6 Tips for Launching and Scaling Your Amazon DTC Business: A Guide for Director-to-Consumer Sellers

The recent surge in ecommerce spending — largely spurred by the pandemic — has caused many brands to shift to a direct-to-consumer (DTC) model.

Why?

By selling directly to eager consumers online, DTC brands can offer premium products at lower cost, cultivate robust customer relationships, and give their bottom line a boost with better margins.

And much of this shift is occurring on the world’s largest digital marketplace: Amazon. In fact, DTC brands account for around 58% of all Amazon sales, and 60% of DTC sellers say Amazon is their fastest-growing sales channel.

It’s clear that Amazon offers DTC sellers unparalleled opportunities for growth. But to truly scale to new heights, Amazon DTC businesses need to tap into the full potential of the platform. Here’s a guide for all that Amazon has to offer new and scaling DTC brands.

Benefits of Selling on Amazon for DTC Brands

Amazon isn’t only the most recognizable digital marketplace in the world, it’s also one of the most connected. It provides sellers with countless ways to integrate their off-platform presence into their Amazon storefront to create a holistic brand that drives traffic from numerous sources. 

By selling on the marketplace behemoth, DTC sellers can glean several other benefits, including:

• Access to Amazon’s massive customer base. The marketplace is home to more than 300 million global active customers, giving sellers access to new segments for customer engagement and growth. Even for known DTC brands — such as Caraway, Olipop, and WellPath, who all have used their Amazon storefronts to scale — the marketplace offers growth prospects that far outstrip an independent online store. Amazon also enables sellers to sell their products in more than 200 countries worldwide.
• Increased visibility. As the top global ecommerce destination, Amazon's platform provides visibility that outweighs organic searches to individual online shops. Features like "Customers who viewed this item also viewed" can drive customers to new product pages.
• Product management support. Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is pivotal for DTC sellers on Amazon. The service handles all storage, product handling, shipping, customer service, and returns, saving sellers significant time and labor. It also unlocks Prime shipping, which can help boost sales even further.

RELATED: How Does Amazon FBA Work: A Seller's Guide to the Process, Pros, and Challenges of Fulfillment by Amazon | Carbon6 

Amazon Resources for New DTC Sellers

In such a rapidly growing, highly saturated global marketplace, it can be difficult for new sellers to stand out among the crowd. But Amazon provides a number of tools and resources to not only get your business off the ground, but compete alongside veteran sellers.

The New Seller Success (NSS) program, for example, is a boon for selected fresh sellers. The program offers incentives for getting started with Amazon Brand Registry, as well as several additional benefits, including:

• Dedicated account support for a year from an assigned Account Manager.
• Insights and advice tailored to your business’ unique needs.
• Early-bird access to deals, discounts, and new features.
• Priority assistance for challenges and concerns.

Similarly, Amazon’s Perfect Launch program supports new sellers, giving them hands-on support with Amazon registration, product page content, pricing, and packaging.

How To Get Started on Amazon as a DTC Seller

With a number of resources and tools at your fingertips, launching your DTC business on Amazon doesn’t have to be hard. By taking full advantage of Amazon’s available resources, you could be up and running — and competing with the big brands — in no time. Start by taking these steps.

1. Register for Amazon Seller Central

This is the gateway to all selling tools, giving you the ability to manage your inventory, access sales performance data, communicate with buyers, and so much more. It’s a critical place to start for any DTC brand.

2. List Your Products

In today’s market, it’s not enough to have listings that just highlight your products. To drive conversions, you need quality images, comprehensive descriptions, accurate titles, and competitive pricing.

3. Consider FBA

Decide if FBA is suitable for your order fulfillment needs. Amazon reports that FBA sellers see an average sales boost of 20-25% by using this option. With FBA, you get all the benefits of Amazon’s long-lasting customer trust with a variety of tools designed to help you grow.

4. Promote Your Products

Optimizing your product listings can be great for improving search traffic and driving customers to your product pages. But organic traffic shouldn’t be your only marketing strategy. Employ tools like Amazon Sponsored Products and Amazon Marketing Services for product promotion. Sponsored Products lets you easily create ad campaigns and control your cost-per-click (CPC) over time. Amazon Marketing Services gives you access to key product and competitive data so you can best attract and retain customers.

RELATED: Amazon PPC Strategy: A Beginner’s Guide to Weekly PPC Optimization

5. Analyze Performance

One of the key benefits of registering in Seller Central is access to product performance data. Be sure to monitor your metrics, such as traffic and conversions, regularly, using these data points to refine your sales and marketing strategies over time.

Get even more bang for your buck with ManageByStats software. This solution consolidates data across all your product listings into one central platform, giving you critical data visualizations, custom checklists, inventory notifications, and more — all designed to help you manage your performance and increase your profits.

6. Always Be Optimizing

Brand optimization isn’t a one-and-done process. It requires constant vigilance and regular maintenance. Stay ahead in the highly competitive Amazon market by updating listings, enhancing copy, adding pictures to product listings, running offers, and refining your search engine optimization (SEO) strategies.

And for automated reporting, sales forecasting, and insight-driven recommendations, use D8aDriven, a comprehensive solution for optimized DTC growth on Amazon.