Building brands on Amazon and global commerce expansion

In this episode, Adam chats with Ethan Kitching, Chief Commercial Officer at Molzi on how to effectively build brands on Amazon. From challenging and realigning with brands on goals to finding scalable growth models, get a glimpse of how Molzi stands out from the competition. 

Ethan also breaks down Molzi's global commerce expansion, from new offices in Spain and Brazil, to how agencies can build a global team that collaboratively pushes the needle forward. And as a 3P reseller themselves, Molzi takes a strategic look at how they can help clients expand into new geographical regions. 

Transcript

Adam Welcome everyone to growth sessions. We have an awesome guests today. We have Ethan Kitching, Chief Commerce Officer from Molzi, a full service Amazon agency based primarily in the UK, but has expanded rapidly.

Ethan. Thanks so much for coming.

Ethan No, no problem. Thanks for having me.

Adam What does a Chief Commerce Officer do at an agency like Molzi?

Ethan Um, well, a Chief Commercial Officer in a business like Molzi um essentially, uh, sales and marketing are my main remits, but ultimately, um, cause we're still a relatively young company only being, uh, going for four years now, I'm still very much heavily involved in kind of the growth of our clients. Um, and, and when I say growth I'm talking about kind of all of the different things that they're looking at, whether they're looking at international expansion or whether they're looking for that monetary growth, uh, within their accounts.

Um, so yeah, uh, still, still heavily involved, but definitely I'm finding that I'm coming more and more out of the actual client work and have a great teams that are able to deliver now.

Adam Amazing, and Molzi has grown a ton. I'd love to learn how would you describe Molzi? Like how would you describe it to a potential client?

Ethan Yeah. So Molzi is, as you mentioned before, is a full service Amazon agency, but that, from our point of view, in terms of when we started Molzi, looking at kind of all of the different parts of Amazon. So, um, obviously advertising is a huge part of that and, uh, PPC and DSP being obviously the two paths there. But content, obviously another one, but actually, even looking a bit deeper into that and getting an understanding of making sure that the products that they're to surface, cause we could have great content and we could have a great advertising strategy, but actually if there's no products there to sell, then ultimately it all falls down. So working with clients to ensure that they've got, um, sound supply chain, ensuring that they're working on that bottom line to work and move on shortages and uh, charge backs, um and, and just looking at all of the different angles.

So we've got kind of ex-Amazonians that are looking at kind of terms of negotiations to how they work with Amazon as a vendor, um, and then kind of that's our agency model. Um, I've touched on obviously the reclaim in terms of ensuring that we've got the bottom line, but we also work as a Three-P uh, reseller as well. So, uh, work with clients that are finding it challenging, um, uh, finding it challenging working with Amazon as a vendor or, um, predominantly it's looking at that international expansion. Um, obviously we're based in UK and Europe, um, is a very fragmented market, uh, being that obviously there's a, a number of different VAT numbers that you need. Uh, there's obviously all the language capabilities that are required within those different, uh, those different countries, so, a lot of businesses won't have the infrastructure to be able to expand, um, into those different regions. So we obviously have the infrastructure to do that, um, on a 3P reseller, obviously as an agency as well, but predominantly on a 3P reseller that allows them to tap into all of those different areas quickly, uh, and they're able to sell and go to market within there, um, and then they can over kind of continue with that model or they can look to kind of look to bring in-house and we can obviously service them as an agency at that point.

Adam That's really interesting. Most agencies don't do that. How did you know that that was a model to explore? What, what, what was the pain point? Um, at what point were you like, you know what, let's just create a 3P account and let's help our brands grow through that account if they can't do it on their own, because I know of a lot of like larger 3P um, I want us to call them like roll up orgs, almost that that operate as a 1P vendor to a brand and then has a 3P relationship with Amazon. A lot of those exists. It's quite unique to have an agency that specifically does that. When did you know that that was a good idea? And how quickly was that validated as a good idea?

Ethan Yeah, so it's mainly, uh, we obviously started as an agency, and how we built up the agency was we have all of those capabilities. And I can understand for an agency mainly looking at advertising or content and advertising that it kind of would be really alien then to think about, okay, well let's set up a 3PL or let's kind of look at the logistics, we were already doing that as an agency anyway. So, um, when we were hearing the pain points of our clients, um, and kind of things they were looking to achieve, but weren't able to achieve because they had internal blockers or they didn't have the, uh, the spend to do so, we kind of looked at that as an opportunity to say, actually, do you know, what, why are we getting these guys to, to do that? We could do that on a bigger scale, set up the infrastructure though that just allows them to tap into that without, uh, without any worry. And then yeah, kind of built that. We built it quite slowly, um, so we kind of just wanted to, cause it's a lot more risky than obviously an agency model where you don't have to buy stuff.

