How To Establish Your Brand On Amazon: Lessons From Marco Santesso
Jun 13, 2024Season 3Episode 62
The Amazon Strategist Show
Tune into the new episode of The Amazon Structure Show with host John Cavendish and guest Marco Santesso.
Delve into Marco's extensive experience from the London School of Economics to his ventures in digital marketplaces, uncovering critical strategies for dominating Amazon sales. Learn actionable tips for effective product distribution, leveraging tools like Helium 10 for optimizing listings, and understanding the nuances of marketplace negotiations.
Highlights include: Strategies to ensure your brand stands out on Amazon against resellers Insights into expanding your reach across Europe’s top Amazon markets Real-world advice on using analytics to drive sales and improve online presence
Seller Candy is the expert operations arm of your Amazon business. We provide outcome-driven support for time-consuming and challenging Seller Central issues so you Never Have to Talk to Seller Support Again! With Agency-Level security practices and an experienced team who’s been through the thick of it, we give sellers bandwidth on demand without the hassle of hiring, training, or managing.
Tune into the new episode of The Amazon Structure Show with host John Cavendish and guest Marco Santesso.
Delve into Marco's extensive experience from the London School of Economics to his ventures in digital marketplaces, uncovering critical strategies for dominating Amazon sales. Learn actionable tips for effective product distribution, leveraging tools like Helium 10 for optimizing listings, and understanding the nuances of marketplace negotiations.
Highlights include: Strategies to ensure your brand stands out on Amazon against resellers Insights into expanding your reach across Europe’s top Amazon markets Real-world advice on using analytics to drive sales and improve online presence
Seller Candy is the expert operations arm of your Amazon business. We provide outcome-driven support for time-consuming and challenging Seller Central issues so you Never Have to Talk to Seller Support Again! With Agency-Level security practices and an experienced team who’s been through the thick of it, we give sellers bandwidth on demand without the hassle of hiring, training, or managing.
When you negotiate with Amazon, you're not just negotiating with Amazon. You need to understand where your products are sold online and you need to take care of your distribution.
Speaker 2:
Hello, I'm your host, John Cavendish, and welcome to season three of the Amazon Stratus Show. The show that's all strategy. No hacks, no silver bullets, just real, practical strategies to grow your Amazon business. Today I'm joined by our guest, Marco Tantesso of Sell it it for Italia. So Marco holds a master's degree in economics from the London School of Economics. However, his life's journey led to in different directions. Marco has worked for two startups in London and founded and sold his own marketplace, not quite as big as Amazon, in Italy. So Marco currently runs an agency that helps companies navigate and relevant marketplaces for their brands. So, Marco, welcome to the Amazon Structure Show. Thank you, John, Thank you for having me. Well, and it's great to have you here. And I just thought we could start a little bit with your journey, because I know you lived in London, I assume studying at LSE. What was your kind of journey to get to where you are now?
Speaker 1:
That's a good question. So well, I studied in London. Afterwards I managed to land a couple of jobs over there, and I guess the one that got me most interested in was this marketplace for musicians and venues to organize gigs. I launched it and it was a little successful I guess a few thousand people were booking gigs. But then COVID happened and, as you can imagine, the live music industry got a big hit during COVID, obviously. So I came back to Italy.
Speaker 1:
So came back to Italy and a friend of mine that was running this digital marketing agency was interested in what I was doing in London because he was also a musician and he launched his own startup in music. So I reached out to him saying look, you have many clients. Do you have anyone that is looking for somebody to hire? And he said I think you are a smart guy, so, even though you don't know anything about marketing, I'm going to hire you anyway and we're going to find something to do so in the beginning, we thought about launching an agency to help companies creating e-commerce websites, but the investment necessary to hire developers to do so is quite big.
