013:Navigating the Shift from Amazon to Retail Shelves

Ever wondered how to evolve your online retail prowess into a brick-and-mortar triumph? Mike did just that, and we've got the inside scoop on his strategic shift from Amazon success story to retail partnership potential. This episode peels back the curtain on Mike's innovative approach to engaging major retailers and how customer loyalty and unbeatable warranties laid the groundwork for his leap into the retail sphere.

Join us as we dissect the essential moves that took Mike's premium pool cleaning tools from online accolades to the shelves of prominent stores. We look at the ways in which customer reviews and a customer-centric warranty program can amplify a brand's reputation, drive sales, and secure a coveted spot in the competitive retail market. The conversation also turns to the tactile benefits of in-store experiences and how allowing customers to get hands-on with a product can solidify trust and justify a premium price point.

Finally, we offer tips on navigating the retail landscape for smaller brands, emphasizing the importance of starting local, leveraging micro-influencers, and understanding the intricacies of negotiations. With personal experiences and actionable strategies shared by our guests, this episode provides a roadmap for any brand aspiring to broaden its horizons beyond the digital marketplace. Whether you're an established online seller or just breaking into the scene, these insights are invaluable for anyone seeking to make their mark in both the world of e-commerce and traditional retail.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome everyone to the Brandfortress HQ podcast. Today we have another Amazon tactic Tuesday, and what we're going to be talking about today is a little bit different, because we're actually going to be talking about that transition from Amazon to selling into retail, and a lot of this is being brought about by some exciting things that Mike has going on in his business. So, mike, I'm going to turn it over to you and, if you can kind of give us a little bit of background as to what's going on as far as the retail opportunity, and then we could talk about some of the things that you've already done over the last, you know, six, seven years to build your brand that have led to the opportunities that you're now having in retail.

Speaker 2: 0:36

Yeah. So maybe the best way to approach this would be just to have to take a little time and discuss the conversation I had today with a retail opportunity and then to backtrack from there to say what brought me to that point. How did I get there? So, essentially, I recently hired an agency to help us get into brick and murder, trying just to expand our sales volume pre-exit. So essentially we're wanting to exit the brand, trying to get revenue and EBITDA up prior to that exit, and so we figured retail was a good opportunity that we should try and take advantage of. So, bottom of the goal, I brought them an agency. They came to be about a week ago and indicated that they had a really good possible retail buyer that wanted to talk to us. And so just to give a little bit of background for anybody who's maybe new to the podcast and doesn't know what my brand is and what I sell, we sell pool cleaning tools, very high end, premium price, unlimited replacement, warranty pool tools. So the company that was interested us is Leslie's Pool Supply and they have about a thousand stores in the US and they are in like 38 states. And so essentially that conversation as we kind of walk through that process. Basically I kind of walked them through a pitch deck explaining who we are as a company, what our growth trajectory has been, what we expect our growth trajectory to be over the next year, why they should partner with us, what makes us different from other brands that they might partner with, what is our unique selling proposition for our customers but also what is our unique selling proposition for them. And so it was interesting how the conversation went. The gentleman had done a little bit of research on us so he kind of knew a little bit about us. I'm sure that maybe they've heard of us at some point or other but maybe didn't know much, I don't know. Difficult to say, but the one was super nice, super approachable, easy to talk to. I get the impression that's typically not the case, so don't expect that if you walk down that road. It sounds like that's often not the case, but in this case it was. And so he ended up expressing a lot of interest in our brand for a few reasons.

Speaker 2: 3:10

As we kind of walked through the conversation, it became obvious that one was really just simply our, let's say, brand loyalty and the, you know like our review profile. So in other words, it was obvious to him that the vast majority of our customers are very happy with the product. Also, he had a lot of interest in the fact that a number of our products are fairly innovative in the category. So full tools is one of those categories that there generally isn't a whole lot of innovation that shows up there. Most every product is a Me Too product. Most every product is very disposable, and so the fact that our products are a very premium build, but also that we're offering innovative features that other products aren't offering, was a significant interest to him. He essentially said you know, we're always looking for a product that we can introduce in this category that is different, that's unique, that has features that other products in this category don't have, and you know we want to differentiate ourselves by being able to offer those products.