Adam For sure, you've got inventory.

Ethan Exactly. So, um, we, we were, um, kind of just dipping our toe in initially, um, and yeah, saw the, saw that it worked. The, um, the clients were happy with it.

Um, you know, we were obviously over the moon with it. Um, so yeah, we looked at that as a, as a viable option and have doubled down on that. Uh, ultimately the agency's business is still, um, kind of the big focus, um, but we want to be, we don't want to tread on toes, we don't want to be a service that a client doesn't want.

So we would never say to a client that we working on an agency model, just because we make more margin on the 3P reseller comes into three, we resell it because that doesn't necessarily work for them. So it's about finding the gaps of actually what works for the clients and then kind of offering them that, because then it's a, win-win both ways.

Adam Yeah, totally. And Mozi has been around for four years. Correct?

Ethan Yeah that's right.

Adam Um, started with two. You were one of the two?

Ethan I was

Adam And it's grown a lot since then?

Ethan It has. Yeah. It's, it's grown to what is an 80 person agency, uh, now. Um, so we started in the UK, and then we quickly, uh, we got contacts in Hong Kong, and set up a business at our second office was actually in Hong Kong. Um, and then we, uh, expanded, uh, into the European when we foresaw Brexit was coming, so we wanted to have a European or EU foothold. Um, so we had a Spanish office that was open. Um, and then at the same time, uh, we'll kind of going later, but, um, opened at the same time, we had a Singapore and Brazil offices that were open there and then we're looking to have a, uh, US office that will be opening, uh, the beginning of October.

Adam That's exciting. For Hong Kong, is that focusing on Chinese sellers that sell into European and North American markets? Or is that more so supporting APAC regional? Um, Amazon, like the eight regional markets, domestic markets, in, for Amazon?

Ethan A bit of both. So we're still just an Amazon agency. So obviously yeah, in APAC, um, looking at Amazon-Japan, uh, is obviously a main thing, obviously there's Singapore, Australia, but the, the numbers don't come close to, obviously what Japan are kind of doing there.

But yeah, primarily we were looking at, um, bringing over Chinese clients and looking at them within a EU or North America. And then also with this 3P reseller model, it worked even better because then we're tapping into the factories that have that direct to consumer business. And again, don't necessarily have the infrastructure to set up and allow them to sell direct to consumer.

So that's kind of worked out, uh, later down the line, but how we started it was actually looking at the agency model and working with larger, I mean I say larger Chinese sellers, it's actually big global brands, uh, within China that we're, we're kind of working with. Um, and we've been very successful in kind of finding business there because it's not something that a lot of people were tapping into at that, at that stage.

Adam Yeah, for sure. It's definitely early days with that one. And, and, why Spain of your European countries? Why not a market that was a little bit larger? Everyone knows that Germany is a massive market for Amazon. Uh, why was Spain the choice?

Ethan Uh, I guess if anyone's got a German office, they could probably tell you why it was quite, it's quite hard to have that as like a next stepping in point. Um, just because of obviously the bureaucracy involved in kind of setting that up. Uh, we looked at Spain, um, and obviously the context that we had right, it looked like an ideal location. We've set that up as our trans creation hub. So there were a lot of, uh, different nationalities within the area, so we were based in San Sebastian and in Spain,

Adam Is that where the office is, in St. Sebastian?

Ethan It's, it's an incredible, and, uh, I'm a bit better about it because we opened it just before a lockdown happened, so I still haven't been there.

Adam I'd like to, I'd like to, I'd love to visit, that's a, that's an, that's an excellent choice for a place to have an office in Spain. That's not bad at all.

Ethan It's crazy, but yeah, so there was, there was a lot of, uh, different nationals, uh, native speakers within there, so we started setting up our trans-creation hub there. Um, so.

Adam So what's trans-creation?

Ethan So when we're looking at trans-creation, it's essentially translation, but looking at it a bit more deeper. So actually creating the content to ensure that obviously it's, um, compatible and, can convert highly for native speakers, but also, um, looking at the necessary SEO keywords within those given territory as well.

