The 9th May Incident in Pakistan A Turning Point in History.pptx
Amazon Strategies January 2019 | Stella Rising
1. Stella Rising x Digiday
Consumers and Amazon: Analyzing Path to Purchase
Rina Yashayeva, VP Marketplace Strategy
2. The Agency for Rising Stars
Stella Rising is the leading marketing and media agency for
spirited, high-growth brands and service companies. Through
advanced research, intelligent strategy, and unparalleled Amazon
execution, we connect brands with the consumers who will love
them.
4. Jeff Bezos, on Amazon’s top principles for success:
“
The first and by far the most important one is customer obsession as
opposed to competitor obsession…I have seen over and over again
companies talk about being customer focused, but really when I pay
close attention to them I believe they are competitor focused, and it’s a
completely different mentality.
FULL FOCUS: CONSUMER
Source: Business Insider
5. While nearly half of consumers
start digital shopping searches
on Amazon, that number is
exceptionally high for Prime
members. Of those consumers
who use Prime at least weekly,
eight in 10 start their digital
shopping searches on
Amazon.
WHERE THEY
START:
CONSUMERS
ON AMAZON
Source: eMarketer January 2020, Mintel , The State of the
eCommerce Industry– US – January 2019
Where Do US Internet Users Typically Start When Digitally Shopping
for a Product?
% of respondents, June 2019
49%
22%
13%
16% I rarely or never digitally shop
Note: n=4,969 ages 13+
Source: CivicScience as cited in company blog, Oct 17,2019; eMarketer 251136
Amazon
Google
Other
The consumer focus has driven:
122M
U.S. Prime customers
(49% of the population)
$1.4K
(average spend for Amazon Prime
users annually, vs $625 non-Prime)
6. Speaking with the Consumer
Stella Rising proprietary research community
7. • Proprietary research community
• 25,000 women
• Insightful source of first party qualitative insights
• Brand new research into how women are shopping for
beauty on Amazon
Demographics
Parental Status:
32% Have no kids
68% are parents
Ages:
4% 18-24
33% 25-34
54% 35-54
19% 55+
Marital Status:
71% Living with or
married to a significant
other
26% Single
3% other or prefer not
to answer
9. BEAUTY DISCOVERY IS HAPPENING ONLINE
Source: Glimmer Survey 2019
Social Media Online ReviewsFamily/friends
(in-person or
social)
Blogs and
influencers
Email from a
store
61%
35%
56%
33%
28%
Online is a trusted destination for beauty
10. of women prefer to stick to what
they know when it comes to buying
beauty
Source: Glimmer Survey 2019
SHE LIKES TO DISCOVER
66% of women express willingness or open
excitement toward trying new beauty
products
9%
only
11. HER BEAUTY RESEARCH STARTS WITH AMAZON
When researching
beauty products
online, where does she
look?
Source: Glimmer Survey 2019
When women are doing beauty
research online, they list Amazon
as the #1 source, surpassing store
websites, brand websites, and social
media.
Amazon
Brand websites
Store websites
(i.e. Sephora.com)
Brand-sponsored social
media accounts
58%
56%
52%
52%
13. UNDERSTANDING IN-STORE
Of the physical stores where consumers purchase beauty products:
82%
81%
68%
63%
65%
58%
64%
57%
2019 2018
Source: Glimmer Survey 2019 & 2018
14. OMNI-CHANNEL BEAUTY SHOPPERS
Source: Glimmer Survey 2019
83%
of beauty shoppers
are omnichannel
Why do you tend to shop for beauty products at this store
most often?
BEST PRICES ON PRODUCTS
• Walmart • Target • Dollar Stores • Drugstores
PRODUCT SAMPLING & TESTING
• Ulta Beauty • Sephora • Department Stores
Where else is she shopping in store?
1. Drugstores
2. Department Stores
3. Dollar Stores
16. A HIGH (AND RISING) MAJORITY
SHOPS ON AMAZON
Of the websites where consumers purchase beauty products:
2019 2018
75%
71%
57%
54%
56%
54%
49%
47%
41%
36%
41%
35%
DTC
Source: Glimmer Survey 2019 & 2018
17. What are the top reasons that beauty shoppers
Purchase on Amazon?
18. COVENIENCE ABOVE ALL
For the Amazon respondents, when asked why they shop for their
beauty products online as opposed to a physical store:
SHIP IT, PLEASE
When asked, why do you buy beauty products at Amazon
rather than another site?
