OK Ah OK Now it's gone OK can you also test your microphone Can you hear me

OK Then I think The last people are coming in Let's wait for them to have a

seat All right I think we are good to go So welcome everyone I'm really happy that you made

it to our masterclass cracking the US market how European brands can win on Amazon

in the US I'm one of your hosts today I'm Julia I'm a team lead at Front row

Germany and yeah I'm part of the consulting team and I'm here today with Marco

nice to meet you Hey my name is Max Nice to meet you guys Now the

Thing is not working now it's working All right so what will you walk away with today Um we brought

you the topic of demystifying Amazon US so what does it mean Today we want to show you why

the US is still despite all the political topics at the moment a very relevant market and

why Amazon is the perfect place to start your expansion in the US and we brought today a

client of ours Dr Wolf today here with Max who will explain to you in a very practical way how

they approached the US expansion And in the end you will hopefully have a kind

of strategic plan on how to approach the expansion in the US and also to decide if

this could be a right step for you and your brand And for the ones in the

front rows you will also walk away with a little goodie bag for the ones in the back if at

the end of our masterclass because I see some empty seats so feel free to come to the front to

check out if there's still a goody bag And yeah first of all I will hand over to Marco

Maybe before we start a few words about me So I'm with Amazon since around 2016 always in the

expansion space so first supported German sellers on Amazon to expand across Europe And since around 2021 I'm responsible

for the European expansion business that means European sellers that expand across the globe for example

to the United States MA Latin America or Australia So The focus for today is of

course Dr Wolf but also their journey into the US and how they made it possible and Amazon was

a big part of it So what does Amazon in general offer sellers brands globally

So we offer you access to more than 20 stores globally around 300 million customers you

can reach And the main areas or region are the North America means US Canada and Mexico Latin America Middle

East and Asia Pacific and of course Europe So to give you a little impression of

what service offering Amazon has in particular also my teams So we offer full service account management

that means if you have a brand or if you want to become a reseller

with Amazon you can contact us and we will help you with your expansion across the globe Um we

offer you a smart selection recommendation that means um we can tell you what of

your products uh can be successful in in other countries Further we offer you logistics solutions no matter where

from in the world you are sourcing but particularly from China and also from Europe we offer

specific logistics solutions tailored to your needs That means ocean freight or small parcel services And last but not

least of course we know every start needs a little bit of acceleration and boost Of course we have

a lot of incentives that we can guide you through to make your start as easy as

possible Yeah this is us um Doctor Wolf group I guess a few of you heard

of that name or company name You will know us and we define us by our brands um which

are 5 in particular German people mostly know them International people don't uh depending on

where they're from It's Essent Plan tour so we do hair care we do oral care we

do pharma brands like Linola and Wachizan and also like beauty hairdressing and 4 hairdressers called Alsina

Um that's what we do How are we structured or what are we We are like kind

of a unique company I would say we have quite unique culture how we approach things

Uh we are founded in 1905 Um we are in our 4th generation We are led by our owners um

we decide fast We have our headquarters in Bielefeld Germany and it's the only office in

Germany because we think it's really important to be close together But obviously for other markets like

the US but also in Asia quite a lot of offices there And um that's

how we're set up uh we do around about uh it says 420 we're now aiming for 500 this year

Now big strategic goal is to double the company and that's why it's so important to internationalize in markets

like the US but also Brazil for instance a really interesting market for us Maybe quick um

oh no next slide let me do this one sorry not the next sorry Yeah um this shows a

bit like where we are currently regarding e-commerce channels um and as you can see obviously

we're quite strong in Europe Germany is by far our biggest market still We expanded in Europe quite fast

and heavily in the last couple of years and also in Asia Our owner moved to Singapore for 5 years

and build up the business there And now as I said before it's time to

conquer the left side of the map actually which is US obviously Canada also Um and I think you would

talk about this just a bit uh in the end uh but also Brazil as I just said before How

we structured and set up and maybe hear one or two sentences also regarding my role

in the organization um when we started this internalization like 5 to 10 years ago our approach

when it came to countries and set up was pretty decentralized so our biggest market as I said before is

Germany We do a lot of stuff there We develop campaigns but all the countries were actually allowed to do

what they wanted Uh currently we are more going into a set up which is

more headquarters driven meaning we have specialists there for instance for the whole topic of e-commerce and

marketplaces um who help the countries to deliver best practice and as an execution together with

partners obviously um But also creative uh execution media set ups data analysis and so

on and so forth So this unit I'm heading it's called Evolve um it's like

a specialist unit for marketing sales ranging from creative team to software engineering and in

between this data analytics online marketing e-commerce on and so forth That's how we support our key market Germany but

all the international countries meaning for this whole topic of ecom platforms we Decided that we want to do everything

which is efficiently possible and feasible in our headquarters in Germany together with partners but where it's too big

or where it's so different like Asia we have also people and teams there but we try

to come from the central set up because only with that it's really possible to

to set up a team which is like high performing but we do have some people decentralized

and then they work together Obviously centralized blueprints strategy best practices so on and so forth and decentralized locally

more like execution Thank you Max and we will definitely hear a bit more about that later

in our Q&A session Um a couple of words to me and uh front row Group we

are commerce catalysts We are an agency who partner with especially a lot of brands in the beauty and

wellness realm but of course also So in all other consumer brands and we support them to accelerate their e-commerce

e-commerce growth This can be on marketplaces for example as we do it here for Doctor Wolf but it

can also mean D2C business Shopify and B2B businesses as well And in terms of our services I also want

to explain a little bit on the example of how we collaborate for example with Dr Wolf So on this

specific scope where I'm also the account lead we support Dr Wolf for example yeah we already did

some strategic projects for you like the one also with your internal structure of the marketplace team but also to

evaluate which other marketplaces despite Amazon might be interesting for them And then we also do Amazon campaign management for

them in the US and in Canada We create content for e-commerce marketplaces and we also provide our

data solution catapult for all the Amazon advertising data and yeah as you can see it's like a

nice bouquet of services that we offer And we as a company we are also quite international We have 200

colleagues here in the EU with offices in Hamburg and Bratislava And then we also have uh

yeah 200 additional colleagues who are located in the US with offices for example in New York and San Diego

which also enables us to really be close with brands who decide to go to the US

because we also have offices there um and you can also see it on the slide we don't only support

on Amazon but also EU wide in the US for example also with Walmart in the UK

with Tesco Sainsbury's and so on Um so yeah a broad expertise in the e e-commerce realm To have

a little Maybe I just Do it here OK Marco handing over to you for

a quick pulse check Yeah I'm super interested um who's in the crowd so maybe just hands up

who's already selling on Amazon in in Europe or Germany That's quite a striking number and who's selling outside of