Speaker 1:
However, we noticed at the same time that a few of his clients had their products posted on Amazon, but the listings were created by the resellers, not by the brand itself, and you know that when resellers create listings, they don't tend to pay as much attention as when the brand creates the listing on its own right. So I started studying how to optimize the presence on Amazon and I discovered that there is a whole world obviously behind this, starting from Helium 10, I mean, one of the most common softwares that people use to analyze Amazon, and they have actually a very good school. It's free if you get the software. There are I don't know how many hours 80, 100 hours, I have no idea. So I started studying that piece of software at their school and then started getting clients from the old company, from the digital marketing agency, to fix their presence online, and then from then on, we started creating this business unit vertical on Amazon, recently on other marketplaces as well, but 99% of times that's Amazon, that's amazing, that's very cool and yeah, I like.
Speaker 2:
it's a good niche helping brands that have been sold to resellers because they already have brand recognition, usually in a brand presence.
Speaker 1:
Exactly. I mean, that's how we started. Obviously, it's not the only thing that we do, but you know, amazon is the biggest search engine on the planet right now. I think it surpassed Google If you're looking at products obviously the search engine for products. So these brands pay hundreds of thousands of euros to have their presence done properly on Meta, google and these other social networks and many times, especially talking about the Italian market they don't pay as much attention to their online presence on Amazon. However, I believe that when the final customer, when me and you basically go on Amazon and look for a listing, you don't realize that it was a reseller that created the listing, but you think it's actually the brand that didn't pay that much attention, right, but you think it's actually the brand that didn't pay that much attention, right? So even the brand image, I think, gets affected negatively by doing this. So, yeah, that's how we got our foot through the door, love it.
Speaker 2:
And so the majority of your clients, italian, italian companies.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, the majority is Italian. We do have a Swiss company. We do work for Italian companies that sell abroad, so we are working in Spain, france, germany, uk the biggest Amazon markets across Europe. But yeah, so this is what we do. Actually, we also have a brand store in the US, so started to reach out also overseas.
Speaker 2:
That's very cool and I think that's a great takeaway for anyone that's listening to this episode. Who does want to help other companies to sell on Amazon is niche markets I mean, italy isn't really a niche 70 million people but that's a good thing which is outside of what everyone else is doing. There's a million agencies approaching US sellers, but if you speak French or Spanish or German, then reaching out to those companies, there's a lot more trust in there.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and actually one thing that I had in mind. I haven't actually started doing this properly, but I would love to create a network of agencies across different areas where Amazon is present. So you know, amazon it's in Emirates, it's in Japan, so it is in other parts of the world. So I think that, especially smaller, independent agencies, it would make sense to create a network among ourselves. So if I have a client that wants to expand to Japan and obviously I don't know the customs of japan as much as someone who's local, so I'd love to create a network where we can pass over my clients if they want to expand to other parts of the globe where it's a bit peculiar, uh, to understand the culture, uh, of the country itself.
Speaker 2:
I love it. And yeah, I mean, I think we have 250 or so agency partners, so if you ever need anything like that, feel free to reach out to us. We can put you in touch with someone in most marketplaces who can, or even if you want to build your network, we can help you. Awesome Cheers, john Love it. So now you've you did Helium 10. Was that Kevin King who did that training?
Speaker 1:
now you've. You did helium 10. Was that kevin king? Who? Who did that training? Yeah, kevin king is part of many web, of many videos indeed, but I think it's bradley, uh, the person that it's the main. It's the main person.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, absolutely, kevin king yeah right, so you learn from the guys and now you know, then you learn on sell on amazon. So how did you kind of hone your skills and get better over time once you've got your training?
Speaker 1:
So experience, right? I mean, what else can you do if not actually selling products? And I guess these are good ones. One of the things that I found always funny is that I think actually Kevin King one of the things that he said in the beginning is to stay away from supplements when you launch on Amazon, because they're very peculiar in the sense that you need to avoid certain keywords like, for instance, if you have something that helps you against the flu, you cannot say that on Amazon, right? You cannot say that it helps against the cold. So they're quite tricky, and obviously that was the first client that we landed. So I I started learning, trying to avoid all of the cholesterol words, all of these words. So I guess, learning by trying something hard, of course, it's one way of getting experience, and we managed to.