54%(Convenience) –
“I can shop any time of day/night
37%
I can find a wider variety online
45%
Better prices online
46%
fast shipping
45%
Inexpensive / free
shipping
31%
Can shop for
other things, too
OTHER REASONS
Best product pictures and videos:
7%
I can use the “Buy Now”
option/one-click ordering: 9%
I can look at “store” pages for
each brand on the site: 9%
WHY AMAZON?
Source: Glimmer Survey 2019
20. GETTING SPECIFIC FROM THE START
Ready, Set, Search: How do they find their beauty products on Amazon?
58% Go to Amazon and search specifically for their brand of beauty products
54% Go to Amazon and search for the category
27% See brand on social media and then go to Amazon
26% Use the navigation bar and scroll
18% Go to my brand’s “store” page and browse
of customers shop Amazon through Search
Source: Glimmer Survey 2019
72%
21. &
READY, SET,
SEARCH
essential oils mascara blackhead remover diffusers for essential
oils teeth whitening face mask lip balm gel nail polish oil
diffuser essential oil diffuser scrunchies for hair beard trimmer
curling iron shampoo and conditioner jade roller waterpik
makeup brushes makeup bag makeup brush set shampoo bath
bombs dry shampoo electric toothbrush concealer hair clips
wigs cerave body wash tweezers eye cream eyeshadow palette
lavender essential oil nail clippers tea tree oil sunscreen lace
front wigs nose hair trimmer toothpaste mario badescu waxing
kit toner vitamin c serum diffuser scrunchies flat iron eyelashes
chapstick beauty blender derma roller hair straightener hair ties
wet brush castor oil bare minerals witch hazel perfumes for
women cetaphil nail polish beard oil blow dryer makeup jojoba
oil aloe vera gel hair dryers hair dryer lipstick pore vacuum
purple shampoo the ordinary lip gloss bb cream moroccan oil
hair brush human hair wigs hair extensions korean skin care
argan oil eyebrow pencil foot peel it cosmetics mouthwash
dove
21
22. Which type of information is helpful when
researching beauty products?
23. NEXT STEPS
When you find a product you’re interested in,
what is your next step?
Source: Glimmer Community Survey 2019
Content is King for
Influencing
Purchase on
Amazon
Consumers are Paying
More Attention to content
of all kinds: reviews,
images, ingredients, labels
Read product reviews
Read product descriptions
Look at product pictures
Read the ingredient list
78%
63%
50%
40%
40%
49%
62%
78%
2019 2018
25. PAYING ATTENTION ON AMAZON
There are certain products
I will not buy on Amazon:
Source: Glimmer Community Survey 2019
How much do you agree or disagree with the
following?
I pay attention to who fulfills
my order on Amazon:
I always get the lowest
price on Amazon:
Strongly Agree 32%
Agree 4%
Neutral 23%
Disagree 14%
Strongly Disagree 15%
Strongly Agree 42%
Agree 20%
Neutral 19%
Disagree 10%
Strongly Disagree 9%
Strongly Agree 26%
Agree 29%
Neutral 33%
Disagree 7%
Strongly Disagree 4%
26. ______________
RESEARCH SUMMARY
• This second year of our research study cemented the role of Amazon and
digital in beauty for her discovery and conversion
• The majority of beauty shopping happens in-store, but when it comes to E-
Commerce, Amazon increasingly wins
• Convenience and fast-shipping will be major motivators for todays’
beauty consumer now and on the go-forward
Hi everyone, I am Rina Yashayeva, I am the VP of Marketplace Strategy at Stella Rising. Prior to joining the agency, I was at Amazon for 3 years, working across vendor management and business development in Beauty, Health and Personal Care. At Stella Rising, I lead Amazon strategy, combining my previous internal Amazon experience with the agency’s digital expertise. At the agency, we optimize, advertise, and manage your business on Amazon, aligning with your brand’s holistic E-commerce and digital strategy.
A little bit about us – Stella Rising is a digital marketing and media agency, focused on high-growth consumer brands. we excel at growing brands across every product type, with a focus on beauty and CPG, such as FAB, Jane iredale, colrescience and wet and wild. With deep consumer and industry insight, we build smart media and business strategies that help brands thrive.
Today, I’d like to talk about one of the most important elements of the Amazon ecosystem, and a key factor of Amazon’s success – the consumer.