Europe Still a few and in the US OK OK impressive Uh then let's kick off

that uh we get next time all hands up for the US That's the plan even though

we must address it it's the elephant in the room because a lot of you probably thought OK talking

right now about US expansion why is it still a good timing to do that And that's why we want

to address it right away so that you don't have to wait until the very end to get this question

answered And before I bring my our point of view of why we think that

US expansion Is right now uh yeah an opportunity I want to ask Max because

I can imagine that Doctor Wolf also has a take on that and uh yeah what's your take Yeah I

mean obviously uh one terrorist isn't anything any company likes who's operating internationally um of

course there are some companies coming from the US we are like coming from Germany going into

the US so obviously there's some kind of disadvantage um but in the end all the competition is um

uh struck by this in some some kind of way That's like one important thing why we

don't see it as like a huge uh critical problem currently because what we are

doing is like premium brands um the brands we do are problem solving products so it's not any generic shampoo

It's shampoos against hair loss it's creams against vaginal dryness so on and so forth meaning they really do stuff

They are premium position so prices are high That's why our target group most often is able to pay a

little bit more which obviously they currently have to um so we don't see it as a

critical risk but of course it's nothing we uh we like and we are happy if And hopefully

soon tariffs will go away again yeah Yeah I think it's important to mention that this

is a very unpredictable situation I mean when we prepared this presentation we also didn't know what will be the

status when we come here today but I think we have a couple of takes on that So as Marx

already mentioned basically everyone is impacted so it's not just one category one brand impacted by this but we will

probably see rising consumer prices across all categories But for brands Especially producing in the EU or Germany this

can be a competitive edge because the majority of sellers currently in the US are Chinese-based so basically the gaps

that they might leave right now can be the gap where you Brands can jump

into and then kind of build up a long lasting and relevant presence on the Amazon

marketplace So we really see this rather as yes US tariffs change the math but not the opportunity And

maybe just just to enhance on this to give us a little bit the perspective

from Amazon we are very much in a waiting position We of course don't like volatility what's going on

there However just to echo from recent events where I talked to sellers in person it's very controversial It really

depends on where you currently manufacturing where you're sourcing as some see it very much as a golden

window of opportunity while others look out for alternative production hubs Yeah Now I skipped

something Um Marco while you're already talking can you explain to us a bit more uh

yeah the viewpoint like why the US and later on also why Amazon Why is it such a

relevant market So I think uh the most striking number is um The actual addressable

market I think it's quite obvious that just with the US we have an addressable market

that is similar to the size of the European Union Just with one market and I

think if we just move one slide further We actually talk overall about three big

pillars So one of these pillars is the addressable market as just said the comparably

lower complexity So if I think about the US it's one market one language to be fair two

languages Spanish is also quite important there However we Obviously have uh also options uh for for Spanish customers in

the US to see uh product listings in their own language and uh if you compare it to the

EU where you have a lot of fragmented uh countries with different VAT and uh product

compliance regulatories in the US you have one market once you have set up your your your tax and compliance

set up it's fairly fairly automated Um so that's quite important from that perspective Yeah thank you

Maybe to add one thing because we are also like asked that often from clients who

think about OK do we either now expand to more EU marketplaces or to the

US I think especially when you have limited capacities internally I think just the sheer size of the US can

like as you already mentioned be one The reasons and then also just enhancement of the brand If you go

to the US and can then later state OK we are an international brand even established in

the US market I think that's also one of the reasons I think I forgot

one point and it's not to underestimate the importance of an early advantage So even if you're active already in

Europe so most of the tools Amazon is a US based company Most of the tools we are launching we

first launched in the US no matter if it's in the space of customer distribution

for example very simple one virtual bundles If a customer orders a product in Europe you can just order

one by one and you We will have we will put them together in a package However

the the seller pays for each and every product like individually for example for the distribution fees in the US

we already offer virtual bundles so we can put together these products at the same price Second for example

on the logistics side so if you want to inbound Into our logistics centers in the US we

already have upstream storage solutions there That means you can ship bigger volumes save on the logistics

side and then we replenish from these upstream storages into our logistics centers This is a

quite big cost advantage we already offer in the US And uh uh a third one when

you think about advertising your products all the advertising uh products we are launching the first

offered in the US One good example and this quite fits uh fits quite well with

the OMR is Creators so we have a creator Amazon owned creator network in the US influencers to be precise

that can help advertise your products So you can always try products we offer first there in the US and

then when they come to Europe you're already experienced with that I can confirm that the Creator connections

is quite a nice tool We already tested that uh with a brand in the US

and so yeah some good return on investment with this tool uh so looking forward

to the EU roll out hopefully um thank you Marco for Showing us a bit the

relevance of the US in general I just want to emphasize very briefly that especially Amazon as marketplace

and ecom destination is by far the most relevant one Also looking here at the size of

the Amazon US versus all the other Amazon marketplaces worldwide I mean it just makes up 2/3 so I think

we have emphasized it a lot but there is just a lot of potential that

you can leverage So one question to you Mars Despite the high sales potential what were other reasons for

you for Dr Wolf to expand to specifically Amazon in the US Yeah good question Um I mean as you

already both said uh obviously we have this huge market potential on Amazon US and not

only on Amazons obviously but now coming again from the world perspective we want to nationalize We want to go

into big markets US is one of the biggest market maybe maybe China Then we

have this huge and biggest e-commerce platform in this country so this is obviously the first big pillar But there's

a second really important one for us actually um because this whole internationalization sorry we want to do most efficiently

and therefore scalable meaning Amazon is a really efficient platform to operate um so from the

whole operating model also our internal structures and so on and so forth I just

talked about the central e-commerce um and marketplace team if we execute and we do Um

