Amazon FBA Wholesale For Beginners Step by Step Full Course - Checklist For Exclusive Brand Deals

In this blog post, I am going to share with you a checklist for exclusive brand deals. And the goal behind this blog post, is to help you, if you are interested in getting exclusive brand deals, and some of the things Kev has personally been thinking about, as we move into the future of Amazon. 

What Are Business Models?

There are a number of different business models, which you can take action on in building your eCommerce business, your Amazon FBA business, and these business models span from retail arbitrage (going into stalls and scanning items), online arbitrage (Going online on different sites, and comparing the products that you can store at discount or clearance, on offer onto the Amazon marketplace, to see if you can flip those products and sell them for a profit), then there is also wholesale (Where you can go to a trade show, or you can open different wholesale accounts, general wholesalers, whether that is a toy wholesaler, a grocery wholesaler, or a general wholesaler which sells different products in different categories. Then, there is the traditional private label (Private label is when you are launching a product from scratch, coming up with the product idea, coming up with that the opportunity is. You are going to try finding a supplier, whether that is locally, in the country you are living in, or you are going overseas, trying to find a supplier there). 

Exclusive Brand Deals

But, there is also what we call the exclusive brand deal business model. This is in between the wholesale and the private label. It's a private label version, but instead of you actually creating the brand from scratch, coming up with the name, coming up with the product idea, coming up with trying to find the supplier, trying to find and negotiating prices, getting prototypes made, samples made - this is an exclusive brand deal, when you are working with a brand, they've actually got the brand, and you are going to help them. They are going to go into an agreement, that you are the one allowed to sell their product. This is a very exciting opportunity. If for example, you are thinking that you like private label, but you don't want to potentially risk going overseas, and trying to develop a product from scratch, whether it is going to be successful, you may put thousands of pounds within that product, and it might never be successful.

Exclusive brand deals are incredible, because if you think about the online and how many brands that are out there in the world, there are millions. There are so many people creating their own brands, there are so many established brands, there are many influencers, who have traffic, they may be selling on Shopify, and they may already be on Amazon.

There are products on Amazon by brands, who may not have the control on Amazon,  There may be multiple sellers on Amazon, for that particular product, and they've lost that control of price, they've lost control of being able to control the quality of the listing, and everything that goes into selling their products on Amazon, or they may not even know about Amazon - they don't have the skills to launch on Amazon. They have heard of Amazon, they know that it's an opportunity, but they may have never taken that action.

So, this checklist is going to be very useful if you are looking at trying to find a potential exclusive brand deal. 

1. Necessity Of Trademark 

The first one is, the brand that you have found has a trademark, or they are willing to register the trademark. A big part of an exclusive brand deal, is going through the brand registration - the brand registry, where you are able to to show Amazon that you can register their brand and their trademark on Amazon, via your seller central account, and you're able to prove that to Amazon, by sending a verification code. This is where you have built that relationship with the brand, you have registered the brand in your seller central account, and then, Amazon will come back to you and ask for a verification code. This will then go to the trademark holder.

If you have built that relationship and they have sent you that code, you submit that to Amazon, then they will approve that trademark over your account.

2. Opportunity to Improve

The second one is that they are currently on Amazon and you are looking at that brand's product, and there is opportunity for it to be improved. Using your skills on everything that you have learnt on the Amazon marketplace, everything from how the Amazon listings work, the optimisation of titles, the quality of images, the bullet points, the product description, the review and ratings, the sellers within that product, if there are 10-25 sellers within that product - you can already see that this brand is on Amazon, and there is room to improve the brand. A big part of the exclusive brand deal is to build that relationship, and through building that relationship, that is the value u can present - it is the value that you are able to give to that brand and educate and share with them, how Amazon works and how you can help them. 

Or the brand is currently not on Amazon. If they have a social media presence, and you can see that there is a brand that is on Instagram, a brand on Facebook, or they have a YouTube channel, or you can see that they have presence, and that they have a smaller or large audience - they may be an established brand, but they're not on Amazon, this gives you the opportunity to try providing them with the value, that if you were able to launch them on Amazon, you can then present to them, that this is further exposure of the brand, you can become their expert, you can become their exclusive seller on Amazon. There are going to be brands out there that are not aware of the brand registration, or the brand registry. There are going to be brands that are a bit cautious of Amazon, they may be thinking that Amazon is where brands lose control or that Amazon is where they lose control of their brand, in terms of the image of the brand, the price of the brand, the prices tank on Amazon - there are many fears that brand owners have when it comes to Amazon. But what you can do is actually present them with the idea and with the proof, that you can protect them, help them, optimise them, and be a part of their business, in a professional relationship where you are on their side, where you can grow and expand their brand and keep them protected. You are now both incentivised for the long term success of that particular product. 