Going a bit deeper into kind of what's needed, kind of the, again, the theory from our side is we work with a lot of, um, UK based companies, for example, and they will want to expand into Germany, France, Italy, Spain, um, and they'll do keyword research, the'll put a lot of work into what they're doing in the UK, but then they go into Germany and all they'll do is translate the copy and expect the same results. And kind of what we say to them is look, all this work that you've just done for UK in terms of the English content that you've put together, you need to do exactly the same for Germany or how can you possibly expect the same results.

And I actually, if you've got, you haven't got that brand affinity to backup as well, so you have to do there's more that you have to do. So when you're looking at advertising, don't just look at the same budget, you're going to have to look at more budget because you're gonna have to find more customers than you're used to, obviously from the brand affinity that you have with, with the given, uh, given territory.

So when we're looking at trans-creation, that's actually a huge part of obviously what we look at because. Yeah, it's it, it kind of goes against, um, if you do it wrong, uh, in terms of just translating, then yeah, you're not going to get the same results. So when we're looking at international expansion, we've make sure that, you know, our clients, um, have got the right trans-creation there rather than just the translation.

Adam And why the Brazil bet?

Ethan the Brazil bet was, uh, a contact came to us with an opportunity. So it was, it wasn't necessarily on our roadmap, it was just an opportunity that we couldn't turn down. So we've got a couple of large partners, uh, there, Ricardo Rosen or Anan, who, uh, also have a, uh, a digital marketing agency in Brazil, wanted to partner up and, uh, start up an entity in Brazil, saw an opportunity for an Amazon agency, obviously Mercado Libre had been the biggest marketplace there, there were a lot of agencies that were looking at that, marketing agencies, but no one was looking at Amazon. So as an empty space there, we thought actually, you know, we'll take a punt at that. And it's worked out really well.

We've, we worked with some really large clients, um, clients that we could only dream of when we first started, uh, Molzi four years ago that we kind of day one in Brazil we were working with. Um, so yeah, it's, it's been, it's been great, uh, that been up and running for about six months now. Um, so yeah, enjoying the success of that and they, they kind of, I'm sure there'll be agencies that, that kind of pop up over time, but they've got, they've got in there early and they're definitely, uh, definitely getting the benefits with that.

Adam Great. And then, and then my next question on the international expansion front is very naturally, how did you know, or, or what gives you the idea now that now is the right time to open up an office in the US?

Ethan Um, we, I guess we wanted to do it since we've started the agency. Um, we've got everything in place now to be able to do it. Um, it's a very large bet, but obviously it's a large reward, uh, going into US, if you can do it right. Um, obviously there's a huge downside as well, in terms of the cost of going into to market. Um, we feel like we've got the right things in place now to be able to launch into that market. Um, we've also got some clients already in US, so we've already got a base of clients in US, so we've kind of built that up without having a foothold within the territory. Um, but yeah, now we're, we're looking to build up that infrastructure within US and I feel, we feel like we've got the right pieces in place to be able to do.

Adam Exciting. And so, you know, when you're starting this company or one of the early employees of this company, I imagine you're a scrappy startup, everyone is in the same room, you're able to collaborate really well. And now you have people all over the globe, 80 person company, uh, four offices currently fifth on the way, maybe six or seven coming in the near future. Um, how, how did you create processes, and how did you create, like, sharing all of this information across all of those offices so that you're able to operate at that same level that you were able to operate at when it was just the one office in the UK.

Ethan I think it is probably fair to say that I didn't create any of the processes. I'm, uh, I'm very much, uh, you know, it, the scrappy startup was obviously great and it was, you know, it's not scalable. We brought in the right people that have allowed us to kind of get those processes in place. I think Chris is probably in the same, uh, same ballpark as me as well in terms of not necessarily

Adam Chris, the CEO?

Ethan the CEO yeah, sorry. Um, so yeah, bringing in the right people to do that. So we've made different step changes along the way with the different people that we've brought in that have allowed us to do that. So, Bridget, um, who was, I think she was, she was third or fourth. Oh no, actually fourth or fifth, uh, within, uh, she was, she joined the same time as someone else, um, and I think they contested with, uh, who started first.

But then she came in, uh, as a relatively senior hire, um, quite early on, um, kind of build that infrastructure, build up those processes and then kind of along the way, we've had people that have kind of keep adding to that. Um, and then kind of, uh, looking at the beginning of last year, um, Charlie marrows, who's our CSO, um, came into the business and he's very process focused.