Amazon and a couple of different other countries uh mostly Europe focus it's quite quite easy for

us all to the US obviously um it's quite a no brainer but it's really important for us to

be fast and flexible and this is one of the important points um we define ourselves um

So this is a key factor for us to say alright do we have the sales potential in the market

itself Do we have the sales potential in which e-commerce platform and there's basically one strategic rule where we say

we want to be on the biggest ecom marketplace in the country and Amazon It's not the biggest

in every country um but in a lot of important countries and in the US so this is

why we say we go into this marketplace um and this is actually in was also and I

think we'll touch more more on this further The first sales channel we even did or

set up in the country because it's a really good entry point And this is

also not a secret It's not our goal and target to only stay on Amazon We're currently

also on some others like Walmart but obviously we want to go in physical stores which we

are not yet but still Amazon will be a big channel and important player for us So

it's a really nice entry channel to go into the market and then draw from

it and obviously it will stay big Um I don't think this will change I don't think so either and

I think from our collaboration I can also emphasize that kind of like the data points that you gather on

Amazon This is basically also uh what you take away then for your multi-channel strategy

kind of like seeing what's working there and then also testing it on the other platforms Cool thanks

a lot Um before we walk more into the Q&A part of today's session um Before we saw that there

were some hand raises for people who are already selling on Amazon but Marco for everyone who is not

on the Amazon marketplace yet can you very briefly explain what I'm addressing the 2% not yet

on Amazon in the room Um so just quickly Amazon offers a direct to consumer

business opportunity and that means if you directly want to reach out to customers without

building an infrastructure Amazon is the go to point for you Of course offer full service or

end to end service across advertising logistics and everything you can wish for to actually reach out to your

customer get the product delivered And just very simply explained so how do we earn money we take a portion

of the gross revenue that's usually around 15% of the gross revenue of your products Some categories are

a little bit lower some slightly higher but on average it's around 15% Thank you Then I will hand over

one of the mics to Max So Let's talk about how you actually approach the US expansion I mean you

talked about a lot about you want to go only on market places where you see

like the potential Um but kind of like from a strategic viewpoint I want to

ask you a couple of questions like how you actually approached this So let's start with the foundation

the market analysis I mean you already said yes you knew that the US is a big market

and you already touched base on the actual motivations Is there anything else that we

didn't discuss yet In terms of reasons um Hope so um let me think through it So as you

just said and as I said before the analysis here like market analysis and building business case

on and so forth was quite straightforward meaning obviously US is a really big market meaning

you have to have rather bigger budgets than obviously in smaller countries but in the

end as I said before like marketplace like Amazon for the US is a really good market to go into

it with like a smaller investment And not having to have resources which are enormous um so the analysis was

quite easy and clear meaning as I said before it's a really big market we want to

own this market if we want to really internationalize and globalize same as Brazil and so on and so forth

Then the second question came to be like where do we go first As I said before we

decided for Amazon and actually it's not only applying to the US but it's a general approach

we are currently taking like 5 to 10 years ago when we approached countries we said we go in To

like a big and if it was possible into the biggest like physical stock chain or whatever pharmacies

can can be anything differs by country nowadays our strategy is more to say we go e-commerce first and

then as I explained before for US we extend from there because it's way easier way

faster to really have to set up for those marketplaces compared to like have 1 or 2 years lead time

to even be able to get into physical stores and then only you can start with

online marketing and so on and so forth So we shifted the strategy to say we go e-commerce first

and that's why we also did it for years and I guess yes was one

of the first markets here obviously in this I guess from the company corporate perspective so

it's an interesting point um regarding US because in other countries like Europe you talk

Poland whatever um it would be possible Uh would like resources which are feasible to go

into physical stores right away in the US that's either you spend like enormous budgets or

it's not even possible to go into physical stores because you have to pay huge

listing fees um if you're not known yet or you have to be known and then you

can go into some stores and and and go from there actually um and this is another reason why

we said the US we want to do this e-commerce first approach Uh like culture wise we are

heavily um ticking in terms of trial and error so we don't over analyze at first

We we do what we think is strategically right and then as also Julia knows we heavily analyze and

assess if what we do is uh making sense if it's uh profitable in terms of long term return and

not the short term RI And then we either adapt because we see OK US didn't

work out work out for us A US didn't work out for us or we focus

even more and put more budget into it so on and so forth um and that's also why

we didn't over analyze here but rather had this common sense analysis where we said US makes sense We want

to go e-commerce first and in this country we have to go e-commerce first or because we

don't want to spend 2 digit million budgets for listing fees um and that's why we did

that yeah Yeah thank you I think you already mentioned that you are not really overanalyzing in the

team but can you still say were there any specific data points the team used like for

example maybe also from Amazon Marketplace they were already selling in I mean obviously you don't go into

a market and only answer those questions I just told you guys about Um of course you look at

stuff like total re market how much uh is uh or our our products uh we we do under those

brands sold then what is sold on Amazon so of course we looked at what competitors are there Just talking

about those hair care shampoos with caffeine against hair loss We are the first to do it globally so

we are the original but there are only 1 over 1000 copies so they were unfortunately already selling

there some of them at least So yes we looked at search volumes obviously there are some

tools where you can assess what third party sellers are selling what are the volumes

round about and yes that like maybe that second death you could call it we did But we actually

didn't go further in terms of we do like a business case where every digit

is uh analyzed so on and so forth Cool thank you so much What I brought to kind

of like sum it up because you just mentioned it marks some of the data points what I

think is maybe interesting especially for the ones already selling in the EU but not yet

in the US is that also for European sellers Amazon is now offering the so-called category insight Reports

to check from the EU your potential in the category in the US It's accessible in

seller central and you can basically view on category how many sales are being made

in that category to have at least kind of a benchmark and first party data from

Amazon seller itself Then I can also personally recommend uh additional Amazon first party tools uh the search query performance

report which I will also show later on in a small case study Here I brought the

product Opportunity Explorer from which you can basically also see Um yeah on the niches you're selling in um how

large your uh yeah click share in these niche is or on the search terms and this can

also already give you quite a good feeling of the competition in that uh marketplace And then

last but not least um Amazon has of course also um resulted in not only Amazon first party

tools but also in a lot of third party tools and common tools that we for example

use as an agency at Front row for example Helium 10 Pris Perpetua or Profitero

which are third party tools in which you can extract either based on category or search

term or specific ascents the estimated sales volume or the units sold and this gives you a very clear

picture of the market you're currently selling in So for example here we conducted this analysis for

