There are many reasons why a retailer would seek an alternative to selling on Amazon and all of them are valid. Love them or hate them, Amazon isn’t going anywhere. Like the river whose name it shares, Amazon frequently changes its direction forcing retailers to adapt, or risk drowning in the flood.
Fortunately, there are ways retailers can avoid selling through Amazon, and it isn’t as scary, or as complicated as you might think.
Build Trust in Your Brand
Thanks to Amazon, small retailers can expand their customer base and capitalize on the global market. However, retailers who choose to sell with Amazon quickly discover just how much of their operations, sales, and marketing efforts are dictated by the online giant.
Retailers choose to sell on Amazon because of the incredible breadth of Amazon’s customer base, logistics network, and shear capability of the platform. Customers buy from Amazon because they trust the company’s reputation.
One way for retailers to avoid selling on Amazon is by growing their own customer base. By building trust in their brand, and establishing personal connections with customers, retailers can garner a massive online following and eliminate the need for Amazon.
There are hundreds of improvements that retailers can make to establish that following. From the website to the packaging, every point of the customer’s journey should make it easy to engage with customers across a variety of sales channels, both online and in-store.
Expand Your Sales Channels
Many retailers choose to sell with Amazon simply because of the number, size, and effectiveness of the company’s sales channels. The quickest and easiest way for a retailer to eliminate their dependence on Amazon is to expand their presence by increasing their sales channels.
However, any “brick and mortar” retailer will tell you that establishing more sales channels can be harder than it sounds. Retailers who are successful, and free of Amazon’s grasp, understand the value of multiple customer touchpoints.
Many retailers have focused their efforts on sales channels like direct-to-consumer sales, social selling, and even peer-to-peer selling wherein brands allow their customers to sell their products directly.
Embrace Logistics
Retailers looking to free themselves of the need to sell on Amazon must first address the elephant in the room, your logistics strategy.
Warehousing and fulfillment is the backbone of your business, because without it your product is not delivered to your customer, and you don’t have a business. The right logistics strategy enables you to Amazon’s high delivery expectations, and support all of your sales channels.
Unfortunately, if you’re relying on traditional supply chain solutions complying with Amazon’s delivery demands can be a challenge, if not impossible. A revamp of your logistics, warehousing and fulfillment operations could give you the freedom you need to not only comply with Amazon’s delivery standards, but free yourself of the need to utilize Amazons network in the first place.
Modern logistics solutions make it easier to scale your network as demand for your product increases. Digital logistics platforms, automated warehouses, and variable data storage make it possible for retailers to create end-to-end supply chain visibility and wrest control of the customer experience away from Amazon.
On-Demand Warehousing and Fulfillment
Similar to how Airbnb provides accommodation for travelers by matching them with homes that were not being used, on-demand warehousing connects retailers in need of storage and distribution to the warehouses and distribution centers that have excess capacity.
On-demand warehousing provides a retailer with warehousing services as, and when required.
The on-demand platform is revolutionizing the warehousing and distribution industry, as t enables businesses to scale back from utilizing excess warehousing and distribution space once the demand for it has dried up.
Thus, empowering retailers to reduce warehousing costs to only the amount that was strictly necessary and drastically reduce excess warehousing and distribution fees.
On-demand warehousing by Flowspace is the solution for retailers who rely on Amazon. Flowspace provides storage, transportation, and all the warehousing services businesses need for their inventory month over month. With no space minimums, retailers can eliminate the issue of overpaying for unneeded space, improve the logistics network, and even avoid selling through Amazon all together. Get a free quote today!
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