Structuring Exclusive Brand Deals Correctly For Your Amazon FBA Business

In this blog post we are going to talk about exclusive brand deals in your Amazon FBA business and specifically how to structure these deals with brands which you are potentially wanting to work with. This comes from a fantastic question which Kev got on the YouTube channel, and it was from Solodolo, and it said this: "I would kill for a video on how to structure your brand exclusives. Especially if you are bringing someone's brand to Amazon for the first time. Who pays for ads and media and what not? Should you take a percentage of sales to create a "we make money when you make money deal". Or should you just wholesale the products and do everything. with the promise of being the only person carrying them on amazon ?"

This is a fantastic comment. This conversation is a really great conversation because it is talking about fundamentally structuring the agreement that you have, and how to structure and position the working relationship which you have with the brand. 

Firstly to sort of discuss what exclusive brand deals is, Kev has got a full video which talks about it in more depth. Check this out below: https://youtu.be/Rq9xx5B1N6w

Exclusive Brand Deals

But just as a sort of summary, exclusivity is essentially like one step behind private label. So if you had your own brand, you were to private label your brand, and you were to launch products within your brand, that is private label. That is you designing, creating, launching a brand of your own. Now, exclusive brand deals is when you may not have a brand yourself, but there are hundreds, thousands, if not tens of thousands of brands out there that have a great brand. They represent a great brand. They may have a small or large social media communities and profiles; They may have got the starting of a fantastic brand or there might be an established brand already. And Exclusivity is all about them giving you the rights to their IP and you've been able to sell their intellectual property through or with them and only you. And that is the power of an exclusive brand deal. The power of that exclusive brand deal is being genuinely invested in the success of their brand. 

If you're the only person that's going to be selling that particular product, then you have the rights for that product. And also the actual IP has gone through potentially your brand registry, through your account, which allows you to essentially be the only exclusive rights seller on that listing which eliminates competition. So there's many, many positives and there's many, many advantages to exclusive branding deals. Having said that, it's also very difficult to secure an exclusive brand deal. And the reason for that is because it's a relationship build. Kev touched on a video talking about how to build relationships with wholesalers. The same principles applies on how to build a relationship with a brand who may not know you. They may or may not be on Amazon right now. They may or may not have a problem on Amazon right now. They may have an issue on Amazon where there is a lot of competition, their pricing is being damaged or their brand is being devalued based on the competition. 

So, exclusive brand deals is a fantastic business model that takes time, but long term it could be incredible. And that's why this whole conversation of how to structure a deal like this - this is why this becomes a fantastic question because it's like. 

Seller Central Account

You have got two options. If you are going to get an exclusivity, you are either going to have the option where they have their own seller central accounts, and you become the owner and consultant to their own seller central account, where you are able to help them build, optimise listings, you are able to help them with keywords, you are able to help them with the performance of sales, replenishment, and stock levels. You are able to help them in their account.

The second option is you having the exclusivity, the IP, in your own seller central account, and therefore, you are able to submit the IP, the trademark registration through your account, and get it registered through Amazon in your account. 

For Kev, when we talk about the long term security for you, the amount of work which you may be doing and going into, Kev would recommend that you lean more towards option two. Option two being part of the structuring, you would have the IP and brand registry via your account.

For the simple reason, if in the short term, you're building a fantastic relationship, you are working hard, you are putting in the hours, you are trying to optimise, you are analysing keywords, traffic, photos, titles, bullet points, and descriptions, and you are doing all of this work, and then what happens if for example, one years time, three years time, whatever it may be, they say to you that they are now removing you from their seller central account? You are going to have an awful lot of security around that.

Come Together As A Party

Another reason and one step back is whenever you are trying to build this relationship, you want to come together as a party of having core values which you both represent, you are long-term focused, very clear, and very honest - working hard. Because if the brand takes off, you win, we win, but it is going to be over the long-term. And if you wanted to structure that in terms of a time period, if you were able to get that into some type agreement. And you may have a clause involved, like a lease for a warehouse. But what you want to do is protect yourself.

What's Next?

Once you have built that relationship and thrashed out the agreement and the rules, you can essentially go into brand registry, you can register the brand, then Amazon is going to want to verify that you have got the authorisation for that, and that they are going to do that by contacting the trademark registered person, and when they're going to give them an authenticity code, and you are going to be able to submit that in your account to verify that they have given you permission to put that in your seller central account. 

Then, the question continues saying, well a part of this structuring, who pays for ads and media etc. This is where you can work together on this and bring proposals to the table. A part of the underlying reason why exclusive brand deals would be a fantastic win-win situation, for them and for you is that you are now actively involved in the success and and failure of that particular product listing brand.

Benefits

Another thing which you could do is be willing to get 100% profit margin, and you could be willing to take a percentage of the sales, maybe 10% of the sales, and reinvest that into the promotion of more sales. You can be as creative as you want with this, and coming to the table with different proposals is advised, because all you want to do is try to have a win-win situation where if you truly are on the same page, and you are thinking long-term, then they might be willing to give you discounts. 

Further reading:

https://www.systemisefulfilment.co.uk/blog/how-to-10x-your-business-with-virtual-assistants

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