Dr Wolf We looked at the regrowth shampoo category to really see how is the market

developing how are the individual brands developing and then kind of yeah to adapt our strategy on

this in an everlasting iterative process And what I think is also important when we analyze

the market and to see if we start it's not only the category and to define

how large the cake is but also who is already there because it can make a huge difference if you're

competing with very large corporate brands because you can assume that they will have a super

large advertising budget if you're competing with brands which are D2C only so they know all the rules

of the D2C playbook They have amazing content yeah just so that you get a view of who you are

actually competing with and also strategically how much of that cake do you want to achieve Do you want

to conquer one quarter of the cake or maybe just 1% So I think this is

also a very important question to ask yourself before starting the expansion Yeah And maybe

one thing to enhance here and this also comes from conversations with sellers on events I know

helium 10 is let's say a stone in terms of tools However we are constantly developing new tools We are

providing of course I mean first party data so that means accuracy within seller center the Amazon seller tool is

much more accurate so please take a look from time to time I spoke to a couple of sellers

that dropped helium 10 in favor of our internal tools just in April we launched the marketplace

product guidance where we give you guidance for your selection in Europe what you should launch into

the US We even give you a forecast range how much we expect this selection to generate

in the US So take a look Helium 10 is good but maybe our tools become

better at some point I hope so Yeah I think especially for the ones already having the seller account

uh this is the the tools to go to So Max after you've decided OK Amazon US is

relevant and also Yeah Amazon US is relevant Um how did you decide with which brands and

which products to go to the US Um here again Um applies to more or less all

the countries globally We like to enter markets with our two strongest brands which are Epison and Plantour Um

so this was basically said more or less from the beginning that if we enter we do it with those

two Uh why only 2 not not all the 56 brands we have um because obviously

you have to have resources to do this uh you can extend with the good partners um but you need

focus and that's why in general we say we enter one or two brands most

of the times and then we extend from there uh same here in the US we started with Plan

Why is that Because maybe you all heard of those fluoride discussions which are heavily gaining traction in the US

They are not gaining as much traction currently in Europe so here the US is first mover You

will talk a bit more on this so I won't spoiler Um but we have a

a great momentum here because we don't use fluoride another ingredient which is the same as uh effective

um so that's why we decided to also enter with orca which is otherwise most of the times

the last brands we we enter with yeah Yeah I think that's quite interesting And then also not

only did you select the brands but then also the specific products and I know from every brand you went

in with like I would say a small product range if I'm correct yeah Yeah so most

of the times and also again applying to other countries and also other sales channels like

classical sales channels we obviously enter with our hero products um and um on on Amazon as

we all know it's easier to right away enter with a bigger assortment Um uh but also

here we try to focus on hero products and if we see we gain traction

we extend because again here as I said before trial and error so we don't have this meeting where

we said OK we are now deciding to spend like 20 million in the US but we say yes there's

a proper investment and start up um investment but from there we see how it goes

we analyze we adjust we spend more we spend less we extend the assortment or we

maybe in some countries also have to say OK that doesn't make sense so we go go out Um

which Luckily rarely happens um but yeah that's where we go in small again here and then extend

from there if it goes well OK and in terms of the hair care brands and oral

care brands did you expect any differences in demand or consumer behavior between the EU and US

So I guess there are like two advantages you could you could um uh say to them in

one disadvantage uh maybe disadvantage first um this is also obviously something which came into consideration when we decided to

do the US um because um for our hair care products um we can't claim as much

as we can claim in Europe and in Asia So it's a bit harder here and maybe you

could also say a lot harder but then again in the end again here strategic high

level analysis it's one of the biggest markets worldwide or the biggest markets so we

said we want to try we want to do this initial investment and we see from there um

and it goes quite well but it's challenging We also have to say claiming wise um so this is the

disadvantage for OK it's quite the opposite as I just explained Um what is the advantage uh

I see um you have this um or maybe sorry Oca was one of the advantages second advantages that we

see that in the US um they like to buy bigger bulks in terms of the packaging itself like

we did uh new um packages and sizes for Asia and the US We wouldn't have done it for Europe

because people don't don't don't want them as much um which is again of course in this marketplace e-commerce context

quite relevant Um because you have better unit economics um so they like to buy bigger

packs and also bundles um bigger bottle and 6 bottles and not only 1 or 2 as in Germany for

instance and that's helpful especially for for e-commerce yeah Yeah that's true They stack up their household

definitely more than in the EU Just a few points to touch up on that because some

of you might be facing an entirely different product portfolio and brand portfolio than Dr Wolf

does So I think some steps to mention here is first of all check your product

and your brand for the cultural differences and product market fit So as an example in

the EU a bike is a mode of transportation whereas in the US it's very much seen more as

kind of like a fitness lifestyle accessories so you really have this difference uh in like cultural buying behavior

