As an Amazon Seller can testify, there is so much to do to ensure that your thriving business is running efficiently. While it can be a terrific learning experience and quite often very rewarding to run the entire operation all on your own, many small to medium-sized sellers (SMEs) are finding a significant amount of value and freedom in hiring an Amazon agency to fully manage their online business for them, end-to-end.
End-to-end eCommerce Managed Service Providers (MSPs) are essentially new-age or digital-age marketing agencies that provide professional services for every component required to sell online.
The suite of services provided by these agencies varies from one agency to another however the services provided generally include Amazon seller account registration and management, Amazon category and brand registry applications, product listing creation, written and image content creation and management, photography and graphic design, PPC marketing, customer service, bulk shipping preparation, Amazon FBA preparation, express, and sea freight forwarding services.
Most eCommerce agencies work on either a fee-for-service model, whereas you will generally pay a fixed rate for a particular service, such as product listing or product page optimization whilst other agencies work on a percentage of advertisement spend or a percentage of revenue or a combination of the two (combination of fixed rate for service and percentage of advertisement spend or revenue).
Some conservative sellers may be hesitant to hand over control of their Amazon selling account or e-commerce website to another party or share in the profits that their business generates with an e-commerce agency, however, many sellers have developed mutually beneficial long-term relationships with professional end-to-end eCommerce agencies for one or more of the following reasons.
1. You are Feeling Overwhelmed with All the Tasks
There are too many things to do and far too little time to get all of them done. Every small business owner knows that there are always better ways to spend your time growing an online business rather than all of the time it takes to stay on top of every critical task that’s required to be handled on a daily or weekly basis.
An end-to-end eCommerce agency can help alleviate stress by taking over various tasks that you need assistance with in turn freeing up you or your internal resources so that you can focus on more high-value tasks.
2. Your Business Growth has Plateaued
Perhaps you’ve grown your business to $2-5 Million a year, however, you now feel that you are stuck in a rut and further growth appears unachievable. You’re not sure what the next move is and whilst revenue is steady, it’s not growing like it used to.
By engaging with an experienced eCommerce agency to provide you with a full written and image overhaul (optimization), or by launching new products, an end-to-end eCommerce agency can help move you out of the plateau and ignite a new growth phase for your business.
3. You Are Not Interested or Passionate About Some or Many of the Daily Tasks
Some people love data analyzation, other people would rather do almost anything other than spend time trying to analyze keyword data to optimize PPC advertising campaigns.
Pick your passion play to your strengths and outsource anything you feel is mundane or not within you or your team’s skillset. Everyone has different interests and strengths, and a professional eCommerce agency can help fill in all the gaps in your business by providing experts where you need help the most.
4. You Want to Minimize Fixed Costs, Employees or Stay Nimble
In today’s ever-changing and dynamic business environment, many entrepreneurs want to stay nimble with as few fixed costs as possible, including direct employee headcount. Outsourcing to a specialized end-to-end eCommerce managed service provider or agency generally allows you to have more flexible billing that increases with revenue, avoiding costly employees if there is a dip. In addition, start-up costs can be minimized as there is no requirement to purchase specialized photography equipment graphic design software, etc.
5. You Realize You Don’t Have the In-House Expertise or Experience
Most people can’t be great at everything unless they focus on it 100% of the time. Working with an experienced eCommerce agency allows you to tap into high-level professional experts in their disciplines for a fraction of the cost of what it would take to hire them full-time for your company.
Rather than relying on an endless number of apps and tools to run your eCommerce business, professional agencies offer sellers the ability to work with actual humans who have experience with the eCommerce ecosphere while eliminating much of the manual work for the sellers themselves.
This provides sellers with freedom so that they can focus themselves or their resources on more high-value tasks they need to handle like sourcing new products, inventory management planning for the holiday/peak seasons, etc. Some sellers may feel that the cost of hiring an Amazon agency isn’t worth it and they’d rather do everything themselves.
While that’s certainly a valid argument for experienced sellers with teams of resources, for inexperienced sellers of all sizes and small to medium-sized companies with limited resources (SMEs), it can be extremely helpful and cost-effective to partner with an end-to-end managed solution provider.
6. You Need Speed to Market
Having your online business launched quickly and professionally is generally a key requirement of any business and professional end-to-end eCommerce solution providers have the experience and ability to launch a seller much faster than you can on your own. With so many key aspects or components that are required with starting an online business, it really is best left to the professionals to ensure a launch is done correctly.
Having access to experts with selling online including Amazon can be a huge game-changer. An end-to-end eCommerce managed solution or service provider agency can help provide high-level strategies, make recommendations on how to improve your product listings, and even brainstorm ways to advertise your products on other platforms outside of Amazon however the key advantage is that they provide a professional service that ensures that your products are listed online with the best chance of success.
If you are located in South East Asia and are looking for an end-to-end eCommerce managed solution provider then we recommend you contact Elevate which has offices in Thailand and Vietnam. Elevate provides a wide range of professional eCommerce managed services that are tailored to each client’s needs.