Speaker 2: 4:16

And so the other interesting thing that came out of that was that I pitched to them that maybe a good road forward would be an exclusivity arrangement with them, so that they would be the only pool store. Now we might sell to other retailers, but they would be the only pool supply store that we sell to maybe for two years, you know, or something like that so that they would be the only store available where you could purchase offline, anyways pro-tip products units. One of the things that he actually really loved something that I pitched to him also was because of unlimited replacement warranty. On the one hand, it would be easy for a retailer to look at that and basically say I don't want to do that, because if I sell your pool rake then the person never has to come back and buy another pool rake again, so I've lost all the revenue that comes from those additional sales. Now, first of all, that's not entirely true, because they can sell ours at a higher place point, so there's more margin there. But there is some truth to it, right, and so that was a concern the way that I pitched it, and I think this is the truth. It's not just a pitch, I think it is actually. The truth is that Selling a product like ours with a really easy unlimited replacement warranty that's just very liberal.

Speaker 2: 5:38

We don't make people jump through hoops and whatnot. Is that, if done correctly, the individuals that buy that product from Leslie's pool store will likely then return to Leslie's pool store for their replacements either the replacement item in its entirety or maybe a replacement part. But the nice thing is is that because Leslie's gets to build off of the back of our warranty, like we're the ones that have decided that we're not going to make people jump through hoops. They don't have to prove anything, they just say they need it. They get it right. So Leslie gets to be the face of that. So when that customer comes in because they still need the replacement, they come into the store, they walk up to the desk they say, hey, my thing of a jiggy broke right. The person behind the counter gets to say oh yeah, I'm not proud of them. They reach in the back, they put the part, they change that on the product, they hand it back to the customer and now the customer is terminally renewed. They have a brand new, you know product that's going to function for them. They're going to associate that good will with well for one hopefully put up products with secondary, also with Leslie's, so that Leslie's has the opportunity there to do is now they can cross, sell and upset that customer who is in the store from a very strong position, because that customer already is feeling good about this transaction.

Speaker 2: 6:56

Take that scenario and let's turn it on its head and let's review back to what they would normally do, which is to say the pool rake. That is a very disposable product. Now the customer has to return to the store to buy another one. But they're ticked off about it, right, because they bought it hoping it was going to last maybe two, three, four seasons. It lasted one season. Now they're going to come spend more money to do it. And where did they buy that product? They ran it at Leslie's. So they're rocking into the store. A need at Leslie's for selling them a product. And now they got to buy another one. And then you want to try to cross sell them or upset them or get them to buy other products, like much more than they're going to want to buy from you when they're in that annoyed position. So you know, it didn't strike me that that was actually perspective that he had previously considered. So I think it was a valuable opportunity for us to kind of piece that and it worked out pretty well.

Speaker 1: 7:47

Yeah. So a couple of things there. That first of all. I think that that's an incredibly valuable point in the sense of you know other discussions we've had as far as like how the value is created by how quickly you can solve that problem for the customer. And that is a beautiful example of being able to solve that right away for the customer provides a ton of value theoretically, even more beyond just having the warranty and shipping them that part, because now they go hey, I just take it into Leslie's, the guy does it for me and you know, magically it's fixed it kind of reminds me of the old craftsman tools where, like you break one of your tools, I mean that's pretty much what that whole brand was built on and went off of for, you know, decades was they weren't better than any of the other tools out there.

Speaker 1: 8:38

In fact, I would argue at least you know, based on my experience was in a lot of cases they were worse, but you knew if you ever had an issue with it you could always take it back and they essentially you know, at least up until you know, probably about five to seven years ago, they would take it back without any questions asked, which was incredibly powerful from a customer service standpoint. So, yeah, a lot of value in that. So I think that's great that you walked us through that. Couple other things that I kind of want to touch base on is how that opportunity came to be, and you know it just didn't fall in a thin air. You know, talk about a little bit of what sort of review profile you guys have in order to, you know, really tell that story to a wholesaler, you know retail outlet, that'd be interesting to you, especially, you know, at a thousand stores.