Um and then as Max already mentioned if you have your product assortment and brand

assortment really look in your market analysis which ones are the categories with the most potential where

do you also have products with your highest margin and then to select them and

also understand the product compliance requirements um as Max already mentioned you might have to Change the

product packaging the claims that you can make or maybe even you have to change

the product itself to make it sellable in the US but in the end it's all about finding the right

balance so what's working in the EU will probably also work in the US The classic Pareto principle Um

and then yeah you go in with a brand and then also a specific product portfolio because it's important that

you are just present with your brand with more than just one product because first

of all you have advantages when it comes to advertising that you have more products to really scale

more efficiently and to see what's really working in advertising And then second of all

you can also avoid more out of stock of your entire brand if you are

there with more products So you might still be visible with one product in case that the other ones are

out of stock Max you already talked a bit about the business case that you didn't blow it up

too much Nevertheless how did you define if the US will be profitable and maybe

also like in which time frame I guess there are there are two steps There's a step I already

talked about so I would more or less skip it Like this forefront analysis where you or we do this

like 8020 principal analysis um and obviously we decided to enter the market and then there's

this and I guess way more important step um to then assess Does it make sense or doesn't it make

sense What we do here and this applies to all the markets to all the

sales channels and all the marketing channels uh we heavily heavily invested in internal experts uh to do um incremental

sales analysis for all the activities we do So for every TV campaign for every online marketing campaign so

on and so forth so assessing the RRI And this is what we do uh obviously also for the US

and um there are two things which will define if you will be successful or not in a given country

and this is first unit economics of course you have to calculate uh how much do I

have to spend to produce how much do I have to spend to ship it to

the US so on and so forth um but then the second deciding factor is uh how

good is my marketing and brand building efficiency Um and this surely you can assess and make some assumption and

write it in your business case but it's such a big assumption you can also not do it um

because you have to try And that's where we're strong at um figuring out if this works

well and how can we optimize um so this is where we focus more on

if we are in the market how does it work and we as I said before don't

only look at the short term effect but at the long term baseline growth so on and so forth and

then Every couple of months we reassess are we on the right track aren't we on the right track

applies for every country brand um yeah yeah and I think uh you can't really answer

me that one How long did you did it take for your expense to be profitable

As you as you said uh can't can't talk too much on on profit um

but in the end um And I said this in the beginning we're family driven owned company so we

are not in it for the short term It doesn't matter if we are profitable in the US in

clearly see through those analysis we will be profitable and it will heavily um pay into our bottom

line um and that's how we take and see things um not quarterly reviews reporting so on and so

forth Maybe just to enhance you also um from experience within our teams we help sellers uh to start uh

selling in the US What we always see is sellers need to plan not for the short term but

at least for the mid to the long term That means expect 6 to 12 months to really ramp

up to invest in your selection And if your unit economics are good enough after

necessarily expect it to be profitable from day one It takes some time to gain

visibility discoverability on the marketplace also in particular in categories where you have strong competition Thanks for adding

up on that Um just one thing that I want to point out when it comes to cost calculation

especially for advertising is that You have to expect higher advertising costs when you go to the US

so you will probably not be able to make the same impact with the EU budget

if you go with the same budget to the US I brought here an example of 5 search terms

which we advertise both in Germany and the US of course in German I translated it here and for

these search terms we see on average a 285% higher cost per click price in the US So this

is not like an average percentage that you should now walk away with and say It's always the

higher cost It's just an example here to really show you how much higher the

cost per click prices are which is basically because there is just more competitions in the

categories the categories on Amazon US are just more mature Um and yeah therefore please uh

if you calculate your advertising costs um don't underestimate um yeah basically the cost that you

will have in the US um but what I also want to point out what's then very important

is your creative strategy If you then think about localizing your content for the US not

only on your product detail pages also think about how can I make very good content also

for advertising that's convincing maybe also video content This should also be part of your strategy here And

then Marco you already mentioned it We're in for the long run here so up to 6 months

is basically the ramp up phase phase where you really establish all of your processes you

list the products you start with advertising where it might not be profitable from day one Um and

then from 6 to 12 months it's kind of this first learning and adjustment phase uh

seeing if you have to adapt and localize the content even more um and yeah

just based on the learnings from the first year And then only after that you might come to

this path of profitability Your advertising might become better You might already have better organic

rankings with your products and then based on the data of course you can see if you already

start to expand the product portfolio And then from 80 to 24 months you can really

start with like scaling because your advertising will have become better and you can test out new advertising formats and

potentially also look further into a multi-channel strategy yeah besides Amazon OK so now we learned how you

approach the market analysis how you Calculated the business case um now we are in the process of

really like Launching the operations and we have to consider different topics like taxes in the US and also logistics

product compliance How did you deal with these topics I guess probably the least fun topic I

like to talk about We like to do really good marketing and sales We define ourselves

as like a marketing and sales company Um but obviously you have to do stuff like logistics

finance um so on and so forth um and maybe here can touch a bit

on like how we approached it from this uh organization uh point of view um and I

think there are different options maybe shortly what we did um we decided um that if we want to

be successful in the US we have or should have like a man and boots on the ground um

and it was a man so I guess it's fine to say a man on

the ground Um so we sent one of our um uh talented people in the US uh

into New York um and had him basically scale up this business but we decided to then do

it with partners um and in this case also with partners who helped us with this whole topic of tax

which is a hassle in the US in Europe it's easier because we have this European market Um so this

is a hassle yes on the one side on the other side they are partners which

can effectively and efficiently help you uh with this topic we work with them Um

and then uh during the last 2 or 3 years we then decided um because the outlook was

quite good to build up like a small team we have now 4 or 5

people in the US and as I said before the rest is extended by external partners and our central headquarters

specialists which are helping those those people on the ground Um but when when it comes to logistics and finance

and taxes on and so forth we decided we want to focus on marketing and sales so we just

get partners to or who organize this for us and I guess it's a really wise decision to

do um because you don't want to have your people um stuck in this um but uh talking

about the second option I think and if I look back Yes we took this decision to send

directly somebody there and build up a small team but I think you don't have to do it and

maybe also you two guys can elaborate a bit more I think we could also have executed this

from our central office central team e-commerce specialists um obviously but then with help from you guys for

instance because currently or not currently but uh after you merger you also have people

Uh in in the US um I guess that is a possibility we took the

other way um but I don't think you have to build up a team because obviously there's also an investment

