As more beauty brands consider a launch on Amazon, Dana Upshaw, chief growth officer at Recom, shared effective brand-building strategies to get the most out of Amazon’s marketplace.
Founded in 2013, Recom is a tech-enabled e-commerce accelerator that works with premium brands to optimize their presence and sell more products on Amazon as well as other global marketplaces. The company touts being a top seller on Amazon with 100 percent positive customer feedback and processes more than 300,000 orders every week. Recom has also supported more beauty brands than any other third-party seller in the world, it said.
For the past few years, Recom has been focused on making the case for Amazon as a consumer motor skill, an omnichannel anchor and a key component of successful brand building next to and in partnership with direct-to-consumer and brick-and-mortar. According to Recom’s research, just three years ago 89 percent of the more than 300 brands in specialty brick-and-mortar were found on Amazon and 48 percent of those brands were managed. In 2024, 91 percent of those brands are on Amazon and 55 percent are managed. For brands that are not managed, Upshaw said, there is a significant opportunity for growth.
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“Every brand needs an Amazon strategy,” said Upshaw. “The majority of brands being sold in Sephora and other luxury retailers are taking control of their brands on Amazon. In 2023 revenue for prestige beauty brands on Amazon grew by more than 44 percent totaling more than $3.4 billion. While that’s impressive,” she said, “the revenue from brands that are actively managed grew by 49 percent over 2022.”
Specifically looking at prestige brands, Upshaw said that although economic pressures are creating slowed growth, “it hasn’t stopped various platforms and retailers from focusing on collaborative partnerships to advance prestige beauty product accessibility.”
“It’s exciting to see brands embrace [Amazon’s] potential,” said Upshaw. “Marrying prestige brands with a premium digital toolkit delivers incredible results. It’s possible for brands to build an authentic brand experience on Amazon. It’s this type of shift and strategic thinking that drives growth.”
An important element of the tailor-made strategies created by Recom for brands is understanding the consumers. With an immense amount of data, Amazon knows its customers’ behaviors well. With this in mind, Upshaw said that there is power in Amazon’s ability to drive growth through familiarity and innovation.
“Amazon should be part of your brand-building strategy because it’s where shoppers want to purchase and once they do, on average, they tend to purchase more of your product every single time we bought,” said Upshaw. “The fifth time a consumer is buying your product on Amazon, they’re buying 50 percent more of the product than they did on the first purchase. That’s trust, loyalty and growth. No matter where you are in your brand-building strategy, Amazon can connect your products to an existing customer with an efficiency you simply must recognize. Why miss the opportunity to meet potential customers where they prefer to purchase?” she concluded.
