With Amazon coming, is it better to work with the Goliath than fight it?

Earlier this week, I wrote about an “Australian e-tail platform offering a solution to the impending Amazon arrival,” which was about local integrated marketing agency “The Zoo Republic” and its “It’s On Us” digital platform.

“It’s On Us” promised to give “Australian retailers and brands unique access to local shoppers ahead of Amazon’s arrival".

However, not every retailer in Australia needs to fear Amazon, as is the case with top Aussie e-tailer Klika, for example, which expects its clout and profits to climb with with its planned Amazon partnership, as I wrote about mid last month.

Another case of Amazon co-operation comes from “customer acquisition agency Alley”, which uses its platform solution “Goliath” to “actually work together with Australian retailers (small and large) to educate them on how to best harness Amazon and to turbocharge their sales using the eComm giant.”

We’re told that, “rather than competing with Amazon, the Goliath technology is based on the premise that Amazon will be retailers’ ‘friend not foe’.”

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There’s also the background that “Goliath is the birth child of Alley,” the company that “finds, acquires and retains the best customers for top brands in several countries throughout the world.”

Alley proudly boasts that “Online Retail has always been our bag” and teases “(you see what we did there),” noting that it has “successfully challenged the traditional agency model by using big data and artificial intelligence to find, acquire and retain the best customers in the world for retail and manufacturing brands.”

Naturally, the Alley website (linked above) has plenty more on what Alley can do for you, including how “Alley has helped companies obtain their highest ROI ever on their digital marketing campaigns,” but in the face of all the anti-Amazon headlines and fears, the company clearly wants to promote its Goliathan ways.

Goliath is headed up by Zach Tibbs, an American Amazon expert with over 10 years’ experience working with big brands in the US and helping those companies “to utilise Amazon as a powerful sales channel.”

That is clearly a strong foundation upon which to build a business desiring to be your “one-stop shop for your success on Amazon,” with technology and experts able to help you “maximise all your Amazon operations and strategy, ensuring you’re a top Amazon vendor beating out your competition.”

The company is clearly unafraid to use the tactic of scarcity, too, urging companies interested in learning more that “You snooze, you lose. Due to extreme demand, there is currently a waiting list to work with Goliath. Enter your business email address below and someone from our team will be in touch shortly.”

To me, that sounds a little like those TV ads on shopping channels that advise “if you’re one of the first 25 callers, you’ll get XYZ product free”, when in reality, every person that calls gets whatever freebie is on offer.

That said, marketing agencies and customer acquisition agencies have only so much manpower to help so many people, even if a great deal is automated through platform tools, but hey - these people are experts at their own marketing, and acquiring their own customers, so we all know clever marketing when we see it.

In any case, what are the top points that Goliath markets itself with in the attempt to get you to leave your contact details so someone contacts you?

We see the following pitches:

• On-boarding
  "Quality first-time setup with Amazon is key. We use our relationships to negotiate a favourable outcome for your Vendor contract, allowances and payment terms."

• Product Management & Logistics
  "Getting all your products onto Amazon can be a nightmare, we make it a dream. We streamline the product management process to increase sales and eliminate headaches."

• Content Creation
  "Great product content is crucial increasing sales and your rankings in Amazon’s A9 Search Algorithm. Our experts use their insider knowledge to build product pages that Amazon loves and most importantly convert customers."

• Customer Reviews
  "Customer reviews are crucial to your success at Amazon. Our automated technologies and methodologies increase positive reviews from top Amazon reviewers."

• Amazon Advertising
  "We’re experts at Customer Acquisition and Amazon is no different. Our full customer lifecycle marketing campaigns drive potential customers to purchase resulting in substantial return on your ad spend."

• Reporting
  "We go above and beyond the stock standard Amazon reporting offering you valuable metrics into the health of your Amazon business."

So, if you are wondering which way to turn, whether to go with a platform that gives you the tools to better compete against Amazon and all of Amazon’s partners, or if you want to be a company that competes using all of the strengths of the Amazon platform, you have two paths ahead of you.

There’s the conventional wisdom that says to “go the path less travelled,” and then there’s the conventional wisdom that urges you to “go with the flow.”

Which way you go is up to you, but whatever you do, being up the Amazonian river without some kind of paddle is probably a very bad move, so make sure you do something to ensure you’re part of the cream that rises to the top instead of one that looks upon the Amazon only to realise you’ve missed the boat!