Many of Amazon’s private label offerings appear to have launched in the past few months, just in time to capitalize on the holiday shopping rush.
Source: Amazon Has More Private Label Brands Than You Think
The moment I began hearing about Amazon private labels, I realized that it would begin to shape sportswear. I reached out to noted analyst Matt Powell and asked him about this incursion and he brushed me off. It was at this point I realized that maybe my information and position on how the sportswear market worked was just as valid as Powell’s. I guess it was what happened to my online shop on Amazon that was informing me and not data from POS and other locations. When you have a horse in the race I think it’s a lot more personal and for me Amazon’s private label was a harbinger… a bad thing for the sportswear market long term.
L2 has updated its collection of information and it verifies what I stated in a previous post:
What Amazon understands is that the majority of holiday shopping will be done via search and that apparel is a major item of purchase during the holidays. Both adidas and Under Armour should be paying very close attention to this introduction of sportswear by Amazon. One look at the chart explains why. Specifically in Men’s. Women’s brands should also find reason to worry as the majority of items purchased in women’s sportswear isn’t brand specific.
While in the article above I discussed adidas and Under Armour as hving something to worry about, I overlooked Nike. In L2’s latest report they have shown that, “While Amazon’s private brands have historically been most successful competing with low-priced basic merchandise, more recent contemporary offerings pose risk of greater competition for legacy name brands. Amazon’s activewear brand Peak Velocity sells a $79 hoodie that has a Best Seller rank of #38 in the Active Hoodies category, one of Nike’s strongest categories.”
Amazon initially refrained from telling customers that the brands were Amazon brands. They are now proudly displaying that you are purchasing “OUR BRAND”.
Here is what is most compelling. In the chart that leads this story Peak didn’t exist prior to October 31st of 2017. Peak in less than a month is now ranked 38th in hoodies. If I’m at the big three I’m sitting with my division heads and discussing the strategy of dealing with Amazon. In particular if I’m Under Armour, who spoke highly of their relationship with Amazon during their last conference call, I begin to reevaluate the amount of sales I’m delivering through the platform. I’m not overlooking Nike here; Nike stated during Investor’s Day they are going to keep their pilot program with Amazon which I interpreted as Nike gaining control of the items sold on Amazon via brand gating. As I stated before though Amazon is a big problem with a difficult navigation system.
Use the source link to visit L2 for more information.
Man I would say share this information with Black Enterprise surely they would understand this issue and make sure businesses (and consumers) understand what is happening and why it matters. Then on a whim I ran a search on BET’s site for the word Amazon: http://www.blackenterprise.com/?s=amazon I was horrified by what I saw. Black Enterprise is nothing more than a mouthpiece of Amazon! There was absolutely nothing critical of the company.
Amazon will become increasingly more powerful because everyone is afraid or too dumb to see what is happening.
It’s an unfortunate fight we wage as Amazon continues to dominate the e-commerce space and the only companies capable of slowing it down aren’t any better (Wal-Mart) and Google… Who have joined forces via Google Voice.
Well Google need someone to retail the voice products since Amazon dropped them in favor of their products. I guess people will be happy when Amazon makes and sells everything…
Everyone has willingly given all of their information to Amazon. The biggest story is AWS. Think about that.
So true! Is it too late for me to take the Blue Pill? I wanna go back to just mindlessly scrolling though memes on Facebook
Hahaha
LOL
Pitch the article, anyway. If they won’t bite then pitch to Entreprenur. Finally, Guardian might be interested. They are UK based with a U. S. Bureau and they’re not afraid of Amazon.
Oh the Guardian is excellent. The Brits generally don;t pull punches during interviews. You ever listen to BBC News?
I have! Sometimes you have go around the U.S. Media to be heard. BBC reminds me of state-run media with one exception, they will still run a story if it’s good journalism.
brother, this is a cornerstone post, again those who do not have a horse in the race can’t understand what is going on. They wait till it blows up their face and by then it’s too darn late. We at the smaller scale felt the amazon curse and small as well as bigger brands can’t see this gift that keeps on taking from you ( AMAZON)., a curse in disguise
I think with this one they pulled the disguise off #ourbrand
I know I’m a lone voice – but I still buy brands. My yoga pants are spalding -because they are durable and feel good. We are going to have to go back to good old fashioned brand marketing. Meaning we are going to have to make people ask for our products by name if we’re going to win the war against Amazon. Well, that is if we still have the internet after today.
Brands are going with a brandless approach which has allowed Amazon to infiltrate. As voice becomes the next wave of ordering products brand becomes less important. There is a great L2 video that analyzes this trend.
What’s interesting though is that Amazon has brands. The companies are branded and they have websites; it’s just that for the first year they didn’t disclose that the brands belonged to Amazon. It was a slow rollout and integration and it’s been effective. You are right… it is up to the consumer. Everything is a matter of consumer education. Brands have to understand this and begin educating instead of pitching the consumer.
Of course, Amazon has brand products -KDP is a brand and they still have their own separate publishing company.
What they did in retail wear they did with books first. Amazon may fool the masses with their eCommerce legerdemain but they know brand marketing will always sell products via word of mouth.
Wholesale mfg should never abandon traditional marketing & sales in favor of the latest technology – -ever.
The problem is wholesale has completely abandoned traditional marketing and many retail outlets are now relying on Amazon to sell their products which will inevitably lead to their downfall, just as it did to mine.