For those not familiar with the culture, Amazon is guided by 14 key principles, known as leadership principles, and the very first one is – customer obsession. Everything Amazon does is to service the customer. Their goal is to provide the best at the best price, with the best customer experience. Therefore they have adopted this customer first mentality, to the point where If you ask Amazon who their competitors are, they will say that they don’t focus on competition, but instead – focus on the consumer as a way to win. As we see from this quote from Jeff Bezos, customer obsession is his main mentality.
(T)he No. 1 thing that has made us successful by far is obsessive compulsive focus on the customer as opposed to obsession over the competitor," Bezos said in a talk at the Economic Club of Washington on September 13.
Focusing on what customers want or need has driven many of Amazon's most profitable business moves.
Shape the future of amazon
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-jeff-bezos-success-customer-obsession-2018-9
https://www.inc.com/marla-tabaka/jeff-bezos-says-these-4-principles-are-key-to-amazons-success-they-can-work-for-you-too.html
Amazon’s customer obsession has led to their ecom dominance, establishing them as the top Ecommerce retailer in the country.
By being so customer obsession, Amazon has built a subset of super loyal consumers who are even willing to pay a premium to use the platform. Prime consumers are 50% of the country and spending twice as much as non prime. When they start their search, 8 out of 10 prime consumers shop on Amazon. This exceeds the standard search of 49%. Amazon has established itself not only as a retailer for the consumer, but as a search engine. Half of all searches start on Amazon, as we can see in the latest eMarketer study.
Given the importance of the consumer to Amazon, and how they have design their business to cater to the consumer, we did our own research on the customer. Specifically on Beauty. Beauty is the second fastest category +23% last year. Considering the success that beauty brands have found on Amazon, paired with the increase of the platform’s overall beauty business, we decided to conduct a study that focuses specifically on shopping for beauty on Amazon.
We leveraged our proprietary research community called Glimmer, that consists of 25k women – every day women who love shopping for beauty online. At stella rising, We utilize Glimmer as a source for first party research and insights, into purchase behavior, research studies, or even personalized surveys or missions for our clients.
To begin, We’ve seen the majority of women like to learn about beauty, especially new beauty, so we asked about the process of discovering new beauty products.
With it’s photo-friendly environment, social media is a prime platform for discovering eye-catching, on-trend beauty brands. We found she’s looking everywhere, underscoring the importance of an omnichannel approach when reaching the beauty consumer. She takes other people’s opinions seriously, even if it’s from a stranger who shares the same interest in a product, showcasing that online is more acceptable for learning about beauty.
She is open to newness – in a category as ever-changing as beauty, the consumer is following along, and is willing and excited to try new products rather than sticking to her routine.
When we asked her, where does she research for beauty products online, we got an interesting answer. Amazon is the leading source for researching beauty online, despite the fact that she shops in-store at specialty beauty retailers, signaling that Amazon is a core element in the entire beauty buying experience. So, let’s take a look at how Amazon fits into the overall path to purchase for beauty.
Before we get into why she loves Amazon, we took a step back into brick and mortar to find out where she’s shopping in store, aka all the places that Jeff Bezos doesn’t consider competition
Walmart takes the lead at 82% of consumers shopping for beauty. Ulta, Sephora and Target are pretty neck and neck
Pink is the latest data from 2019, purple is the prior year.
It isn’t surprising that when Amazon looks for the brands that they are most interesting in adding to their assortment, one of my previous job was business development - they look to these 4 retailers, focusing on the middle two as the qualification for Luxury Beauty on Amazon.
Although they are in store, 83% of beauty shoppers are omnichannel, shopping both bricks and clicks. We found that Best prices motivate consumers to shop at Walmart, Target, Dollar Stores, and Drugstores, and they go to Ulta, Sephora, and Department Stores for product sampling & testing. This data goes to support brands do off-Amazon matters just as much on amazon. This is crucial for any brand trying to grow their Amazon business while at the same time maintaining presence in any of the above retailers. Rather than viewing other retailers as competitors, The most successful brands are those that use Amazon as a platform to support the balance of their E-commerce business and even B&M. and what they find – amazon boost their offline sales. As you build brand awareness in Ulta, Sephora, Walgreens, etc, your Amazon business reaps the benefits,.
Back to Amazon
3/4 of our audience said they are shopping on Amazon for beauty, surpassing both the mass and the luxury retailers. Many ppl think of amazon in a vacuum, but it should be part of the greater ecom ecosystem rather than operate in silo. She could be discovering at sephora or ulta for the first time, and buying on Amazon to replenish. Or reading reviews while standing in a store, and still buying in store.