Do you have experience from other sellers Yeah of course So I said two different options whether you

go there and you say I go in all in so you set up a company and

uh has a couple of benefits I'm not going too deep into into the details on the

tax and compliance side However having a company there has some benefits However if you want to start

small Uh you can even start in the US without setting up a company there and

start scaling from from Europe We have a couple of uh sellers in our partnership that operate this way so

it works quite well Thank you and then maybe I say a couple of sentences about

the Uh yeah the taxes which you just mentioned are quite complicated Uh actually I think it's

our perception because it just differs a bit from how it's working in the US versus how it's

working in the EU So if you uh yeah Go online shopping in the US you will

realize that all the prices that you see on Amazon on the search page and on

the product detail page these are net prices because there is no national VAT in the US Every single US

state has different rates and also different laws and The specific rate is only applied in the

checkout based on your delivery address so that's already what's different between the EU and the

US So you as a company when do you basically have to or when does sales

tax liability arise this is based on The so-called nexus what is nexus If you

have a physical presence of your goods in a specific US state then basically the nexus is applied Um and

if you are a seller and you are using Amazon fulfillment by Amazon then Amazon is able

or allowed to basically ship your goods across all fulfillment centers in the US meaning that

the nexus might be applied in multiple states But what's actually quite easy in the US is that

there is a so-called or like a specific law which makes Amazon is basically responsible for handling the tax collection

and then also the remittance so that's already quite beneficial because then you as a company

don't have to take care of this But however in certain states I think right now it's

these texts You have to claim these tax rates um even if there were no taxes that arises

so basically um Yeah but there are service providers uh who can help you um with

that complicated topic um and I think you also have some Yeah so from experience and talks with

sellers um it sounds more complex than it is um fully automated set up a fully automated system

and everything goes in a in a flow Actually at least the feedback we receive is it's

less and less a hassle than in Europe Um also if you collaborate with us if

you reach out to us uh we have uh say collaborative partners that can handle the the tax situation

for you Thank you And then maybe Marco one last topic in regards to the logistics because

we already mentioned it I also had to update this slide because since last Friday the so-called

de minimis rule which means that goods below a value of $800 US dollars they

could it was the way that it was duty free to import these to the US since last Friday this

is not possible anymore Um but I think this is not really a topic for

larger brands because you would usually transfer directly uh larger shipments to the US um Marco how can Amazon specifically

support sellers with the topic of of global logistics That's exactly the right name We

are called Amazon Global Logistics so primarily our lanes are China to Europe and China to the

US However also for European manufacturers and sellers we offer quite good solutions and price competitive solutions for ocean freight

from Europe into the US but also for small parcels with air freight if you want

to ship fast or maybe have lower weight or smaller inventory Secondly uh in the what's always a topic

uh customer returns um so your customers customer returns that go back to our fulfillment centers in the US

are of course similar as in Europe refurbished and then at some point eligible to to get

resold And of course last but not least uh also liquidation is an option if you have overstock

in the US uh we can connect you with uh liquidators as uh um let's say last resort if

you don't cannot sell off Thank you So To sum up our strategic framework first we take care

of the bottom We do a market analysis and understand how the demand in the market in

the US looks like Then we define OK we want to go to the US with

a lean but important brand and also product selection Um of course we also do a thorough forecast and

business case but as we heard from Dr Wolf we can also go there and kind of do

a test and learn scenario because Amazon is quite flexible when it comes to that

and then we really launch our operations we take care of taxes logistics and product compliance and then

We can start selling in the US Now Max I'm curious how does the daily business look like today

uh when you actually launched uh what were the um the challenges that you were uh facing when

you initially started Maybe there weren't any Of course there were um as I said before this whole

topic of um logistics finance we call like back facing pro processes or or topics uh were a hassle um

And if I remember correctly we didn't instantly work with the proper partners there so

I guess it's uh makes a lot of sense uh to to get the right

partners um and I guess Marco can can actually help quite a lot uh regarding this um people is always

a problem mm it wasn't easy to build like and I said 4 to 5 people

Like a team which is working good fluctuation is higher than in Europe This was another concern we realized I

think it was really beneficial to send someone there who knew how we tick and I said before we are

quite unique but still if you're a company who isn't that unique um I guess it makes sense to have

somebody there who knows how the company works um and to have him build up

um the structure organization if you decide to do that as we heard before you don't

have to Um and logistics is an ongoing topic for us uh because we have

some products which are sensitive to temperature um they work against gray hair with a special

ingredient um and there we have to to use uh or we have to fly them um to the

US um lead times are quite long um into the country Um it's manageable um uh and as I

said before we don't only do Amazon so we don't use your direct uh processes which I guess are way

more efficient than our current but we also have to ship um to some other uh clients

and sales point um so this is an issue which is fluctuating you could say um yeah OK interesting And

you already mentioned how you work with the team in the US when it comes to ongoing

operations for example localization of content how do you collaborate with the headquarters there again here

we during the last couple of years shifted this to more of a headquarters approach

so we essentially Uh um develop content we essentially develop um media setups We essentially

develop analysis on and so forth and then to some extent we uh execute and um

uh do them from our headquarters and to some extent we do it locally also here there's one

marketplace person in this team handling the day to day operations and I think uh

regarding time zones and stuff that makes sense at some some point not in the beginning Um no

And when it comes to your marketing and advertising strategy is there anything to emphasize

what you did in the last year what you tried out on Amazon maybe here

also we are a bit special because we Actually and I think Marco would like to hear this we

are not huge fans of what you would call nowadays retail media so we say

strategically that we want to convince our customer and that when he goes into in Germany the Rossman or any

pharmacy in Finland and so on and so forth he already wants To buy our products um

so we uh um focus on media channels social media media TikTok so on and so forth

and uh want to convince our customers there um in the US we also do uh Amazon on platform

marketing because it's our main uh main sales channel um but this is our marketing approach And I think what's

also important to mention is the difference between your brand awareness in the EU versus the US So

basically you're also using the Amazon tools really for building the brand and building brand awareness because I think in

the EU it's such a given in Germany If you know I want to do something

against hair loss uh obviously you either believe in Eesson working or not That's another

topic um but if you're thinking about hair loss most people know Eesson obviously they don't in

the US so um this whole topic of search marketing Um which then you can directly

do on Amazon makes total sense because you don't yet have this brand awareness if

people search for hair loss or hair growth or stronger hair and makes sense to to come up

there with your own products Yeah yeah cool thanks for sharing um From our viewpoint or