Um, and I guess, you know, from our, from our point of view, we grew massively, um, during the kind of pandemic, obviously e-commerce grew massively, but unless we had the processes in place, we wouldn't, we would never have been able to do it properly. Uh, obviously our standards would have completely dropped.

Um, we would've lost clients and we wouldn't have continued to get to get new clients. Um, so there's a lot of businesses that are like, oh, I'm sure you're doing well uh with the kind of lockdowns. But actually that was the hardest part because trying to scale that with the processes in place and by putting the processes in place that allowed us to do that.

So, yeah, I think, um, if it was just me and Chris, uh, to start off with, we probably wouldn't have been able to scale. There's a lot of thanks that we have to give to the people that we've brought in to kind of put those processes in place to allow us to kind of do what we do and kind of work with the brands in a kind of scalable way.

Adam And as you think about building the team to support your brands and your clients, I'm curious to know, um, who are the people that interact with the clients? And how do you think about staffing up a client team? Um, obviously there's a lot of different things that those folks on your team must do given that you're a full service agency and you have the 3P account as well. Um, if I'm client X, what should I expect from my engagement with Molzi and the touch points that I'm going to have?

Ethan Yeah. So the, the, the client teams are, um, there's a variety of skillsets. So, um, you will work with an account manager of course, um, who will predominantly know most about everything about the board, but won't necessarily be an expert within, within anything. So you have a PPC exec or manager within there, a content exec or manager within there, and then we have what's called a 360 exec. Um, so 360 exec is one of, uh, is, is one of the junior roles, but it's, it's people coming up, um, and learning again, all of the different areas. So learning about content and why that's important, learning about PPC and why that's important and understanding supply chain and, and kind of how that all fits in, forecasting and all of those different things, they're learning kind of at that junior level. Um, and then we have obviously, um, kind of shared services as well. Um, so again, operational, um, operational specialists, um, we've also got obviously data analysts data specialists. Um, we've also got kind of people within the team, again, that they're kind of helping in, in all of those different areas, but yet the touch points from a client's point of view will be, um, will be that they'll be seeing an account manager or a PPC manager or a content manager, but kind of everything that goes on in the background, all the people that are there, but also the kind of proprietary software. And then the other piece that we have in place that kind of, uh, has been built up to allow the teams to kind of do their jobs properly.

Adam Got it. And so Amazon specific agency. Um, haven't expanded to other marketplaces yet. Maybe, maybe, maybe in the future, but, but Amazon specific now. I'm curious to know, um, what, what are your, what are Molzi's opinions of Amazon growth that allows you to stand out? Um, what, what are the ways in which you approach, um, growing a brand on Amazon that makes you so successful?

Ethan Yeah. So I guess, versus the other marketplaces, um, it's been growing a ridiculous amount and obviously it's not just that it's growing at a ridiculous amount, there's a lot of marketplaces that are growing are ridiculous rate, but the revenues there as well. Like the revenue is so incredible, um, that when you work with brands, it makes sense. Um, because you know, you're, you're when you're charging a fee, it's going to be a small percentage of what they're currently doing on Amazon.

When you're looking at another marketplace, uh, it's harder to justify that cost because the revenue isn't necessarily there, but all the work's still there, but the revenue is not, not necessarily there. So it, it, again, it's, it's making sense of that. We've found that as well, going into the US or when we're working with clients in the US, it just makes more sense for them to work with us because actually, you know, looking at the revenue that they're doing on Amazon, um, we fit in quite nicely as, as kind of a, a smaller percentage, rather than it's a set. If we're working in a country like Spain, for example, it's a bit more of a harder justification because obviously the cost is going to be higher as a percentage than it would be in one of these bigger countries.

So. Just the share revenue, uh, and the volume and opportunity on Amazon kind of allows for an agency to kind of fit within there.

Adam got it. And, and so why do brands come to you? What, what makes you unique?

Ethan So, what we feel makes us unique is that we're not afraid of challenging our clients. Um, so when we're working with, uh, clients and they're kind of coming to us with, look, we want to work with an agency, these are KPIs. We kind of asked the question, why are those your KPIs? So, you know, in a lot of cases, brands will come to us and say, okay, well we need to hit a ROAS of X, and it'll be a, you know, a percentage that they want to grow their ROAS. And you try and take them back and say, actually, why are you growing your ROAS, to increase your sales? Actually, if you're growing your ROAS, that's actually going to have a detriment on the growth of your sales, because all you're going to be doing is cannibalizing, and therefore the whole reason that you were advertising in the first place, it's kind of lost at that point.

