Over the last few years, the popularity of e-commerce and amazon has been skyrocketed with up to 44% growth due to COVID’19. This has made manufacturers and sellers grow their products rapidly because of the higher consumers’ demand. But we cannot neglect that the trend of online shopping started very long ago, even before the pandemic hit, and it’s increasing with every passing day. So, if you are a business owner and finding ways to bring your business online on amazon or e-commerce to get more client ratio and profit, then there are many options waiting for you to opt for.
E-commerce has overall changed the shopping environment all over the world. Today, almost every leading brand has its online presence in the form of a business website or social media pages where you market your business to increase its visibility and conversions. Internet audiences come over to your online stores and make purchases for the products they like. The same goes for Amazon as well.
Amazon is the world’s largest marketplace where millions of businesses list their products to sell. Buyers make the orders and make purchases. Amazon holds an entire listing and search engine optimization that helps businesses make their campaigns and advertisements live according to their target audience. From selecting the products, keyword analysis using Amazon tool, making listings, creating catalogs, and much more is a long technical process that not every business holder can understand. Therefore, the entrepreneurs who do not have enough time, expertise, and resources to manage their marketplace efforts probably go with these two options:
- Work with an amazon retailer/wholesaler.
- Work with an amazon consultant/agency.
To help you have a better understanding and make the right decision for your brand, let’s contrast and compare these two methods and discuss the cons and pros of each option.
Amazon Wholesale / Amazon Retailer
Working with Amazon retailers means that you sell your bulk products to a third-party retailer (could be more than one) who then resell your products on your behalf through the Amazon marketplace. And when it comes to e-commerce or Amazon, businesses that sell their products through retailers can also directly be partnered with Amazon (sell-through Vendor Central, 1P or first part) or with any third-party seller (sell-through Vendor Central or 3P). However, deciding between 3P or 1P depends upon your convenience and budget.
Amazon retailer leads you to give your full business access to a third-party seller, whom you sell products in bulk, and then they resell your products on Amazon on your behalf in which you do not have access to your Amazon store management and listing, and a third party is responsible to that. However, it is not very easy to find the trusted third-party sellers. There are many factors that you need to keep in mind while making a decision to finalize a retailer for your brand. Let’s have a look at some pros and cons of doing your Amazon marketing via retailers:
Advantages of selling wholesale
- A retailer is paying you an advance for your products through purchase orders.
- You have options in hand to unload entire amazon responsibilities, either it’s case management or customer service of amazon.
- You may have access to the Amazon marketing team through 3P wholesalers, so they will help you design your advertising campaigns.
- By going with retailers, you may also have a major point of contact or an account manager who will help you expand your new products and will manage your overall Amazon platform.
- If you sell FBA, then you get proper assistance for transferring your products from the warehouse to Amazon.
Disadvantages of selling Amazon wholesale
- Less margin of profit
- You may have untrusted sellers who can lead you to the MAP’s price breaking
- Once you get access to the listing of your products, your retailer or Amazon can adjust your brand voice
- Handing your overall business or account authority to the unknown person or Amazon can be frightening, especially if you have any doubt about their trustworthiness or you ask them questions about that.
- You may also have a hard time getting a response to your requests.
Is selling Amazon wholesale the right option for you to choose?
If you are the one who is looking to hand over responsibilities of your amazon account, then hiring a retailer (either 3P or 1P) to sell is a good option and provides a lot of advantages. However, finding a trusted third party you can rely on and trust to move forward with your brand advertisement is not easy. You need to keep in mind and understand so many other risk factors while handing over your complete control of the amazon store to an unknown retailer. Conduct thorough research before you hire somebody to give full authority.
On the other hand, it’s a good approach to hire a single retailer who can overall handle your brand listing and account management in the marketplace, such as logistics, advertising, end-to-end marketing, and much more related activities. You may also search for successful case studies to know the worth of hiring a single well-experienced 3P seller for selling wholesale on Amazon.
Amazon Agency / Amazon Consultant
Hiring an amazon expert agency is just like working with a marketing team to make your business and products visible to the world to increase your sales and conversions. It means that you have full control over our Amazon account listing, products, presence, and logistics on Amazon. But the company you hire will help you make the right decisions at the right time, helping you along the way with product listing and all other aspects that your Amazon e-commerce account demands. The cost of the consultants and agency depends upon how experience teams you hire, and you may also go with hiring an in-house specialist as it will lower your cost. On the other hand, if you are a seller with no technical knowledge and experience, then an Amazon company can help you out with product listing, creating ads, optimizing, executing storefronts, product listings, optimized ads strategy, and much more so, you can emphasize and focus on other business purposes.
Advantages of working with an Amazon agency
- You have the ownership of your overall Amazon inventory
- Products margin would not change, remaining same.
- You have more control over your pricing and branding
- Hiring an agency to get useful and expert ideas will cost you less than a single employee
- The company you hire for your Amazon store management will make the responsibilities of your plate, helping you to bring betterment in your advertisement strategy.
- It allows you to focus on other important business work, like product inventory and much more.
Disadvantages of working with an Amazon agency
You don’t give your store authority to a third party but pay a handsome amount to the marketing specialists to manage your account and product listing for the most profitable results.
Hiring an Amazon agency will lower your overall burden but does not offload all your responsibilities as it happens while working with 3P or Amazon relaters.
You need to keep yourself updated with the latest Amazon tools and trends to implement for your account because the amazon agency only guides you and helps you make better decisions and strategies to follow.
Is it a good option for you to go with hiring an Amazon agency?
Before you could decide whether you should hire an Amazon agency or not; take some time and ask yourself these few questions that will help you to make a better decision:
- Do I have enough time to manage my amazon account and resources?
- Would I be able to keep myself updated with the latest Amazon trends and practices?
- Am I happy with my current Amazon marketing strategy or not?
If any of the answers to yourself is no, then it’s time to hire an amazon agency to manage your account. On the other hand, if you still have any trouble finding the best amazon service provider, then make sure to do some thorough research on the internet to check reviews posted by clients, as it will help you make a better decision at the right time.
Bottom Line
Hiring an amazon agency or retailer both are good options to go with and has different pros and cons. The retailer is a process that leads you to sell your products to the third-party seller (they could be multiple), and then these sellers resell your products on amazon on your behalf. You may go with multiple sellers at the same time, depending upon your product inventory. Amazon retailer is helpful for those who do not have enough time and knowledge to handle amazon store technicalities; therefore, hire a full-time seller who gets full access to your account and manages overall listing and marketing. On the other hand, hiring an amazon agency will only help you suggest better marketing strategies, allowing you to have full control over your amazon account and its manageability.