I think also Max can emphasize this once you're on Amazon it's just an iterative process in which

you really look at all the dimensions which are important in the Amazon flywheel so you constantly

have a look at your market and at your competition of course you also reevaluate is it still the right

assortment with which I'm in Shall I add more products Shall I do additional bundles for

example as we've heard that the US customer is less price sensitive than the EU one You also check your

retail performance Are your products available Can you improve anything in terms of your logistics chain And then of course

also using all the advertising levers that Amazon is offering especially in the beginning when it

comes to building brand awareness Amazon has some great features like the Creator connections that we mentioned

with the Creator network or for example also Amazon Prime with their entire video on demand platform Now let's

have a look at what's coming next um at Doctor Wolf Um Max where do you see your Amazon

business in the US in the next 12 months What are the next steps So let me talk about our

whole US business maybe because I said before it's all mentioned but there are others um what we are currently

uh facing is a decision where we think about more heavily investing because of this whole fluoride topic You heard

it in the news uh there's a Robert F Kennedy who is obviously not the smartest person in

other regards but this whole fluoride topic Um now like reaches some kind of tipping point

in the US uh where there are studies which say that um children who have uh high fluoride

exposure have relevantly lower IQ points so on and so forth because fluoride is just

a nerve toxic That's what it is um so we're currently thinking about how can we really leverage

this momentum Andrew Huberman one of the biggest podcasts is talking about caffeine Our shampoos

not our shampoos but what's in our shampoos he's talking about fluoride so we want to grab this momentum actually

and push it to the next level which would also mean to invest even more as we're currently doing but

this is what we're what we're currently facing now Cool And I think what we

can also mention is also the cross-border ambitions and maybe also what comes after Amazon Are

there any plans Of course at some point you want to be able to go into the big physical

stores It's not easy to go in there and not paying those high listing fees We're

not a fan of paying high listing fees so we try to do it without it I'm not sure when

that will happen and when that can happen Um but as said before we will try to scale this

e-commerce and Amazon set up and it will remain a big channel but hopefully obviously there

will be other big channels in the future And for example with your Oca brand Carex

you are already selling on Amazon Canada so potentially adding more brands or products there are also in the future

And yeah Amazon is quite a nice ecosystem so it's also easy to steer the

Canadian business from the US That's why it's also like a North America team not

only doing US but also doing um Canada and Mexico in the future So last but not least any advice

for anyone who wants to start expanding into the US Um maybe just summarizing what

I said before maybe um We like those trial and error approaches Obviously the US you can't do this

really low budget trial and error approach Um there has to be some commitment if you do it but otherwise

I can just recommend to go step by step really assess how it's working If it's not working well enough

try to understand why optimize um But if you go all all in as Marco

said before you have to have such big guns when it comes to budgets and stuff I'd really

recommend to do it step by step Cool thanks a lot I will briefly Yes Thank you Max um because

now I want to show what you already touched base on I brought a small case study

which I called leverage peak in ingredient-based interest um Why do I want to show it Because I think it's

a good example of being in the right place at the right time Both Ocare brands Bionic and C have

this specific ingredient which is fluoride free and it's called hydroxy appetite I had some

struggles in the beginning to pronounce this word but I think now I'm quite proficient and

I think What was kind of Dr Wolf's hypothesis in the beginning is that OK

it's fluoride free fluoride is basically the buzzword everyone is talking about so probably via the search terms this

is also the way to find our products So we as an agency we had a look at this

and for this we used Amazon's Search Query performance report which is what you also mentioned a really nice first

party data source which is which Amazon Seller Central is offering So what is Amazon's search query performance report It's

basically a dashboard in which you can see the top queries based on either brand level or also product level

and it shows you for which search terms you are showing up organically and it's also showing the relevance and

search volume and then it's basically also showing you how many impressions ended up on your

listing how many click clicks or like the share Uh the percentage share what did you get and also how

many people purchased basically based on that search term in the end Um here's just a quick example of how

the dashboard looks like um but it's available in every seller central account So what did

we look at when we looked at the search que performance report we realized looking through all the search

terms that actually it's not fluoride free what people are searching for but that it's everything that's related to the

ingredients so specifically to hydroxy appetite and here I have selected monthly data before March 2024

it was a very even number Approximately 45 people searching for hydroxy appetite toothpaste on Amazon

per month but then in July 2024 we started seeing a first peak so we saw first media

coverage of this new ingredient coming up and yeah it just grew further from that and

then especially since February it just starting to peak so that by now the interest in hydroxyapetite toothpaste has increased

by 933% which I think is quite a lot And here I brought some media snippets of Robert Kennedy who

you already mentioned that fluoride in drinking water is supposed to be banned because it

apparently has negative effects on health And I think it's quite interesting to really be able to

map this Amazon first party data with this actual search behavior and interest of people in ingredients and as we

cover a lot of beauty and wellness brands at front row we can also see that this ingredient-based

search activity is just starting to increase even more in the last year So what you can take

away from this is really monitor the search behavior of your of your customers very closely because you might have

a first mover advantage if these search terms aren't covered yet by any other brands or competitors And what's

also important is that you stay flexible when it comes to your media budget because by

now we are really investing most of our media budget into the hydroxy appetite related search terms and it's just