So, I think, why, why brands, um, work with us and why they kind of choose us, and it works well, and it's scalable, is that we challenged them kind of from day one. And we're not scared to challenge them from day one. And if it's to the detriment of not winning the business then, okay. Um, but actually if we end up taking a brand with the KPIs that they set, that we don't necessarily agree with, then it's going to be a disaster when we work with them anyway.

So, yeah, I think that that's kind of what they'll see when working with us that, you know, we, as annoying as it may be, sometimes we will challenge them, and as long as we are all clear on terms of, in terms of what that KPI is, and if it's for growth, then great let's work on that together. But let's set the right KPIs that allow for that growth to happen. Not ones that have kind of driven because they're buzzwords or because that's kind of what everyone's been doing over that time, over a time period.

Adam So let's say it's incremental total sales growth. I'm the client, that's what I want, incremental total sales growth. What's next? What's Molzi going to do, what are the, what are the steps that you are going to take for that new client to get incremental total sales growth?

Ethan So, first of all, we start looking at, obviously what's been working, um, and, uh, looking at your top 20%, for example. So look at the top 20% of your range. Understand what's been working over that time and kind of look at the inefficiencies within that top 20% as a kind of first off, that will be about the low, low hanging fruit.

Adam What does that mean? That top 20% of my range, top 20% of what exactly?

Ethan So 20% sellers, um, of, of your range, um, we'd start doubling down in terms of looking at the data and getting understanding of what the inefficiencies are within that within there. And that could be the fact that, you know, you haven't got the right advertising strategy. It could be that the content is not, not in the right place. It could be that, um, Amazon is not procuring as many products as you would like them to. It could be that the ASINs have crapped out. And there's a problem with kind of the terms that you've set or the pricing that you've set or that there's a whole manner of things, but that would be kind of where we drill into initially.

And then it's a case of, okay, well what do you do with that torso, and then tail at the later ends, but it's understanding the priorities and taking them as priorities. And then obviously there's NPD and, and ensuring that you're launching NPD correctly.

Adam NPD is?

Ethan And is, uh, so new product development, new product launches, so when, when they are bringing in a new product, Amazon can be quite slow, um, with a new product, uh, based on obviously the fact that they won't have reviews based on the fact that they've got no relevancy. So there's a whole host of things that you can look at, um, when, when doing, when looking to launch, but ultimately getting all those steps in the right place is what you need to do.

So if you're looking at a new product launch, for example, and you tell your agency, okay, well, we're launching a product that we're launching it next week. Then you're not setting anyone up for success there. So working with brands that kind of let us know, um, okay, in three months time, we've got this product that we're launching or four months or five months time, we're looking to launch this product, and getting a plan ahead of that.

Um, so ensuring you've got the right content ensure that you've got the right product, the right plan in place for the time(?) perhaps, the right advertising budget, uh, you know, maybe it's graphic design that needs to be done based on the fact that you don't necessarily have the right imagery. There's a number of different things you need to look at, and that will obviously allow for success, uh, of that product.

Um, So, yeah, it's just working with the client there and making sure that you're completely aligned. Um, but yeah, as I said, there's, there's a whole host of things that would allow for that growth, but understanding that the priorities need to kind of work in order of say, going to be what, what ensures that you capitalize on that and try to capitalize on that as soon as possible so everyone's happier sooner rather than later.

Adam Does Molzi have a perspective on an optimal advertising strategy for a new product launch?

Ethan It's so dependent. It's so dependent on, uh, kind of the category that is within, uh, where the brand is, you know, if it's a challenger brand then they're not going to necessarily have that brand affinity, so you're gonna have,

Adam Let's say I'm a challenger brand launching a, I'm a sparkling water brand launching a new matcha line. Matcha sparkling water, I don't even know if that can exist, and I want to, I want to aggressively grow. I want to grow, I think matcha is hot. I think it's underserved in the market. I see that it's a rising search term on Amazon all things matcha. How would you advise me to have an adv... what would be my advertising strategy?

Ethan Well, first of all, I congratulate you on finding that there's a search trend. That's a, that's going in the right direction. Um, a lot of clients aren't doing that ahead of time, but, um, yeah, no, anyway, so I think the point is understanding, okay. What, what's that starting on Amazon at the moment? What does, um, success look like. Um, so, okay. What's what does, number one, what a number one achieving in terms of sales, what number two achieving in sales, and then all the way down to the kind of top 10, um, against,

Adam Are you referring to, what are the number? How are you getting that data of how much that person's achieving sales or proprietary data or ...?

