there one that you would prefer among all of them? Speaker 1: So there isn't one that I prefer purely because It depends on the whole the whole ecosystem. And so I've worked with clients in the last couple of years who've been on Shopify because Shopify has made sense for them to have an ePoS system in their stores and then a rock solid actual system that they can do inventory management through for online and in their stores. And so for them, that has been great. But then they've been small businesses. I know other businesses who've gone down the Shopify route and actually it's just been terrible and they've had to switch to Magento or Adobe Cloud or maybe they've gone down the custom route. Yeah, because of what logistics system they're using, what warehouse system they're using, how things are integrated in. And so it really, really depends. At the end of the day, I think Shopify is great. I think purely because it's easy to use. They host their own websites on their servers in Canada. You can use what's called a content delivery network, CDN, right, which then makes sure that you're delivering a local version of that web page to the consumer, right? So there's all these great little tricks we can use with Shopify. I think big commas is also a great option because it's built for commas. Big commas you can run on their servers or you can run it as a native on your server. And so the flexibility I think in terms of servers, I think AWS is kind of the gold standard. In a lot of ways, I know a client at the moment whose background is web designing and he's using AWS now to essentially run WordPress sites that should be taking three seconds slower than taking a second because he's optimizing and he's figured out how to do it on an AWS cloud, right? And so I think the thing to do is to go and talk to somebody who, A, strategic, B, isn't going to try and just sell you a free platform and job because that's how they're going to make their money, but is actually going to have some empathy and understanding of what you're trying to achieve with your business goals and what other systems you're using to be able to help you navigate that landscape, because it's incredibly complicated. The thing that I would say stay away from, and this is just my personal opinion, is WooCommerce, because WordPress is a fantastic platform. It's absolutely fantastic, but it's not built for commas, right? And so the WooCommerce plugin is great if you're running a couple of SKUs or you're running, you know, 20 SKUs. But I've seen people on there that are running 200, 300 SKUs and just everything goes belly up very, very quickly because it's not built for speed. It's not built for customization. There's lots of other little things that you think, well, I just want to customize this and it's impossible because it's You know, it's not native. So, yeah, but again, go get impartial advice. Don't go talk to a web dev shop who's going to sell you anything you're comfortable with. Speaker 2: Yeah, if fancy dies. Yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, just go get independent advice because I think that that's the best thing to do. And then you go and go and think about things and go and do the whole matrix of if we go down this option, what are the trade-offs, what are the positives, right, versus this option and then pick the best for what you do. Speaker 2: Awesome. That's great. So, AJ, it's been a pleasure, as usual, every single time, you know, we have conversations, you know. It's always fun to talk to you. Come on. It's a pleasure. And, you know, for those that people want to reach out to you and maybe explore working directly with you, how people can find you? Speaker 1: Fantastic. So people go to audaciouscomers.com or they can find me on LinkedIn. I'm sure on the show notes or they can reach out to me on Instagram. Speaker 2: Yeah. Awesome. Speaker 1: Audaciouscommons.com. I've got about 40 blog posts about how to do Ecom strategy, how to do Ecom marketing, how to do team building, everything to do with Ecom is on there. So it's a really, really great resource. It's the website I wish I had when I was starting out 10 years ago, right? Yes, for sure. And I'm adding to that all the time. So yeah. Speaker 2: Good, man. So thank you so much. A pleasure as usual. My pleasure. I'm going to put all your information down in the description for people to find you. Other than that, thank you for your time. Pleasure, man. Unknown Speaker: Thanks for listening to The Ecommerce Lab By Ecomcy. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. While you are at it, we would appreciate it if you could leave an honest rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. That will make it easier for others to find out about the show and benefit from it. Want more? Visit our website at www.ecomc.com where you can get your first consultation for free. Or find us on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn at ecomc.