From kettles to your kitchen: How to build insurgent brands on Amazon
July 12, 2021
As a new, insurgent brand in the small appliances and housewares space, Chefman faced many common challenges experienced by new brands in similar categories. In 2016, they decided to start selling on Amazon with a small line of kitchen products. With the help of Amazon Advertising, Chefman has been able to connect directly with customers while experiencing exponential growth.
Harnessing the impact of connecting with customers, Chefman was able to use Amazon’s customer reviews to elevate their customer experience and move quickly with new product development. For example, after reviewing customer feedback on its Perfect Pour Volcano Waffle Maker—a kitchen and dining best seller in Q4 of 2017—it found that customers were craving additional products that incorporated the unique, simplistic design of the Perfect Pour. This provided Chefman with the necessary insights to expand its Perfect Pour offering and accelerate product development, truncating the standard product lifecycle. This helped them introduce two new products, designed and developed solely with their customers in mind.
It quickly became evident what a transformative effect Amazon had on our business from top to bottom. Amazon is taking away the inefficiencies, and allowing brands to do what they do best—to create a customer experience that’s ahead of the rest. Having the ability to communicate directly with our audience has been very effective and allows us to create innovative solutions in our space.
– Ralph Newhouse, Founder and CEO, Chefman
Looking to further scale its success on Amazon, Chefman started leveraging Amazon Advertising to further increase brand awareness and reach more customers. Its investments in Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands helped drive an uptick in sales on Amazon, and using Stores and video in search helped Chefman engage new customers by telling its brand story, communicating its vision, and providing customers with helpful and actionable tips, including recipes and videos on how to use its products. Today, Chefman uses Amazon Advertising as a natural complement to its overall strategy on Amazon, helping it to expand its audience and utilize real-time feedback to improve the shopping and product experience for its customers.
Serving up more information to customers
We’ve observed over the years that one of the best ways we can help customers discover products they want and need among Amazon’s vast selection is by enabling brands to tell their stories to customers directly—be it on their detail pages, where they can provide rich and detailed product information, or in Stores, where they can curate experiences around their full product portfolio. This can be particularly impactful for insurgent brands. Chefman is putting this into practice—it was able to enhance customers’ engagement with its brand by creating engaging recipe and product videos.
Small and medium businesses are a part of Amazon’s DNA
Chefman is just one example of a business utilizing Amazon to help build its brand and expand its product offerings. Amazon works with millions of businesses of all sizes, from around the world. In fact, more than half of the items purchased on Amazon come from small and medium-sized businesses. Amazon has a long history of leveraging its scale and resources to empower businesses and entrepreneurs to discover innovative tools and programs that help them grow. For example, with Fulfillment by Amazon, businesses of all sizes can choose to have Amazon ship their products directly to customers and offer Amazon Prime benefits, including free shipping and easy returns for orders placed on Amazon. Together with Amazon Advertising, these tools and resources enable small and medium-sized businesses to build their brand and enhance product visibility around the world.
If you have questions about Amazon Advertising, reach out to your account executive or visit our site to learn more.