Speaker 2: 9:32

Yeah, yeah for sure, I think. I mean, first of all, obviously, your brand has to be at least big enough for them to pay attention to. So you know, like you're not, you're not going to. You're not going to get the attraction what's a better way to put it? You're probably not going to get the attraction from a Leslie's pool store at a price point that makes sense for your brand in order to be profitable on it. And you know if you're a fairly small player in the field. So you know, I don't think, if you're still in the sixth figure range, that you're likely, you know, making this play. But I do think that once you, once you enter into that second, you know seven figure space and especially mid seven figures, I think then there's enough caught behind your brand. Potentially, as long as your review profile looks good and you know you've got some good brand exposure, I think that's the moment at which you probably could make that kind of a play right. So but in terms of birthing to this point, first of all, I review profile.

Speaker 2: 10:27

Virtually every product that we sell on Amazon is a five star visual, which means it's at least a 4.8 star actual rating, and some are 4.9. We have a couple that are right on the edge, so they fluctuate between 4.7 and 4.8. So it's, you know, five star visual, four and a half star visual bank. That's a few thousands of reviews. And the other thing is is that the reviews themselves are not just. I mean, obviously we have individuals that just leave us a rating, but we have a massive number of just extremely glaring, super long, detailed reviews. You know, pictures, video, that sort of thing, and the reason for that is again going back to this warranty, and I will say there's other ways to do this.

Speaker 2: 11:11

I'm not trying to say that a warranty is the only way to accomplish this. At the end of the day, all you're trying to do is create a scenario where a you're treating the customer Way better than any other brand in your category, whatever that looks like, whatever kind of additional service you can provide to them that everybody else isn't providing, and you're doing it for free. You know, whatever, whatever does that you can do to make that customer feel better about your brand and I mean a lot better about your brand than the other brands in your category. That's what you should be doing, whatever that looks like. For a lot of brands, a really good, solid warranty could be the easy road forward there. But for other brands maybe that's not it.

Speaker 2: 11:49

But the point is, for us warranty worked. We don't make people jump through hoops. We have a two minute automated warranty claims process. So they go in, enter an order number, hit submit. You know they get their, their item shipped to them right. So but that also creates for us that opportunity to collect that customer data, because they have to register their warranty. So we have that information, we have an opportunity to follow up with them.

Speaker 2: 12:14

Um, and so through that process we have that opportunity to ask for that glowing review. And we don't we don't specifically say give us a five star review, obviously because we're number one I don't think that's right. But number two, amazon doesn't like it Um, but whenever we ask for that review following a warranty claim, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that not only are they going to respond to it, but they are going to give us a glowing five star review, because when they walk through a warranty process that's so much easier than any other company They've ever dealt with. They, you know, they're ecstatic. So in that moment when we ask for that review, it's a guarantee we're going to get it, and we always do, and so that review profile really is what is, you know, the meat behind this whole thing. You know, if we didn't have that, I don't care. If we're selling eight figures, you know, I'm not sure that leslie's would actually be paying attention to me, because we'd just be a me too brand. And they already have that. They've got plenty of that.

Speaker 1: 13:12

Yeah, and I think that's, you know, a couple of important things. I mean first of all, um, at least Because I've had brands in the past where you know we did have an uh, a retail component to it is, you know, first of all, understanding from that retail perspective is that there's limited shelf space there. So if you have a product that is much better quality and a higher price, think about it from their perspective of If I can sell a you know product and make 10 dollars for that same shelf space where I used to make five dollars before.

Speaker 1: 13:43

Uh you know, it makes it a really easy case, Uh, for that buyer to put your product in there.

Speaker 1: 13:51

And then the other thing that I would actually, you know, based on my experience, depending on who you're working with is In in your category. Sometimes you don't even have to be a seven figure seller if you have, you know, a strong review profile, even if you only have a couple hundred reviews, um, and you can show some sales velocity depending on what category you're in Um. You know, when I worked in um CPG, you could go to, at least kind of locally and regionally, some of these wholesalers and say, hey, you know, I've got some traction online. I have a very high quality product, uh, um, and that was a great way to get your foot in the door In order to get into retail. So, kind of, depending on your category, sometimes you can start that stuff a little bit earlier. And as much as we love e-commerce and there's a lot of growth there and a lot of great things happening, 80% of purchases still happen in a physical store, so there's a lot of power in brick and mortar. Even, you know, in 2024 I would also argue that there's.