Speaker 1:
Since the very beginning, we tried to get as many clients as possible in different areas, so from alcoholic beverages, supplements, food, toys, electronics, so you have all these different certifications that you need for each niche, all the logics that are part of these products.
Speaker 1:
So I guess, trying to explore as many areas within Amazon as possible and also trying to use all the tools that Amazon offers, try to get in touch with Amazon as much as you can, especially, I mean, obviously, when you're small. You don't have a point of contact right straight away within Amazon that you can talk to, so participating in as many webinars that amazon does. Sometimes here in italy, they do events in their headquarters in milan. So, even though we're not that close to them, try to go there as much as you can, because when you, at the end of the day, although amazon is a massive corporations right, uh, it's made up of people. So if you manage to become friends with somebody within Amazon, then it starts to get a bit easier. They might point you in the right direction. So I guess these are the ways that we've built our experience.
Speaker 2:
I love that. I think there's two big takeaways there for me anyway, which is one learn by doing. So, you know, take on as many clients or do as many niches as possible so that you can learn as quickly as possible through breadth of experience. And, yeah, meeting the people. So you know I'm going to conferences. You know we usually exhibit at prosper show in vegas in february, march, march I this year, and you know we're trying to get to more shows as well. So I think, meeting people, meeting industry experts and meeting Amazon themselves. You know, as you said once, you know people inside. It's not the way to do things, but it always helps because nobody wants to see people they know like and trust.
Speaker 1:
Exactly.
Speaker 2:
Silly reasons.
Speaker 1:
Exactly exactly.
Speaker 1:
Recently, we've been to a fair I think the word in English is fair, I hope it is, but there is a massive marketplace fair in Milan where obviously Amazon is there as well, even the other marketplaces.
Speaker 1:
So even bringing some of our, we have some potential new clients that are still thinking about joining Amazon. Because, even though some of our, we have some potential new clients that are still thinking about joining Amazon, because, even though it's massive, I guess we still need to teach people why there is the need of approaching this marketplace. So even bringing physically this potential new clients to meet with our partner within Amazon not our partners, but the people we know within Amazon creates more bonding both toward the client and toward Amazon. That she's you bringing some potential new business for them. Because I mean these people in Amazon, they have their own KPIs, right, they need to have, I don't know, advertising spent per year or total turnover that they need to manage. So if you can understand this and try to help them get their KPIs, reach their KPIs, then they tend to be a bit nicer when you need to ask for some help.
Speaker 2:
no, yeah, 100%, and we're actually an Amazon partner agency now as well. So you know, it's great to bring people in and they get free. You know you can get reps, you can get all sorts of other stuff. But, especially as you start growing your relationship with Amazon, they'll start getting your clients more and more perks as you bring new people onto the platform.
Speaker 1:
Exactly exactly.
Speaker 2:
Super, super cool, awesome. So we always ask all of our clients if they have a controversial take. So that means, is there any kind of debatable or controversial opinion you hold in the e-commerce industry? And they call it a hot take in the US, but I've never heard that in America. So what's a controversial take?
Speaker 1:
in america. So what's the controversial take? So I guess that, right now, uh, the two main ones that have been happening, uh, to us they're quite old, the topics they're not brand new, but I think they're hot right now. So, of course, number one, I would say, is negotiations with amazon, especially if we refer to the 1p right to the to the vendor accounts. So we understand that Amazon needs to take care of their margins. Obviously, everyone needs to take care of their margins, right, and so we noticed, though, that they can be quite aggressive in how they negotiate, especially depending on who they're negotiating with, and it happened to us a few times that, weirdly enough, during the negotiation period, the buy box actually disappeared on, actually, one of the best selling products of one of our clients, and they didn't just give the buy box to one of the resellers. Actually, that rectangle that's on the right hand side completely disappeared, and this has an impact on sales, right.
