As the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic grows, many are searching for ways to lessen the negative effects that continue to grow in number.
Navazon Inc. founder, Alan Adams, and his team of experts continually monitor the situation so that they can best help vendors survive and thrive through these difficult times. Their weekly webinar on the developments cover the situation of Amazon and its vendors while providing recommended actions.
E-commerce is in a unique situation of being even more in demand than ever before but with limited capacity to meet it. Amazon is one of the biggest responders to the public’s need for household essentials and medical supplies now that many stores have closed. They are prioritizing those items, while limiting the attention, warehouse space, and delivery for other items.
Certain types of products have suffered on Amazon as a result of these operation changes. Even controls for new product listings of personal safety and household products have sidelined other products caught up in the confusion. In their focus on medical supplies, Amazon is also trying to find new suppliers and any who could alter production to provide those items so they can get them to medical professionals and those in most need.
Vendors who sell directly to Amazon have also suffered a large blow to their business as well because of Amazon’s shifts. On March 17, purchase orders for product categories considered non-essential dropped to 0 or very close to it. These orders are expected to be constrained for the time being. However, there has been a slight increase in orders outside of the priority list in the past week.
There are measures that vendors can take to help soften the blow that this pandemic given to businesses, including the following:
- Accept all POs and then down-confirm while chargebacks are waived
- Have drop-ship available, but limit inventory if keeping up with orders is difficult
- Reduce spend and products advertised with Amazon Marketing Services
- Consider promo codes to push traffic from social media accounts
- Much more!
These are just some of the topics and recommendations they cover in their most recent webinar addressing business concerns over the pandemic.
For a copy of the presentation slides, click here: Final April 7 2020 COVID-19.
The next webinar will take place on Tuesday, April 14, at 10:30 a.m. PDT. Put it in your calendar and click here to join and hear the latest.