Speaker 2: 14:51

There is something about that brick and mortar purchase, you know, for durable goods, you know, especially if you're trying to sell a premium, you know high-end kind of a product that's more durable than everybody else, whatever Like. If a customer can actually pick up your product and they can feel the difference between your product and another product, I actually would argue it's probably an easier sell in some respects To to sell them at that premium price point if they can physically see and feel that the product is different Than the product sitting next to it. You know that's half the price, whereas online it does take more effort. You know, like we built this review profile. That helps a lot but it's still difficult, you know, to really Get that message across that that you're actually selling a, a premium product that's better than everybody else.

Speaker 2: 15:38

And going back to what you were saying about that opportunity of retail in terms of expanding your revenue and whatnot, you know that idea. You know that our product could be in a thousand retail trailers. You know, in relatively short-lived River. You know, depending on how things go, you know that really could be a massive, you know, increase To overall revenue and, I would actually argue, potentially an improvement on our EBITDA. And I say that because Amazon is becoming so expensive. You know, in terms of every fee that they charge you, whether it's you know on the FBA side or you know PPC or Fulfillment all of you know all of those fees are getting so huge. But if you're not really good at what you do on Amazon and managing that, you might actually find that it's more profitable Selling to a retail store than it is to sell on Amazon.

Speaker 3: 16:30

So you specifically might have a couple of things going for you selling in a brick and mortar store, for one, you have a better quality product than competitors.

Speaker 3: 16:37

So when they can feel that and actually see that in person, that's going to give them a lot more confidence in your brand.

Speaker 3: 16:44

But second of all, you have this unlimited warranty that they don't have to jump through the loop for which, for me, if I own a high end pool and I know that I typically buy high end products there's a reason why I buy high end products, and the fact that you're going to replace it on top of it being a higher quality product, for me that removes the barrier of you having a higher product, because at that point it doesn't matter.

Speaker 3: 17:08

I know that I'm going to end up saving money in the long run because now I never have to purchase this pull brush again. So but then, on top of that, you have that success and you have that etched in their brain that this consumers brain they're going to go to the next time they're ready to buy something and they're going to search for your brand name because they had such a great experience. So each one of your other channels that you sell and are going to have that kind of halo effect from them seeing you at a retail store and you have a lot more opportunity to get them to know, like and trust you because you're in a retail store. You're at Leslie's pools and then they had a good experience with you there. So I mean it. There's so many benefits that you have of getting their first exposure inside of a brick and mortar store like that.

Speaker 2: 17:46

Yeah, I think another thing that actually just occurred to me like, honestly, it hadn't. I hadn't even thought about it previously. I've had thought about the reasonable aspect of this that locally is going to be a double flywheel, right. Right, exposure on Leslie's is going to increase our exposure on Amazon and vice versa, and I think they're going to flywheel together. But the one thing that I hadn't really considered is you know you just mentioned Matt about you know individuals who buy our products at Leslie. They have a good experience. They've been looking for us, right. You know what else do they sell. You know, whatever, can I get it cheaper? Right, because I mean, they're not stupid.

Speaker 2: 18:23

Most people know that Leslie's is more expensive than than what they can normally pay for online. So they're going to look right. And the interesting thing about that is one of the things that we talked about recently is brand search and how that can have an effect on not only your Google rankings but also on your Amazon rankings. When somebody is searching Protect products through poll, the more people that are searching that, the more Amazon and Google start to believe that you are a major player in that space and therefore you're ranking for all products related to your brand and then keywords related to those products goes. So if people are rocking into Leslie's in a thousand different stores all over America and they're seeing protect products food for number one, many of them are going to search for protect products, food for the fairly everybody because they're looking to see well, how does Leslie's price compared to Amazon's price, right?

Speaker 2: 19:19

So there's a brand search. Then we're going to be looking after the sale. If they bought it Leslie's, like you said, if they like the product and they're happy with it, now they're going to get online and start searching. Okay, what about? What about products from that? What about protein X? You know XYZ? So I actually think that brand search potentially could be significantly affected by this deal, which in the past may not have been that big of a deal, but now I think it's huge.

Speaker 1: 19:46

There's a lot of significant benefits and I would, you know, that's the other thing is just because I want to come back to this is you know? Well, two things. First, I would say brands are listening out here, at least in my experience, because my brand wasn't, you know, nearly the same size as yours is. Don't be afraid to, you know, pick up the phone or, you know, send an email and start talking to those.

