We ran some numbers and found that roughly 10% of TOP 10,000 brands on Amazon are sold by a single seller.
10% is quite a high number, considering just how many of those top brands are established names. We figured out top brands based on how many reviews they have (product reviews, not seller reviews). To us this suggests that the marketplace is increasingly going the direction of limiting competition for a single brand. As top brands become private label and exclusive deals, other sellers are forced to look for products elsewhere.
Out of TOP 1,000, which includes Sony, Hewlett Packard, Fisher Price, and many other major brands, 5% of of them are sold by one seller.
We see a trend of manufacturers selling directly on Amazon, and new brands being created by retailers themselves, so this percentage should increase over time.
Since November last year we’ve been tracking brands on Amazon to find new insights. There is over a million brands for sale on Amazon.com alone, even more are available when considering all Amazon marketplaces.
The era of retailers selling thousands of brands, and using repricing to compete with hundreds of other sellers is going away. There are many reasons for this, but the big driving force is manufacturers realizing that the work done by retailers is something they can do too. So as the pool of manufacturers looking for retailers decreases, retailers are looking for new opportunities.
Because of this there are dozens of companies offering Amazon launch and scaling services. For manufacturers who want to go their own route, this has become a great transitioning step to move away from selling to multiple sellers, to taking the control of marketplaces in their own hands. However it’s not been successful for everyone, so a good portion of manufacturers have instead chosen to limit the sellers they sell to. Thus creating exclusive relationships, ensuring brand control and for sellers, ensuring reduced and fixed competition.
For sellers making their own products the challenge is growing brands, especially outside of Amazon. Getting some sales thanks to advertisement is a known recipe, but building a long-lasting brand is a whole different battle. Repeating the success of Cards Against Humanity, LLC or Positively Tea LLC. is the challenge.
