Well, just this past week they put that rumor to rest…and in a BIG way…by investing $15 BILLION into helping it’s third party sellers do even better on their platform.
You already know how huge Amazon is right now. And you probably know that Amazon is growing each and every day, in terms of sales, customers, market share, etc.
But did you know that Amazon is also rapidly growing outside the US? In countries like Germany, France, Spain, Italy, UK, etc.?
You see, most sellers are starting their businesses in the US. They think that the market is bigger, that people have more money to spend, that it’s generally easier, etc.
However… The truth is that the European market is also huge (almost 500 million people). European consumers are able and willing to spend money online. And there are no obstacles to selling on European markets.
And here’s the sweet part…
Mandy Payne and Bob Tobias were featured on Nightline, the award-winning ABC news program, where they shared how they became Amazon’s Top Reviewer and how they receive over 30 products a week for free. The program highlights the process that Bob goes through – spending up to 4 hours a day – reviewing products and providing his honest opinion about them. Mandy shared that she reviews everything from clothes to jewelry to skin care products. She even reviewed a washer!
By now, you’ve likely heard that Amazon launched their own brand called Amazon Elements, starting out with diapers as their first product. It is almost certain that they will continue to release other products under this brand, and we know for those of you who are ASMers, that might sound troublesome.
We have a message straight from Jason Katzenback on A) why you should focus on building a physical product business and B) why you shouldn’t get worried about it affecting your success:
I think this is exactly why you want to be building a “physical products business” and NOT an “Amazon selling business”.
It is my opinion that Amazon never intends to only sell their own products but they are looking at markets (such as diapers) that they can go into. It makes perfect sense and diapers are consistently the top sellers on Amazon but that does not mean they are now going to be sourcing millions of other products. Walmart has their own brand of products as well, but not every product type in the world.
This is certainly not something that in my opinion will be aggressively put in place anywhere near concerning for the next five years and in that time there is plenty of opportunity to leverage Amazon to launch your product brand that you also sell off Amazon (make Amazon the smallest of your fortune). That is not saying in 5 years there will be any, but they never cease to amaze me with what they plan to do.
Please share your thoughts or questions with us in the comments.
