Having a product development and sourcing strategy each year is integral for a companies’ growth. Any company selling on Amazon that is not dedicating resources to new product development is a company that is falling behind their competitors. Sourcing new products within your market to build out a sufficient product line will also give your customers more comfort in knowing you are an established brand within the category further enticing them to stick with you.
Ranging from investors looking to get started selling on Amazon to established Fortune 500 brands, AMZ Advisers has been able to put together a robust sourcing plan for these clients helping them identify opportunities within their market and gain an edge on competition. For clients interested, we analyze their respective markets to help them understand where new opportunities are popping up in their market so they can work with their team to take advantage of that new market before more competition comes in. We break down the different processes we use to help with product development and sourcing below.
Understanding Your Customer
In our client qualification process, while speaking to over 100 companies a month we are always surprised to see how few companies really understand who their target consumer really is. At our agency, our team works to get to know your ideal customer and really understand their purchasing decisions. One way we do this is through our proprietary software we have built to show us the exact demographics of our amazon customer for that client which include gender, geography, time of purchase and more. This information gives us ability to further assess this customer and research the areas which this person engages most online be that Facebook groups, online forums, podcasts etc.
Through these forums we try to listen to this particular customer and what they are most interested in at the time to see how that line up with our products and future products we plan to launch. Listening to your customer and understanding the issues they are having can be the most valuable asset to a business and very few businesses make an effort to do this the right way.
Competitor Research
Another area where we believe we can gain a lot of intel is in our competitors. Analyzing our competitors from the best in the market all the way the startups who just launched their first product in this same market. We will compile sales analyses to show our clients what each competitor is doing in sales on Amazon per SKU. From this data we will be able to see what is working best for that client and further compile the top products doing well in the market.
In assessing top products in the market, we will seek to understand why they are successful by looking at competitor size, product launch timeline, product/packaging design, market depth, and quality. On the other hand, we will also seek to understand how this product could be better by reading about it further online and reading each negative review on Amazon about the product. That data can be so valuable when determining product development strategy for coming year.
Product Design
No longer is your target consumer strolling through retail stores taking their time to asses each product to figure out what is best for their needs. As a business selling on Amazon, you now have only a couple seconds to catch a consumer’s eyes as they scroll down their search page. Consumers will always take reviews, review rating and price into high consideration but the first thing that catches their eye could very well be a product look or differentiation among competition sticking out on the page.
We care about our clients’ growth so we put our best foot forward in trying to help them through this process and make sure that the future products they are putting out exhibit differentiation in the market and attractive to the eye. These considerations are the foundation for building a great sourcing/development strategy for the coming 12 months on Amazon.
Do You Have a Product Sourcing Plan?
We have built 7 figure businesses for clients from scratch on Amazon and a major part of that success has come from strategy around new product development so we can be confident in our launch when the time comes.
Contact us today if you need assistance in developing a strong product sourcing plan.
