Commerce & E-commerce
Amazon is a channel, not a strategy
European consumer brands often enter the United States through a marketplace and stop there. The marketplace works best as one channel inside a distribution plan that also includes retail, travel retail and a brand store.
The marketplace trap
A marketplace listing is the fastest way to have a product available in the United States. It is also the fastest way to have a product invisible, discounted and dependent on a single algorithm.
Brands that treat the marketplace as the strategy end up competing on price with resellers of their own product. Brands that treat it as a channel use it for what it does well: availability, reviews, data.
One inventory, several channels
The practical unlock is warehousing. When stock sits in Miami, the same inventory can serve marketplace orders, a direct-to-consumer store, retail replenishment and re-export to Latin America. Channel decisions become commercial decisions instead of logistical ones.
What a distribution plan includes
- Domestic retail: department stores, chains, drugstores, specialty.
- Travel retail: duty-free, cruise lines, in-flight.
- Direct: a brand store with its own acquisition.
- Marketplaces: Amazon and category-specific platforms.
- Latin America: through the bonded hub, without paying U.S. duty on goods that leave again.
Sequencing
The sequence is category-specific, and it is where experience matters. The mistake is not choosing a marketplace. The mistake is never choosing anything else.
Questions
Should a brand start with Amazon or with retail?
It depends on the category and the margin structure. Beauty and food often need retail presence to give the marketplace listing credibility; accessories can start online. The point is to decide the sequence, not to let the first channel decide it for you.
Insights
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