Wall Street Courts Amazon Mom-n-Pops. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Last week, my buddy Spencer Soper reported for Bloomberg that “Wall Street Is Investing Billions to Scale Tiny Mom-and-Pop Sellers on Amazon.” On the heels of the e-commerce giant’s explosive growth (and corresponding market cap) during the pandemic, this may not be as surprising as the funding that 40 of these aggregators have raised since 2019: more than $2.5 billion.
Chief among them is Thrasio, with $1.75 billion of that sum. A handful of Wall Street’s biggest names, including JPMorgan Chase and Advent International, have turned up the bidding war for marketplace dominance. Almost certainly, the global lockdown’s seismic effect on consumer behavior accelerated the inevitable.
So yes, there’s a new gold rush, and just like the first one that swept California into statehood, garage entrepreneurs the world over are lining up for “…cash in hand for your next venture (or retirement),” as Thrasio’s site tells prospects.
Back in the mid-1800s, tens of billions (in today’s dollars) worth of gold was pulled from streams and mines — but it came at a substantial price, with skyrocketing death, disease, and crime in the region. The prospect of wealth, we know, often brings technological advancement but with a loss of focus, or worse, one’s scruples.
Aggregators: Prioritize the Amazon customer experience and best practices (a few here) more now than ever before, many of which we at KANE created when we were leaders at Amazon Advertising. What stands before you might look like a windfall, but commoditize these brands and their customers—who can smell Shareholder Experience Design from a mile away— at your peril.
Sellers-in-Waiting: Improve your chances of a successful exit by making every pixel of your Amazon presence count toward the still-relatively-new A10 algorithm with strategic SEO-laden storytelling, mobile-optimized imagery, and the Voice of the Customer to become the choice of the customer.
Best-in-class performance requires leveraging the full might of the Amazon universe with proven institutional knowledge of customer insights, advertising products, existing and emerging platforms, services, subsidiaries, events, and more. You know these touch points are many and ever-expanding, but can you expertly navigate them to exceed KPIs and win the category?
About the author: Steve Susi is a partner at KANE Creative Group LLC, the world’s first and only creative network founded by former Amazon Advertising leaders. As Executive Creative Director, International at Amazon, he handled thousands of campaigns for hundreds of clients worldwide and won the division’s first Amazon Inventor Award outside the US for patented innovation. Steve’s book, Brand Currency: A Former Amazon Exec on Money, Information, Loyalty, and Time was a 2019 Amazon category best-seller.
#aggregator #startup #ecommerce #digital #digitalmarketing #branding #advertising #amazon #amazonadvertising #uxdesign #thrasio #KANE
