The Friendly Swede is a Swedish company founded in 2011 in Shenzhen, whose main market is the USA. Yes the structure may seem tricky but for Anna Nordlander, former CEO of The Friendly Swede, the journey was a recipe for success. On Thursday morning, she visited eXpression Umeå and shared her top tips for selling on the marketplace Amazon.
Articles about Amazon's entry into the Swedish market are a hot debate in the media and the question marks how it will affect the market many. Several media report that Swedish retailers will have a tough time in the competition. But what if we turn our thinking around and see the huge marketplace from the US as an opportunity? The Friendly Swede did just that and it has been a success story so far.
On Thursday morning, eXpression invited Umeå's traders and interested parties to raise awareness of the marketplace and how it can change the business landscape.
We were early to sell goods on Amazon and developed our business around that marketplace, Anna says. Unlike its own online stores and many other marketplaces, Amazon is a clearly product-focused marketplace. By that, Anna means that the majority of customers shopping on Amazon are looking for a specific product and not a specific brand. This makes it even more important for companies to work on good product descriptions, the right pricing of the product and above all reviews. Many and high reviews increase the product's conversion rate, which in turn places the product higher up in the search results; the higher up the product appears, the better the sales.
Reviews are directly influenced by how well the product images and description match the customer's expectations of the product and therefore it was a continuous effort at The Friendly Swede to meet these expectations. The customer really is at the heart of Amazon and their development of the marketplace.
In 2016, Anna stepped down as CEO of The Friendly Swede and now works as an Amazon & e-commerce coach. In her role, she helps businesses work strategically with their online sales, with a strong focus on Amazon.
Since Anna left The Friendly Swede, the company has launched its own website on the side of Amazon, partly in order to strengthen its own brand, something that has historically been difficult on Amazon as the platform is strongly product-focused.
Anna's top three tips for success on Amazon:
- Choose products carefully and keep an eye on margins.
- Continuous and hard work for good reviews.
- Work in several ways to create a dialogue with the customer.