Ethan There's a, whole host of 3P uh, software that we'll be looking at to kind of gauge that and get a good enough reading of what that could look like. Um, so we'll then take that as a category, understand the category, do a category analysis of what that looks like.

Um, and then it's a case of, okay, well, let's look at the search search terms. What are the search terms getting? Is it something that's that again, as you said that, that search trends going up, what does that look like? What does that look like in comparison to a bit more of a generic, uh, such term to understand again, what the size of the prize is there, um, and then also if it's not, then okay, well, what does that look like outside of Amazon? So what does it, what's the Google search term. Okay. It might be the Amazon are not getting any. Actually, you need to just find your customers outside of Amazon at that point, so then it's a case of, okay, well what's your programmatic? It might be a Google strategy that you have, it might be a social strategy that you have. Um, so it's looking into all of these different pieces and then obviously working out what that strategy is based on all the state, all of those different data points. And then obviously coming up with a budget and that might not necessarily be a P just a PPC budget. There might be a DSP budget. There might be, um, a budget that you use on social, it, a number of different things.

Um, And that's ultimately what we would look at, um, because we need to align on what success looks like. If a client says to us, look, we want to be selling, uh, you know, a million a month of this matcha, then I'd be like, okay, well, what's the number one, doing the number one setting. A hundred thousand a month, where are we going to get that extra 900,000 from if it's not necessarily on Amazon already.

Um, and just aligning that to, to make sure that everyone's aware of what success should look like within the given territory, because it's obviously going to be different as well. So if you're gonna look into launch in US it's going to be very different to if you're launching in the UK, but you need to understand and need to align on what success looks like. Otherwise, Yeah, it's just not going to be a good, uh, a good relationship, uh, for, for either party.

Adam Any fun client stories that you can share of wins that you've grown a great deal?

Ethan Uh, yeah, so there's, I mean, there's a, there's probably there's some from the scrappy side. So when we were looking at, uh, when we first started, when it was just myself and Chris and trying to, trying to do everything at that point, those brands that we took on a very early stage that put, put their faith in us, at a very early stage, and some of them weren't on Amazon at all. And we had to, at the very initial stage, actually sell Amazon to them, rather than even sell us working with them. Um, so we were kind of working with them on, okay, well, this is why you should be on Amazon, not even, this is why you should work with Molzi on Amazon?

Um, so they were doing zero. And we would work with, um, work with them in terms of figuring out, okay, well, what range should we be launching on Amazon? Um, kind of looking at, the, even looking at the product sizes to to let them know, okay, well, these products weren't working on Amazon because of the price point, and if you want it to be profitable, if you want to scale it. Um, and then also it's a case of okay, vendor versus seller and all those different things. So those were the very basics and kind of building up from scratch, um, uh, working with businesses like that. And then. Kind of grow them. We, we, we, we grew them to phenomenal amount when the, the CEO would call me quite regularly and I could not believe the amount of sales that we're getting.

And I was like, yeah, I told you, I told you this from the very beginning that we would do that, but it's good that we kind of allowed that. And we're still working with, um, some of the clients that we work with from day one. So from very early stages, um, because we've, we've been able to kind of scale that, you know, from that point of view, we've got a great relationship with them still.

And then obviously as we've grown and evolved and, and working with, uh, larger clients, um, we're still seeing phenomenal results from that as well. So we've worked with, um, one of the largest FMCG clients, um, uh, that were, we were working with at the beginning of. Last year. Um, and this was kind of obviously pre pre pandemic, um, and then kind of worked with them.

Throughout the pandemic. Of course, they saw a huge increase, um, that they, they weren't expecting or anticipating, um, which led to its own host of issues. And they weren't advertising. They weren't content related. They weren't, uh, you know, uh, there was no issue about, uh, driving traffic. There was no issue on, uh, on that it was about availability.

Then you start working with them on, okay. Okay. So ensuring that we've got availability, how do we, um, ensure that we've got a scalable advertising? Um, Uh, scalable advertising strategy in place because it's not going to work. Just throw more money at it because all you're going to do is increase the sales velocity and go out of stock quicker.

So working on the different lines and then working with, uh, what happens stock and what they don't have in stock, uh, and run it running with that over time, um, to ensure that. Continued selling at that high velocity, but just with a different array of products and that they would have been used to. So, yeah, again, that's kind of looking at all of the different parts of Amazon.

