Amazon Lets Brands Take Customers Off-site

Amazon announced some new ways for those who sell their own branded goods to reach shoppers on its marketplace – and it is even allowing them to bring transactions to their own off-Amazon stores. There’s a catch, of course – the sellers must use Buy with Prime on their sites.

With the new capabilities offered through Amazon Sponsored Brands ads and new “Amazon Buy with Prime stores pages,” brands can reach relevant shoppers on Amazon and direct them to their own DTC sites, the company explained. Both solutions are now available in an invitation-only beta.

Benjamin Hartman, Vice President of Amazon North America Selling Partner Services, said, “Brands are able to quickly acquire new customers in the Amazon store, but they expressed a need for improved tools to increase customer lifetime value. These improvements help unlock the value of remarketing as we further our commitment to helping sellers reach the right customer, at the right time.”

8fig, a service provider that helps Amazon sellers, tweeted with enthusiasm from the conference about another new capability that lets brands integrate with Alexa: “Customer asked about removing pet fur, Alexa mentions your brand, bada bing bada boom”

Amazon explained the integration in a blog post on Wednesday. “The capability is called Customers ask Alexa, and it works like this: When customers pose questions to Alexa, including queries related to a product’s features or compatibilities, Alexa responds with helpful answers provided by brands from those product categories.”

Amazon issued two press releases explaining all of the new features announced at Amazon Accelerate:

• “Amazon Introduces Marketing Solutions to Help Sellers Using Buy with Prime Attract Amazon Shoppers and Grow Sales” (link to press release)
  
• “Amazon Launches Free Email Marketing Capabilities for Sellers to Reach Their Repeat, Recent, and High-Spend Amazon Customers” (link to press release)

Peter Larsen, Amazon’s Vice President of Buy with Prime, summed up Amazon’s focus on branded sellers: “Direct-to-consumer online sellers struggle with two key pain-points: driving traffic and converting shoppers. With the launch of Buy with Prime, sellers have begun to increase conversion by offering shopping benefits that millions of Prime members love and trust—including fast, free delivery and a seamless checkout experience. Now, we’re taking the next step by piloting marketing solutions to help Buy with Prime sellers attract more engaged shoppers to their sites.”

Sellers can sign up to attend day 2 of the conference virtually on the AmazonAccelerate.com website.

Ina Steiner

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.