Speaker 1: 20:08

You know buyers, once you've got some traction and you know you've got a hundred reviews or whatever, assuming that you have a good review profile because they'll tell you you know pretty much what they're looking for. There's generally not a ton of secrets there and in most those cases, unless you have like a really good you know company that you're working with or service, you're going to get told, you know, probably no, two or three times before you get to a yes from that same company. So, you know, don't be afraid to reach out in those cases and you know, don't be afraid to start small to. You know, there's, in your case, mike, you know your brand is built up to the point where it makes sense to go after, or for, you know, a company that has a thousand stores to put your product in there.

Speaker 3: 20:57

What similar similarly to micro influencers, how they're. They're good because I mean right around that ten thousand follower range, because they're more than happy to get into some sort of a partnership like this. But like local hardware stores in this example, like there's a ton of local hardware stores that you could have the same conversation with, that aren't leslie's that have a thousand stores? And I mean, just like you said, to start small, I mean that could be so many different places that you could go, that would be interested, that would be happy to have a conversation with a brand of pretty much any in any category.

Speaker 2: 21:29

I would also. I would also add that I think there's there is potential value in possibly pursuing this sort of arrangement earlier in the process of your business. You know, maybe you're not seven figure, maybe you're still, you know, mid six figure or upper six figure, and I can see the value in potentially pursuing it. There's a couple of caveats that I would issue there that I think are important to consider. One of them is that, from what I can gather now, I'll be honest. You know, since we haven't done this yet, this is our first foray into retail.

Speaker 2: 22:03

I don't know all of the ins and outs, but what I do know is, especially for the larger players, you know, like a leslie or a home depot or you know Walmart, things like that that process. There's a lot of hoops to jump through on the front end of that process in terms of documentation and paperwork, and you know, connecting up and integrating your systems and all those sorts of things that you know. For a smaller company that has a very, let's say, short list of individuals working there In other words, maybe it's just you and a VA or something it might be difficult to jump through all of those hoops while you're managing all of the other aspects of the business. If you don't have somebody to help you with that, whether that be an agency or whether you have a little bit larger team that somebody on your team has a little bit of time and they can devote to that. So that's thing one that I would pay attention to. The other thing that I would mention is that I do feel like it is likely that a larger business that has maybe it is that kind of seven figure to eight figure range, has a little bit more, maybe leverage, a little bit more negotiation power in that conversation.

Speaker 2: 23:15

Oh, 100%.

Speaker 2: 23:17

So that Smilobrand and I'm not saying don't pursue it if you're a Smilobrand, but my warning would be be careful that you don't give away the farm in order to get into retail because you're still Smil Like a retest store is gonna feel like they have more leverage over you because they do, and so they're gonna try to press you on price.

Speaker 2: 23:40

And if you allow them to press you too far, it's gonna be really difficult if, on the front end, you negotiate something with a retest store at a lower price point because you can get good volume, and then later on you think that your product is worth more, you wanna raise the price or you wanna do. You could box yourself into a corner if you allow them to bulldoze. You like that because you're small. So having a little bit more of a cloud and a little bit more negotiation power because maybe you are a seven or eight figure business and now you wanna scale that way I think it puts you in a better position to argue for that better price point from them. So you don't give away the farm too soon in that process.

Speaker 1: 24:23

Yeah, I would say really recommend that If you're an Amazon seller and whatever category you're in, find somebody in your category that's selling retail to talk to you, because there is also like retail can be fantastic but there's also some hidden elements to it. So something that could sound really good on paper, once you start taking into account returns and other expenses and that type of stuff, you can very easily go. I know the CPG space is where I had my experience in retail and I mean I know a number of people that were in huge stores. They were in Whole Foods, for example, and they were losing money by being in Whole Foods just because of how the contract was written and cost in order to actually get their product into the store and all kinds of shelf placement and all that other stuff. So I would definitely recommend because every category is a little bit different of getting some advice from somebody that's kind of been there, done that before.