It's not just looking at the content and advertising. It's, it's understanding that stock has to come first. You need to have stock to sell, to, to allow for all the other strategies to kind of work together. Has that conversation with clients changed the one where the, why Amazon conversation. And it's not an, if it's a when and how.

Yeah, it's, it's definitely changed. Definitely shifted. Obviously we work with it's funny because when we work, uh, companies in different countries, obviously the conversations are different. So when we're working with someone in Brazil, for example, they're saying, well, why would I work with Amazon working with McCarthy labor?

And that's, that's where the eCommerce is. So we're having those conversations again in Brazil, but certainly in UK, us, you know, there's not a conversation of. I, I, you know, why Amazon, um, it's, it's a case of how, how do I work with Amazon? I've been working on one PO this time it's not scalable or, um, I want to go three people.

I don't necessarily have the infrastructure in place. Um, or, um, you know, we've been on Amazon for a number of years, but we just haven't been able to do anything with it. Like they're the sort of conversations that we're having now. Not a case of us selling Amazon. And, and as Amazon has evolved across all of these brands, I'm sure the org chart that you interact with at Amazon has changed as well.

Adam Um, can you speak to, where does Amazon sit right now? How has that evolved in what you've seen from your client? Uh, in terms of what you mean. So in terms of, for the Amazon PNL at brand large global brand X, how is that, uh, how does that vary at the local level and at the global level, and how does ballsy help ensure that the right stakeholders are in the room so that you can align on those KPIs.

Ethan Yeah. So that's a great question. And it's something that's changed quite rapidly over the last a year and a half. Um, so when, when we were working with, uh, you know, large, larger companies, they would have a national account manager that was looking at Amazon, but as part of their remit.

So they'd be looking at Amazon as well as Tesco or GOs or the rest, um, that, that had. Uh, well, we were a lot of different brands and actually even, uh, some brands have got, um, the kind of, uh, Amazon center of excellence, uh, kind of built up and, uh, you can see kind of them doubling down on kind of their efforts there, which is obviously great.

Um, so it's, it's. Really different, um, depending on the type of client that we're kind of talking to. Um, but usually what's best is from, from our point of view is when we're working with a team that understand Amazon better. Um, so when we work with clients, a lot of what we do is, is ensuring that we're training them.

Uh, training up the backroom staff as well, um, to, to make sure that they're completely, uh, aligned to as to why they need to do certain things. So when we're working, even working with, um, kind of, um, the admin. In terms of accepting POS why is it important to accept POS on time? Why is it important to label goods the way that they need to be labeled?

Why is it important that even the very basic things, a good to kind of talk to the different brands about, but, um, yeah. It's still, I couldn't tell you one role that was other than like an Amazon account manager. I can't tell you one role that is specifically the Amazon point context, because there can be head of e-commerce.

It can be an e-commerce manager. It can be an Amazon account manager, but it could still be a national account manager. It's a number of different people that we're talking to that own, the Amazon PNL. Um, so yeah, that, that, that is changing, but it hasn't completely changed. It's not that everyone's got a, uh, kind of Amazon center of excellence.

There's, there's a, there's a few that do, but I'm sure a lot more will, uh, as the revenue starts heading that way. But then also there's a lot of brands that are still. Amazon's already not a profitable account for me. So how can I invest more into it? How can I, how can I, um, look to scale that with the teams that we're kind of bringing in and that's something obviously that we help them with as well?

Adam Surely they only complain about that before they work with mosey and not after the fact of course. Um, and so do you see differences at the. Think we spoke about where, where Molzi’s offices sit globally. And obviously Brazil, as an example, is a significantly more emerging market than something like the UK, which is more mature.

Ethan Yeah, absolutely. So, um, yeah, as I said with Brazil is still the question of why Amazon, uh, at that point. Um, so it's, it's, you know, we're having those, those conversations with them in terms of why abs and, but it's also not necessarily, um, Why Amazon from a retail point of view, but it's also a case of, from a advertising space point of view.

So we talked to non-endemic clients out in, uh, in Brazil and talked to them about, um, kind of the inventory that, that Amazon have versus Google and kind of differences of that as well. Um, and just working with them to get a better understanding and also. Testing thing. So it's important to work with brands, especially if they're not believers.

Just say, look, just, just give me a little, like, just let me show you. Cause you, I can give you a case study after case study, but what we need is a little budget just to show you what is capable within Amazon. And you'll be, you'll be astonished in terms of the kind of numbers that you can get. With something that you don't feel like is important.