As I said before being in the right place at the right time um and what you should also take

away is optimize all of your content really around these relevant searches So in this

case the ingredient and hydroxy appetite and you should really make it visible in all of your content

pieces or main images gallery images and additional contexts Um and lastly also educate the customer

and how can you do this in the Amazon realm I think we've shown this before um

you should well you can use all of the Amazon um Possibilities that you have when it comes to brand

building So for example this content creator network where you can then see your products to creators who

then create content for you you can create videos explaining how your product is working and yeah just

use it as a brand building and also educational tool So to sum up we hope

that today you've you've seen that Amazon US may seem complex but with the right strategy it's

no longer a mystery and yeah some takeaways from Dr Wolf also that you can

see Amazon is kind of like this test and learn platform where you can iterate a lot where you can

play around with products pricing assortment And you especially have great data points to prove that what you're

doing is good And also adaptability is key So based on the data you get that you also

um yeah adapt everything you do you have to adapt your strategy and you can act quickly because Amazon is

providing such good data And I think what's also important for brands coming from the EU is don't

assume that US customers know you invest in brand building right from the start to really build up

this kind of legacy so that you can move right from a high advertising invest and hopefully a good

organic ranking quite quickly And then you can also see Amazon in the US as this

very lean and scalable entry point So start on Amazon US scale further as you've seen in this timeline

which we have shown and then later on you can see OK what will be my next steps in the

US Will it be maybe a D2C approach Do I go to other marketplaces or can it maybe even

be offline retail as Dr Wolf might approach it And for everyone because in the beginning there were some

hand raises for brands here who are already selling on Amazon I bought a very quick bonus snack

so 5 advantages over your competition in the US if you're already an EU seller First

your backpack So if you have an A in the EU you can take it to the US

and you will keep your product reviews So imagine a product launch with not zero

reviews but with 1000 and maybe even with a 4.7 rating because this already brings me to step

two Immediately push performance marketing and advertising to these listings if you have good reviews because then your advertising will

also be more profitable from day one versus not having any reviews And then third also very

important you can use the Amazon Vine program which is Basically a review generating tool so that you also

get real US reviews on your products and then if you later then decide to also

go to other marketplaces despite the US you can use NAF the North American fulfillment network to also supply more

easily to Mexico and Canada and last but not least I think we've mentioned it

Marco get in contact with the Amazon Global selling team because I think they can give you even more

advice For sure and if it's not not just advice um I think we can also partner up with

you on a couple of strategies but in addition to that no matter if you collaborate with

us or not there are some advantages or boosts we offer sellers that start new in the US I think

the most important one Uh and the biggest one are the brand registry benefits So if you register your

brand in the United States we give you cash back as you can see 10% on your 1st 500 generated

and then 5% on up to 1 million in the first year Um we just talked about wine

We give you wine credits to generate more reviews and of course on logistics and advertising site uh we also

give you a couple of benefits So feel free to connect with us We can connect you

with the right advisors on the tax and compliance side Uh we support you with

the logistics and we uh give you a proper hand holding uh with a 1

to 1 account management where you have a um account manager at Amazon that uh helps

you step by step enrolling your products in the US Thank you And then yeah

I also want to make a call out so if you are interested in our agency services and you might

also need strategic advice on expanding to the US or also to other countries and marketplaces feel free to

visit us in Premium Hall A1 Booth B03 and we also have some nice offers for everyone here at

OMR so I think especially for this round the consulting pillar here might be interesting Uh because we also uh

offered to win a free market share report potentially for the US if you win um

and yeah you can for example also uh win a nice pair of Sennheiser headphones so come visit us And

I also want to use the last advertising slot for my dear colleague Sophie From my point of

view she's doing some of the best slides here at Front row so I highly

recommend her class tomorrow from 12:45 to 2:15 It's in collaboration with another client of ours Kosova and yeah

retail Media Glow Up what you're missing on platforms beyond Amazon So maybe this is actually a good addition because

now you've heard a lot about Amazon And tomorrow you can learn more about other retail media platforms I

would say that's a wrap Thank you very much for listening to us but now we're

also curious is there anything on your mind Any questions There is already one I will send my colleague

Anne to get the question You can grab the headphones you can hear as well what

the question is it Uh thank you so much uh Max I would be interested to learn

more about uh your team set up Ah So thanks a lot Uh I just I'm

curious to learn more about your current team set up in the United States and how a front row

plays into it Like is it a long term commitment What are the roads the 4 or 5 people

what mistakes Um so first there's the person Acting as like some some some kind of general manager um

heading this whole US business um and then as I said before we try to keep our international

teams small we try to do most of the stuff defining developing campaigns defining how we execute Amazon together with

Front row um centrally Um and therefore we have one person for marketing and more in terms of communication

We have one person who's more focusing on the media side because we do a lot of online marketing but

we also do TV in the US Then there's one person for this whole operation uh

stuff uh logistics and so on and so forth and one person who's doing um uh finance stuff

um and everything related or everything's coming up actually if I understand correctly um so it's It's a small set

up um because Not anymore He's back and we are now trying to find a person

from the US actually because we feel that yes it was really important to bring

in this German Dr Wolf DNA basically but now you also need someone heading this who's

able to or who really knows the US market and coming from the US market Hi

thanks so much for this interesting talk Uh so I was told that in order to start on Amazon

you need to have a huge budget for positioning the products on keywords on Amazon Uh so is that

not actually true Do you how how does it come to using an invest like do you need to

invest in marketing on Amazon or is it more the external marketing campaigns that you spoke about today

A very fair question I think it really depends on where you are coming from So if you already

have a good positioning and say it's in Europe You can transfer your reviews to the

US That means your listings in the US will be reflected with your reviews from

your states in Europe That gives you a competitive advantage If you're starting completely new your investment

is definitely higher So if you start from scratch you need to build up from 0 Investment

can be up to XK It really depends on on the category I cannot just give an average number here

I can give an example from a friend who's in the bottles business vacuum bottles so they're investing

between 10 and 200 per to get it up and running and then harvest around 6 to 12

months later But that that's that's just one very simple example I cannot give an average number but I said

if you have a presence in Europe and transfer everything into the US you will have a much easier stance

if you start compared to starting from scratch Before there was also in the back Did I

miss anyone Apparently not Then thank you so much I also heard there are still some goody bags here

in the front so in case you want them feel free to grab them and yeah thank you so much

Enjoy Omar Thank you