- What is Amazon Vendor Services (AVS)?
- How much does Amazon Vendor Services cost?
- Advantages of Amazon Vendor Services
- Disadvantages of Amazon Vendor Services
- Conclusion
If you're a vendor on Amazon, you may have already been offered the use of Amazon Vendor Services (AVS). According to Amazon, the program helps vendors ensure long-term success and increase sales.
Through Amazon Vendor Services, vendors have their contact person at Amazon, also called a Brand Specialist. This person helps them with marketing activities, reaching sales goals, or expanding to other marketplaces, among other things.
If Amazon invites you to join the AVS program, knowing the pros and cons is essential. Since it is often an expensive investment, we detail it in this article.
What is Amazon Vendor Services (AVS)?
As part of the Amazon Vendor Services program, vendors are given their contact person at Amazon to increase their profitability. This so-called Brand Specialist, in turn, has access to other support teams internally at Amazon, which can assist with various tasks. For example, they help optimize the product detail page, identification of delivery problems, assortment selection, traffic generation, or transition to the Pan-EU program.
Each vendor works out a Vendor Improvement Plan (VIP) with the Brand Specialist. This sets out the goals for the coming year and a detailed plan of how these are to be achieved.
One Brand Specialist manages multiple vendors. However, it would help if you remember that the Brand Specialist is not always proactive. Formulate your wishes and needs and approach him with them. The Brand Specialist can facilitate your day-to-day business by providing reports that show you, for example, how large a category is and what brand share your brand occupies.
Amazon Vendor Services can assist you in the following areas:
- Selection: The Brand Specialist checks your catalog for completeness and recommends expanding the range.
- Content: The Brand Specialist helps you to improve your product detail page. For example, it shows which products should have product images or A+ content added. It also supports you in creating new offers.
- Availability and Operational excellence: The Brand Specialist provides data on your deliveries. For example, you can see if deliveries arrive fast enough at Amazon if there are OOS (out-of-stock) situations, and if products arrive defective. In addition, you can talk to him about PICS or Direct Import, for example. PICS (Partner Integrated Carrier Services) is a program where you deliver to only one fulfillment center, and Amazon redistributes the goods. With Direct Import, products are sent from the manufacturer directly to Amazon without going through you.
- Promotion and Financing: Your Brand Specialist helps you generate more traffic to your site. This is done, for example, through coupons and discount promotions. Especially on Prime Day, the Brand Specialist will contact you to select products for deals.
- Core Services: Central services include weekly meetings and regular email traffic about operations. For example, you can contact your Brand Specialist if you have problems with a blocked ASIN.
- Advertising Support: The Brand Specialist can help you optimize your advertising campaigns. He will identify products that must be advertised or recommend ad types that are not yet used.
How much does Amazon Vendor Services cost?
AVS is a service from Amazon that helps you manage your account. However, this support comes at a price. The price varies depending on the size of your business, annual revenue, number of marketplaces covered, and level of support. And it's always a matter of negotiation, too. On average, vendors must pay between 2 and 6 percent of their cost of goods sold (COGS) to Amazon for AVS.
This quickly adds up to significant sums. Let's say they ship 1 million worth of goods to Amazon. If you want to use the services of AVS, you then have to pay between 20,000 and 60,000 euros to Amazon. You could also invest this money in an Amazon agency or your employees.
Advantages of Amazon Vendor Services
One of the most significant advantages of Amazon Vendor Services is that you have direct contact with Amazon. The Brand Specialist can help you improve your Amazon presence and optimize business processes. Small and mid-sized vendors that do not use AVS do not have direct contact with Amazon. To get support, you have to keep opening new cases.
The Brand Specialist can access internal tools, reports, and teams they don't have as a vendor. So the Brand Specialist can provide them with the information they need help getting through Vendor Central or other tools.
This way, the Brand Specialist can solve problems more quickly than possible through traditional case management.
Disadvantages of Amazon Vendor Services
The quality of your contact person depends on his experience. Here you can be more or less lucky.
Since a brand specialist at Amazon looks after several vendors, you should actively manage the brand specialist and clearly define the topics. Otherwise, they run the risk that the Brand Specialist will work on issues that are not currently a priority for them.
After all, the Brand Specialist works for Amazon. For all suggestions, you must always check whether Amazon's goals are compatible with yours. For example, Amazon also wants Vendors to sell in multiple countries. However, some Vendors may not have the necessary rights or may not want to due to price differentiation.
Conclusion
Whether the AVS is worthwhile depends, as so often, on the individual case. The AVS can provide sound advice for some topics, such as optimizing product listings, but the implementation remains with you. Then you can invest the money directly in your employees or a specialized agency.
AVS has an advantage for other topics, as it can often resolve problems that would otherwise take several weeks to resolve. If a top article is out-of-stock during this time, the investment in an AVS can quickly pay for itself.
In any case, the relationship with the AVS must be actively managed. The investment must make more sense if the AVS runs on the side. However, an investment can make sense if you actively manage it.