So we've been quite successful in China, kind of working with clients on a very small base initially, and just testing things and kind of showing, look, this is on your account. This isn't even me coming to you as a case study that you can or cannot believe this is your account that you can see exactly what happened.

Adam How do you quantify little when you talk to a brand, is it, uh, how do you, where does that number come from? Is it a arbitrarily, a $10,000 a month, a couple, couple of thousand dollars a month. Is it X percent of sales? Where, where do you get that little, that little test and learn experimentation budget. So it's, it's, it's going to be relative to the market.

Ethan So a little in Brazil is going to be much more than a little in UK and, and very much more than a little in us. Um, so it's, it's there's no, uh, there's no. Set value. Um, but it's understanding where your clients are at currently and kind of working within those parameters to say, look, these are the clients that we work with.

This is not letting them know what they're spending, but kind of giving them an inkling of what, what the spend should be. And then kind of working down from there and saying, what, you know, what budget could we, could we look to, to use, um, to kind of have this test and learn approach, um, that, that allows you to, uh, Talk upwards and kind of sell Amazon with us because ultimately, you know, they, they want more ways of, of being able to sell product.

They don't want to be pigeonholed into. So if we're talking about Brazil, for example, they don't want to just be thinking about Macada labor. Amazon's growing a phenomenal route right. In, uh, in Brazil, but it's just the revenue isn't necessarily there. How can you, how can you sell a marketplace that doesn't necessarily have the revenue that is it's taking them on that journey and getting them to understand this is what you can achieve just with even a small, smaller budget.

Adam Lovely. And even, even I think that's it, um, really, really awesome chatting. I, we, we like to end the sessions with one question and it's, uh, if you were to make one prediction for eCommerce advertising or in the case of Molzi, Amazon advertising for the next year, what would that prediction be?

Ethan Um, so for Amazon advertising, There obviously, um, I think there's going to be, they're going aggressive, super aggressive, um, and not just aggressive within the territories that they have at the moment.

Um, But there's going to be a lot more that they do, um, outside of the territories that they're looking at and even outside of the territories that they have retail space within. Um, so looking kind of server field and, and working with inventory, that's, that's kind of outside of, uh, the, kind of the main markets that they're, they're working within, uh, within the marketplace, uh, way.

Um, so one there'll be majorly aggressive there. I think also, um, Amazon haven't necessarily said it the same way that Google and Facebook embraced agencies quite quickly, Amazon are embracing agencies now, and they didn't necessarily as much, uh, at the beginning. I think there, there will be embracing agencies to bring more and more spend across the way and be a bit more aggressive in terms of, um, wanting to kind of win that Tripoli, uh, that the, that they're in.

Um, Because, yeah, that that's, that's where the, the, you know, that's obviously where they make a huge amount of margin, but also, you know, that's, that's the empty space, the kind of retail side, the growth. Is slowing. It's still growing. I find it phenomenal that people have a go at Amazon because they grow that growth has slowed because they're still growing up.

But they're so big anyway, but the advertising there's still so much upside. Um, so that's where they're gonna go. They're gonna go aggressively. Um, and then the more and more brands that buy into that. Um, again, it's just going to keep feeding into that. So, um, yeah, no, um, you know, it's a super exciting space to be within, um, um, I'm very happy and lucky to be within it.

Um, and yeah, I'm looking forward to the next year and, uh, and so on, uh, within the Amazon advertising space, it sounds like many more offices. From Aussie. I mean, if we can, if we can, real domination continues or if we can better sound Sebastian and Sao Paolo, I'd be very surprised. But yeah, I'm looking forward to that for sir.

Adam I'm surprised after St. Sebastian, that you wouldn't go for Rio for the Brazil office and stick, stick to the beach, maybe Miami for us, you know, at least a consistent theme. Yeah. And Miami is still on the cards, let's say, okay, let's meet in Miami in 2022, even thanks so much. This was awesome. Uh, if anyone's interested, where can people hit up you and, and learn more about me?

Yeah. So, um, the, the website is as simple as it could be. molzi.com. Um, and uh, if you want to get in contact with me on LinkedIn, Ethan kitchen, or, uh, my, uh, email is ethan@molzi.com.

Adam All right. Amazing. Thanks so much, Ethan. Really appreciate it. And remember to subscribe into the podcast player of your choice to listen to future episodes.

Ethan Thanks again. Take care. Thank you.