So they are either on or off Amazon.

3. Use Your Skills

Going off the skills that you know, that if the brand is on Amazon, you can see that there are clearly gaps, and you can see that there is no brand registry, you can see that there may be 10-20 different sellers, you can see that the price is fluctuating or dropping down, you can see that the title isn't optimised, you can see that the images aren't the best, you can see that the bullet points aren't optimised, you can see that the description isn't through the content manager. When you go through the brand registry, and you become approved to sell that brand, it opens another side of Amazon, that you wouldn't actually have without the trademark. And one of them is making the listings so much better with listings, with images, with bullet points and higher quality of the listing. 

You can see these gaps, you can see that there are ratings on these products, and they may have 1 or 2 star ratings, and these people, the customers, are giving valuable feedback on that particular product, and possibly, no one is responding back to them. Nobody is giving and helping these customers that have trusted the brand, and they're not happy with something - not being looked after, which is not a good thing for the brand.

You using your skills, everything that you have learnt, maybe your online arbitrage skills, your retail arbitrage skills, and all the different tools you know how to use; from Keepa, Helium 10 etc.

So, you have all these different skills which you can present to the brand, and it will take time to build that relationship - potentially months, it might never even get there, but if you can break down the barriers, of breaking down that trust and showing them that you are there for the long term, and that you are there for them, the conversation will move closer and closer for you to explain to them, how an exclusive brand deal would work, and how you can be approved to sell their product through their trademark registration, through your seller central account. Then, they are just working with you, you are able to place orders with them, and they basically become your wholesale supplier, where you are able to place orders, you've got no competition, you can go into ppc, you can do keyword analysis, you is so much good stuff you can do, when it comes to an exclusive brand deal point of view.

4. Brand Presence 

In an ideal world, they would already have a brand presence across online, whether that is through their own website or through social media, they will have some sort of audience. They will hopefully have an email list, through their own site. The reason this is very powerful, is because this should hopefully help you increase the likelihood of success of that exclusive brand deal. 

What will happen is when you launch or take over that product, what is happening is, you want to give it the best you possibly can within the success of that launch of revitalisation of that listing. If they have got outside presence, whether that is via Instagram, Facebook, their own email list, or website, when you have gone through all of that work, their listing and you have done everything, you are able to work with them and do a marketing campaign to send out on their social media, to send out on their email list, to put it on their website. 

And what you are going to do is drive lots of traffic from outside of Amazon and Amazon is going to love you for that, they are going to love that listing, because Amazon's goal is to bring people into the Amazon marketplace, so that they are making orders. If Amazon see that and can track that, they are going to be pushing that listing, the brand's listing, the product's listing, up the rank. So you are going to be able to start getting sales, not just from ppc, but also organically, and that's the goal.

If there are negative ratings or positive ratings, they are communicating with their customers, within the brand, on the Amazon marketplace.

Another one, is that you can see that there is demand and competition for that product or that range of products on the Amazon marketplace. So, depending on what the brand is selling, depending on the type of product, go out on Amazon and see what the competition actually is. If you can see that there are competitors out there, that have got great products, there are best selling products, they may be selling lots of units every day and every month, you can see all of this via the tools that you have, whether you go onto Helium 10 and do some keyword analysis, you can see that there are people searching that, and there volume of that search term. You want to see whether there is competition and customers looking for those types of products. In this case, if they are not on Amazon already, you are going to want to launch onto a marketplace, where you can compete with other listings which are getting sales, and if you can do everything better.

This has just been a number of things that Kev wanted to share with you, some of the things he is looking at from an exclusive brand deal point of view. Then, it is a case of trying to reach out to them, provide value to them, and share and educate them how the Amazon marketplace works, and then over time, you may have to go through multiple meetings.

You need to have meetings and really build that relationship. It takes time, you have got to present that value, but over time, if you can build that rapport, and you can give lots of great value without anything in return, then they may start opening the door up to you, trusting in you, knowing that you know what you are talking about, and that you can protect them and grow their brand.

If you are a part of one of our packages, we now offer wholesale lists for those who express interest in wholesale. Sign up now to one of our packages here: https://www.systemisefulfilment.co.uk/pricing

Or if you would like more information regarding other packages and what else we have to offer, for example our sourcing lists and personal development plans, then click the image above to schedule a 30 minute consultation call now, with our business development manager :-) 

Further reading:

Kev's Honest Thoughts On Amazon FBA in 2021

Amazon FBA Wholesale for Beginners: Phone Call Script & Sourcing Through Stock Lists

Amazon FBA Wholesale for Beginners STEP BY STEP Full Course

How to Find Wholesale Suppliers for Your Amazon FBA Business?