Speaker 2: 25:35

First of all, the thing that I'm learning that I would never know, like you would never know, rocking into that and a lot of those retailers. They're not gonna handhold you and so if you don't notice that they've got something in the contract or you don't think about the fact there's this logistic hurdle over here, it's gonna cost you an extra 10 or 15% or whatever it is, and you sign the contract. I mean, you just signed your life away and you didn't know. So yeah, I wholeheartedly agree. That's why we know with an agency Number one, they have connections, but number two, they already know what this looks like. They know the things we should be looking for. They know the things to watch out for in the contracts. I need somebody on my side that knows that stuff.

Speaker 1: 26:17

Yeah, and then the other thing that I would say for anybody that's listening, just based on my experience, was yes, it's hard to, it can be challenging to get into stores, but the real challenge is making sure that you have, just like selling on Amazon, that you have a marketing planner to stay in that store, because once you get the product on the shelf, that really is just half the battle. The other portion is making sure that your product sells through in the timeframe that they expect, because if it doesn't, you're never gonna get a call. I shouldn't say never, but it's gonna be very hard to convince one of these major retail outlets to ever put your product back on the shelf once it's been pulled.

Speaker 2: 27:01

Yeah, and make sure you can produce. I mean, if you get into a larger retail outlet, it's possible that that may devil the volume or triple the volume or quadruple the volume of what you're gonna be selling in terms of units. Can your manufacturer handle that? Are you sure your manufacturer can handle that, like they may tell you they can? That doesn't mean they absolutely can. So investigate that stuff because, again, same thing if you walk down that rail and you screw it out, getting back in that door might be really hard. So be very careful that you're actually ready for that move, or at least you know that you can be, by the time things are really running full scale, before you start pursuing it, because you might really shoot yourself in the thread.

Speaker 2: 27:48

It's kind of like, you know, prior to doing Amazon, you know the business that I had before this.

Speaker 2: 27:54

I actually had dealers who operated underneath me, you know, and part of that process, or at least one of the types of accounts that we would seek after, would be like retail parts shops and auto repair shops, that sort of thing, and I would find, you know, like somebody who signed up as a distributor with us and of course, obviously they want the home run.

Speaker 2: 28:15

So it's like they know this chain store down the road you know that's got 25 stores or they know there's a trekking company down here that's got a thousand tramps and they want to sell to them because we've got a great synthetic oil, right, you know? And they don't start there and I would tell them to not do that, you know, because you're going to ruin your chance at that big fish. You would just sell it to a bunch of little fish, you know, and even not sell. You know like you need to go in, make your pitch, figure out, because they're going to be asking you the same questions that the big guys can ask, at least many of them. Right, you need to know the answers. And if you don't know the answers then you need to go find the answers. But you know, start with the little fish, then route your way up to the big fish, because if you take your swing, you know, and you strike out, good luck getting back in there.

Speaker 1: 29:01

Well, and I want to double click on one of the other things you said, because I think that that's really important as well which is just the inventory piece of it. I mean, that's the other factor of like. Okay, it's one thing to say you know, we're keeping up with inventory and we can ship. You know all that this retailer needs in March. It's a whole another thing to say that we can do that in November and that empty shelf space is one of the worst things that you can do to a store and a buyer, because now, instead of you know making less money on that shelf space, they're literally making zero on that shelf space If you can't provide inventory for that product.

Speaker 3: 29:39

Or on the website. You have a hard time fulfilling on the Amazon side because of your over committed on the retail side. Now you've created a situation where you're out of stock on Amazon, which we all know how bad that can be for momentum, for your brain.

Speaker 2: 29:54

Yeah, yeah, super problematic. And going back to what what you were saying, john, about the retail store, like you know, it's one thing on Amazon Like, yes, amazon doesn't like you to stock out and every, even if they're going to hurt you, right, because they don't like that. Ultimately, those is a virtual shelf space. As soon as you right there, some of the dots is there, so they'll still get to sell something in place of the product that you didn't. You know that you didn't provide. The retail shop doesn't happen. If you live for a shelf empty. They don't necessarily have the product. You know they're not going to throw that shelf space necessarily as easily as Amazon does. So they're losing more on you than Amazon loses on you when you go out of stock like that. So they're going to feel it and they're going to remember it. No, so getting back on that shelf is going to be tough.

