Today I'm here at Accelerate as Pattern makes a counter punch to the Aggregator vs Accelerator argument. In 2022 Aggregators are already jumping in the ring with a black eye and a lame leg. The accelerators are about to punch a final blow.
Why are Accelerators winning? For starters. Accelerators are Amazon Sellers. They were born in the channel a decade ago. They know that not everything goes as expected. They know shut downs. They know wasted ad spend. They are operators.
They are profitable on their own merits. Pattern didn't raise money until they had $20m EBITDA.
There's also more of them than you'd think. They don't have huge raises with press releases. They may only work with a dozen of the 100k+ plus brands on Amazon. Many of them have roots as resellers of the brands and then built out services to actually be accelerators. It's a strategy that can still work today. What do you think?
Thanks for reading! I'll be on leave soon as I'm going to be a first time father in a few days. Any advice? When I come back, I'll be promoting our new set of search term tools (screenshot below). I'm not going to build something that isn't better than what you're used to.
-Scott
CEO of Worldwide Consumer at Amazon, Dave Clark is leaving for Flexport. I think this says more about Flexport than it does about Amazon. He was there for 23 years. People move on. With two decades of experience, getting fresh blood is good. His choice in Flexport is exactly where he see's opportunity. He thinks he can make a difference.
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Amazon FBA Donations program becomes mandatory. Seems like it's good. Could backfire if some products that are donated end up back on the platform undercutting your Buy Box. Hopefully less stuff in the landfill.
Fulfillment fees predictably are rising. Look at your NARF margins today as Amazon is updating what it costs to send across the border. I've heard some rumors that Brazil is going arrive in the NARF program. That's exciting.
An "Invite Only" program for low supply products. Amazon is a real time reflection of supply and demand. Look at the baby formula crisis to see how Amazon is curbing panic buying and arbitrage opportunities. I think this is a good thing, but will likely fail a few times as hackers usually outsmart the system.
My Amazon business, BuyBoxer is going from two warehouses to one. We have a warehouse space primed for FBA prep at scale. Do you know anyone interested?
We analyzed a very large aggregator with SmartScout data. We have a full report coming out soon, but across the 100+ brands they own they are not looking great. Stay tuned to see who it is and you can jump into the data yourself.