Speaker 1:
So we completely understand that Amazon has its own scraping tools right To check the price of your products on other online retailers, and they need to match it right. Amazon wants to be the place where you actually go and find the best price. That's not always the case, but that's what they aim to do, right? So we understand that, as a vendor, when you negotiate with Amazon, you're not just negotiating with Amazon. You need to understand where your products are sold online and you need to take care of your distribution. You need to understand that your price has to be coherent across all channels that you have, and this is not always the case.
Speaker 1:
Sometimes there are brands that are too big to have complete control over every single place where their product is sold, right, because they can be selling to a reseller that then sells the product again to another online retailer, so this is not easy to check. However, we find very annoying and very aggressive from Amazon to actually take away the buy box during these negotiations, especially because, if you don't have the AVS service, if you don't have a vendor manager, and unfortunately you can only talk with the customer service Every time, you receive a different answer on why they removed the buy box. They're not this is my opinion, keep in mind, right, and everyone has its own opinion, but we believe that they're not completely transparent when they reply to these questions, so this is something that I find fairly annoying. What do you think, john? Did it come up to you as well in your talks.
Speaker 2:
I've seen that many, many times buy box disappearing, you get template. If you go to customer service, as you know, you'll get templates back saying you don't comply with one of Amazon's many policies, whether that's your seller return rate, whether that's price matching somewhere on the internet which they've scraped, which they don't tell you where. It's uh, very frustrating and very difficult yeah, it is.
Speaker 1:
So right now for many of these clients we're trying to check to see if the third party option makes sense for them. Not every time, though, right, because if you are a B2B brand, you're not used of the, even just the accounting of the B2C stream, right, taking care of all of the invoices, the receipts at the end of the month. So you need to check the economics if it is economically sustainable to move to the 3P, and it's not always the case, because, especially if you use FBA, if you sell a product that I guess I bought in this, but if the price is less than 15, 20 euros, that might not be the best option because you still need to pay for advertising the 15% commission that Amazon takes FBA. I mean, it sums up quite easily no. So it's not always the choice, but we tend to evaluate this as an option to not be locked into the first P Amazon necessity. I don't know if this makes sense in English.
Speaker 2:
And actually I've talked to at least two or three other agencies because now agency is a different word um, who've seen that as a problem and solved it for their clients by becoming a distributor. So you know they either take consignment you know, consignment's the dream because there's no flow issues um, you know they do 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 million a year just through a bunch of brands. So then they, they sell risk-free.
Speaker 1:
Basically it's called merchant of records. Correct this, this method of selling? Yeah, we're studying this as well. Uh, you just need to check the economics right, because you take a commission, amazon takes a commission, the logistics take a commission, so it has to make sense. You need to check the economics right, because you take a commission, amazon takes a commission, the logistics take a commission, so it has to make sense. You need to have big margins for that model, I believe, to work. But yeah, absolutely it's a good way, because the way also brands. One of the other issues of becoming a seller is that sometimes you don't want your resellers to know that you're actually actively selling on Amazon. Right, it is a very short-lived lie, but sometimes brands do not want to show the resellers and obviously, if you become a seller, it becomes like you can see either in your VAT or in the name of the store, so you can check who's selling. So, indeed, the Merchant of Records method would actually solve this issue.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I love it and very cool. I'm looking forward to hearing about you hitting 10, 20, 30 million euros a year, doing that for your clients.
Speaker 2:
Me too, man, me too. So, yeah, thank you so much for being here and this was an amazing discussion. So thanks, marco. Thanks for sharing your story, for your opinions on how you see the world. You know the Amazon world. So thank you to all of our listeners who've been here, and if you want to connect with you, they want to talk about you know, whether it's selling in Italy or selling in Europe. What's the best way to get in touch with you, marco?
Speaker 1:
I would say, go on LinkedIn and look for, indeed, m-a-r-c-o.
Speaker 2:
So, marco, without the S at the end, and then Santesso, all right. Well, thanks so much for being here, marco, and it's been a great episode.
Speaker 1:
Thank you, john. You made it easy, though it was very comfortable. Thank you, john, very appreciated.