Speaker 1: 30:38

Yeah, yeah, I think that's a great point is to say I mean, if you, unfortunately, if you're in a rock and a heart place, you know I personally, if it was me, I would make sure that that retailer got their inventory first, before Amazon, because, as much as it, you know, yes, it hurts to be out of stock on Amazon. You know, rebuilding that relationship for Amazon is usually easier than trying to rebuild that relationship with the retailer. Yeah for sure. The other thing for folks that are listening, what I would encourage them to listen to is the guest episode that we had with Paul Sollenfeld, because he really talks about, like maybe you're not ready for, you know, traditional retail in that sense, but you know from his experience with Merchant's Pring, you know really supporting brands that are getting into these curated marketplaces.

Speaker 1: 31:32

So you brought up like Home Depot. There's hundreds of these curated marketplaces where you know they're looking for super high quality brands and, yeah, you're not going to move as much volume as you do on Amazon but your profit margins are so much higher because you're also not competing against, you know, 100 other overseas competitors. So you know, for folks that are listening, I would just encourage them to listen to that episode and think about, you know, exploring if that's an opportunity, that's a good fit for you right now, because that might be another way where you know you can really expand your footprint and grow your profit margins on one of those curated marketplaces where there's not as much competition and leverage that you know brand cloud that you've really built on Amazon over the last few years.

Speaker 2: 32:23

And you know when leverage the cloud that you will gain if you grow that route. You know, and you start looking at some of these more, you know niche marketplaces. You know you can use that as a stepping stone. You know, like, if you don't go straight to larger marketplaces and retailers and whatnot, like that's just additional credibility that you give to your brand if you sit right on that marketplace, you know that you can provide to that retailer. And I guess the only other thing that you know for me that I would want to touch on is just, you know, coming full circle on this, if this conversation was of interest to you and quite frankly I believe if you have a brand, then it should be of interest to you. You know, like, the idea of not even considering retail I think is silly. You know, if you actually have a good, established brand and you've got loyal customers, I think it would be silly not to consider it.

Speaker 2: 33:13

But I also think that, quite frankly, if you have the beginning of your brand building, or you haven't even started an Amazon business or what are you like, you should be thinking this way from the very beginning, you know.

Speaker 2: 33:28

So, if you want a chance to move into retail and to move into retail in a profitable way.

Speaker 2: 33:36

Right, like you don't want to get away the farm, you don't want to be selling it for pennies and you're like you want to make a good profit on those products that you're selling to retailers, then you have to start from the very beginning recognizing that you need to be building a solid brand, which means you need to find that what is that thing for your product that you can do for your customers that they will be ecstatic about, that nobody else is doing and probably won't be willing to do or will be afraid to do.

Speaker 2: 34:01

Right, what is that thing? And then use that, you know, to build that loyalty, to build that, you know, that review profile. Make sure that you're building in that post purchase process or process so that you can be communicating with those customers. And of those things are the stepping stones that are going to be required, you know, to get you to that place where you have that conversation with a Leslie's store. And if you're not thinking about that from the beginning, it's going to be way harder later to try and fix it, you know, if you didn't create it from the start.

Speaker 1: 34:32

Yeah, I think that's such a great point and, matt, anything that you want to add before we kind of wrap up this episode.

Speaker 3: 34:42

We talk about it a lot, how important having an audience is, and this is another one of those. One of those things like focusing on building an audience has all of these side effects that you are able to take to so many other different channels. So that's why we are we harp on it inside of brand fortress. That's why we harp on these, on these episodes. It's so important to have that as the at the forefront of your mind when you're building a physical product brand, to think about the customer and how are you going to get them on a list so that you can do things like this.

Speaker 1: 35:13

Yeah, great point. And then what I would leave you with this you know, for folks that are listening, and if they're thinking about, you know, getting into retail or one of these curated marketplaces is, you know, doing something as simple as talking to a couple of local buyers and maybe even, just, you know, take them out for a cup of coffee or whatever it happens to be, because, at the end of the day, they're looking for great products and great brands just as much as you're looking for that next opportunity in order to grow your brand. So, you know, if you talk to a couple of them, you'll find one or two that will give you just some absolute, you know, golden insight into what it is that they're looking for at a brand, and it'll really give you a good barometer on Are you ready for that step, you know, into retail or a curated marketplace? Yeah, absolutely, that's great, john. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for listening and we'll see you next time.