This year’s Amazon Accelerate conference, the premier conference for third party sellers on the company’s marketplace, took place September 17 – 19 in Seattle. Enceiba, along with a number of our clients, rubbed elbows with more than 3,600 in-person and 9,000 virtual attendees to learn about new features and strategies for accelerating growth on the world’s largest marketplace. The annual event attracts companies of all sizes, from independent sellers to substantial, large companies.
The overall atmosphere at the event was electric and full of buzz around the potential for continued growth, fueled by additional capabilities Amazon is bringing to market to allow sellers to enhance performance both inside and outside the marketplace.
We were particularly interested in how Amazon Business was represented at this massive show, and we were not disappointed. In addition to a dedicated presence on the tradeshow floor with many Amazon Business team members, Enceiba had the opportunity to meet and speak with a number of senior Amazon Business leaders, including the VP of Global Amazon Business Shelley Salomon, and the Head of B2B Marketplace Sales,Nate MacDonald, among other key players.
We also listened in on Martha Stewart in a featured keynote fireside chat, in which she shared her insights about creating her branded “World of Martha” Amazon storefront. We found her to be quite poised and thoughtful regarding her company’s long history with Amazon, even conveying a story of spending time with Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, when he had hair!
Most importantly for our community of B2B companies, it was exciting to hear about some of the new things that Amazon and Amazon Business are bringing to market to help B2B sellers grow more effectively. Here are three key takeaways we gleaned from this intensive event for sellers.
Takeaway #1: Amazon Is Now a Logistics Company
CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores Doug Herrington spoke about the overall evolution of Amazon and how making counter-intuitive moves to help sellers build their business is paying off.
One of the key areas where Amazon has applied this approach is fulfillment. Amazon is heavily investing in commercializing and extending the logistics side of its business, including making its infrastructure available for selling outside of the Amazon marketplace (that’s the counter-intuitive part!). This is the Amazon Web Services (AWS) model that the company has successfully deployed to become a dominant force in web hosting and data services. In this case, though, the model is being applied to logistics.
The emphasis on operations as a key strategy was very clear right from the conference kickoff. Amazon executives spent a full 90-minutes out of a two hour session sharing updates and announcements regarding logistics and supply chain services and tools, including:
Amazon Multi-Channel Fulfillment (MCF) - Allows Amazon sellers to ship orders from their own web sites using Amazon’s Prime shipping service.
Amazon Warehouse & Distribution (AWD) - Enables Amazon to act as a 3rd party service for storing and replenishing products into Amazon’s Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) service as well as to third party warehouses, such as a sellers’ own fulfillment center or other distribution partners.
Amazon Shipping - Now a true competitor to FedEx and UPS, Amazon is offering 3-5 day ground shipping service to companies selling outside of Amazon, and will likely be offering air delivery options in the near future. The company is also integrating Amazon Shipping with popular shipping software platforms, such as Ship Station, to enable companies to shop rates across carriers, including Amazon Shipping.
Amazon Managed Ship Option - Designed to help companies improve supply chain efficiency and optimize inventory across channels by leveraging Amazon’s forecasting tools.
These services are catching on; Amazon VP of Worldwide Fulfillment Piyush Saraogi noted that the number of companies using these services has tripled since the beginning of 2024.
These logistics services tie directly into Amazon’s overall strategic priorities. Herrington emphasized that the company continues to view delivery speed as a key company initiative, citing the direct positive impact that reduced fulfillment times have on conversion and customer loyalty.
This priority was reflected in some key announcements Amazon made during the conference. For example, Director of Technology at Prime Air Jason Patrao revealed Amazon will offer one hour delivery via autonomous drones in key markets by the end of 2024. Patrao noted that Amazon is targeting 500 million drone deliveries per year by the end of this decade, an enormous number that has implications not only for ecommerce, but for the aerospace industry.
Overall, there’s a clear drive to improve efficiency at Amazon. These services not only enable new revenue streams for the company, they create operational leverage and reduce Amazon’s cost to serve its customers. Continuing to increase profitability has become a key theme throughout Amazon.
Takeaway #2: Amazon Business Is on a Roll
Amazon Business was at Accelerate in force. The business unit revealed a number of new efforts to help B2B companies accelerate their performance on the platform.
Key among these announcements are new advertising features aimed at allowing suppliers of all types (Vendor Central and Seller Central) to better target B2B buyers. Business buyers on Amazon generate 3x better return on ad spend (ROAS) performance than non-B2B buyers, and Amazon is doubling down on this to provide additional tools for sellers. Advertisers can now specifically target business buyers on the Amazon platform, which was not previously possible, and can refine campaigns specifically for B2B, including bid adjustments and similar levers. We had the privilege of meeting with the Amazon Business Advertising team to further understand these new capabilities, and we look forward to leveraging them for our clients.
Amazon Business also continues to build capabilities to capture additional market share across B2B categories. Key among these are its managed spend and Custom Quote Engine (CQE) programs, targeted at large planned spend budgets. We discussed these programs at length with Amazon Business and brought our clients into discussions on innovative ways to leverage these new efforts.
Takeaway #3: Seller Central (3P) Has Tremendous Momentum
It’s clear that Amazon's Seller Central (3P) has established momentum as a preferred method of selling via Amazon, and this now includes midsize and large enterprises. The audience at this event was not only small, independent sellers, but included large companies as well, including many global B2B firms.
Amazon continues to offer new ways for companies to optimize their performance on the channel when using the Seller Central approach. For example, on day two of the conference, Amazon announced Project Amelia, a generative AI assistant designed to help sellers manage and scale their businesses. This new tool answers questions and provides insights into metrics like sales and traffic to help drive business growth for sellers.
Additional tools and capabilities for brand management on the marketplace were also highlighted at the event. Amazon is leaning into and expanding its various tools for channel control and brand protection. Enhancements to existing tools, such as its product authentication program Transparency, demonstrate Amazon's commitment to helping brands manage channel control, especially concerning counterfeit items.
Programs like Transparency and others, such as Project Zero, not only provide brands with greater control over their products, but also boost seller confidence in the marketplace as well as improve the overall buyer experience. These added layers of control can also help to ensure that resellers seeking to offer a brand’s items on Amazon have legitimately acquired the products, effectively reducing the number of unauthorized resellers. Ultimately, these programs enable proactive brands to manage their channels more effectively, helping to mitigate potential channel conflict issues.
The Amazon Accelerate conference was well put together and worthwhile. Both Enceiba and our clients walked away feeling energized to tackle challenges and leverage all of Amazon’s newest features to improve channel control and grow both top and bottom lines.
If you are a B2B manufacturer looking to get into selling on Amazon, don’t hesitate to reach out to us for guidance! Our decades of experience has helped many B2B firms optimize their presence and spur growth on the world’s largest marketplace.
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