Because most women said they shop online AND in-store for beauty products, we inquired about their motivation for buying certain beauty brands on Amazon, as opposed to going to that brand’s physical store,.
First, we narrowed the respondents to those who reported buying beauty on Amazon. Then, we asked why they shop for those beauty products online vs. the brand’s physical store, and found the top factors all tie into convenience – she can shop night or day, wider variety, and best prices only – all things that Amazon prides itself on. Amazon’s price strategy is to price match to have the best price
Now that we know their reasons for turning to Amazon instead of a brand’s physical store, we wanted to ask them about online-only shopping: WHY AMAZON.COM over other beauty retail sites and brand websites? The answers show that women are attracted to Amazon because of the shipping perks, She’s purchasing it on Amazon over a store website, even if it’s a brand she loves.
We’ve already learned that women are definitely on Amazon, they love Amazon for shopping in general, and we know they’re on Amazon looking for beauty products. How is she searching?
Quick survey – who has ever shopped for a product by clicking into the navigation, then selecting the category?
Amazon is a search-heavy site, not browse heavy, 72% of consumers search that way
They start by getting specific by searching for the brand they are looking for, but this is followed very closely to just shopping for the category.
When analyzing the top searches for beauty on amazon, month after month, the top searches are usually non brand, she just wants black mascara or a night cream or a red lipstick, and you can sway her with the brand.
To prove this, I pulled the latest search terms
Brand highlighted in pink
Customers shop by category first
Then brand
Majority terms here are nonbranded, very few are brand
We all know that when you find a product you like, you don’t always immediately purchase it—the beauty consumer really does her research, and then fact-checks all of the products to make sure it aligns with her findings.
Everything listed here can be found on a product detail page filled with engaging, stellar content. She is going straight to the reviews before anything else.
90% of consumers state that reviews influence their buying decision. Min number is 15 reviews at 3.5 stars
Descriptions – she is reading them. Pictures – add in infographics to highlight your features and benefit in the images themselves. Content on the product page is especially important for beauty due to the trends happening right now- clean beauty, vegan beauty, free-from claims, natural, organic- consumers want a lot, and they’re looking for confirmation. Treat everything on your product page like content – the consumer makes their decision at the point of detail page.
Besides content, what else is she noticing?
About a third of participants say they are certain products she still won’t buy on Amazon. Luxury or Prestige beauty used to be at the top of that list, and that is the barrier Amazon continues to attempt to break.
Is she paying attention – over 60% agree to some extend that they pay attention to who is fulfilling – meaning they understand if the product is coming from Amazon, or a brand name they’ve heard of, or a random third party called Rina’s Beauty. This is a key stat in helping determine your brand’s positioning on the platform.
Lowest price – price matching
To conclude, her beauty path to purchase not only includes Amazon, but Amazon plays an imperative role. She is not only buying, but researching and learning, taking advantage of the convenience that Amazon offers. Whether you are already on Amazon or still considering, I hope this research cements the importance Amazon holds as it relates to your consumer.
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Differentiate yourself from the competition by having something unique to offer, solving a problem, improving on an existing product, etc. Find that thing you do better or differently than other sellers and put it at the forefront of your listing.
Work with an Amazon consultant to optimize your listings’ titles, bullet points, descriptions, Enhanced Brand Content and keyword banks to achieve greater conversions while optimizing PPC campaigns.
Develop a brand, if you have not done so already. Get a trademark, build a website and establish a brand following and awareness, both on and off Amazon.
Invest in marketing and promotion of your product on and off the platform. Be ready to spend real ad dollars to compete in an increasingly crowded and competitive marketplace.
Dedicated resource
Sell aside dollars for marketing
After all the hard work you’ve put in, make sure it’s all reflecting on the front end. The most simple advice I can give is to actually shop the site. It seems pretty obvious, but it’s very much overlooked when we are so focused on running the business on the back end. Every week at Amazon, we would have a “Walk the Store” meeting – everyone sits in the conf room and just browses the site from the customer’s point of view – and in true Amazonian fashion, we tried to find as many errors and mistakes as possible, etc. Brands should be doing this for their own pages every day. Take yourself out of your role for a second and Take just 15 mins out of your day to shop from the perspective of the customer – does the pricing make sense? Is the detail page informative? If you search for your product, what are the results that actually show up? You might be surprised what you find.
Thank you so much for joining me as we learned about the Amazon consumer. If you have any questions at all about the research, Amazon in general, or your brand strategy, I will be around. Thank you.