Airborne Athletics Case Study

We at Goat Consulting are proud to work with Airborne Athletics, a Bloomington, Minnesota based business that designs, manufactures, sells, and services basketball shooting machines and other sports training equipment. Offering a world class lineup of basketball shooting machines with the Dr. Dish brand, Airborne Athletics has some of the top tier partners and customers including NBA, WNBA, NCAA top division 1 and high school players and coaches. Airborne Athletics has a fanatical customer focus and wanted to offer their product line up on Amazon, the preferred shopping destination for many of their customers, which is why Airborne Athletics reached out to Goat Consulting for assistance. We help Airborne Athletics realize their purpose which is “to empower athletes and coaches to reach their dreams and build a legacy”, on the Amazon marketplace through ensuring correct account setup of brand registry, utilizing Amazon programs and best practices for merchandising, providing best in class shipping options, and reaching more players, coaches and programs through Amazon Ads.

Ensure Proper Brand Registry Enrollment to Utilize Merchandising Opportunities

When Airborne Athletics first approached Goat Consulting, they were faced with  an account issue that did not properly tie their ASIN with their Brand Registry enrollment. As Amazon takes contributions from all sellers of the product, and because Airborne Athletics did not have  the ASIN correctly tied to their registry, the product listing was displaying bullet points, product description, and images that did not showcase the product and brand as best as it possibly could. They were losing an opportunity to communicate the most important product values to their customers.  

By reviewing the Brand Registry enrollment information, the brand name used in the ASIN, and troubleshooting through case management; we were able to correctly link the Brand Registry and the ASIN. This allowed for our product information to be the winning contribution for bullet points, images, and title; and allowed us to utilize the Amazon Brand Registry merchandising opportunities including:

  • A+ Enhanced Brand Content - The Dr. Dish iC3 Basketball Shot Training increases the number of shots an athlete can take and improves the efficiency of practice. With A+ Enhanced Brand Content, we are able to call out the value propositions to not only say what the product is, but outline why basketball players can benefit from the product through lifestyle images, key product details, and branded content.

  • Video - Airborne Athletics has a suite of video assets that we are able to share with Amazon customers by adding them to the product detail page. We show the Dr. Dish iC3 in action with different drills, and an assembly instructional video (which was a customer pain point identified in our research and in product reviews). These videos serve to have Amazon customers understand the benefits of the product, use cases, and how easy it can be to assemble the product.

  • Storefront - The Dr. Dish storefront allows us to further connect with Amazon customers by again outlining the benefits of the product and brand. Using the different modular capabilities of the Storefront, we have pages that link directly to the product listing, including brand related images, comparison charts, and product videos. 

  • Posts - Amazon Posts is an ‘Instagram for Amazon’ -like program. Setting up and publishing posts on the Dr. Dish Post Feed, we have been able to drive free traffic to product listing pages by adding Dr. Dish lifestyle images and linking to products. As these Posts appear on search results pages and product detail pages around Amazon, we have been able to introduce a wider range of potential customer to the Dr. Dish brand 

  • Sponsored Brands Ads - With correctly enrolled Brand Registry, we were able to access a whole new advertising campaign type: Sponsored Brands Ads, which are discussed further below. 

Fulfillment Consulting and Shipment Troubleshooting

Airborne Athletics has a Fanatical customer focus -with a commitment to always go above and beyond supporting customers. This can be seen with the efforts to provide the best fulfillment offer possible on Amazon. When we first started engaging with Airborne Athletics, the iC3 product was fulfilled to customers through merchant fulfillment with a roughly 7 day lead time for delivery. We shared the benefits of the Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) program, costs, and operational training, which improved the customer offer to 2-day Prime shipping.

  • Cost Analysis - Performing a cost analysis by comparing estimated costs of merchant fulfillment with the cost of FBA, we discovered that it has a comparable cost structure by offering the product through FBA, with the added benefits and better customer experience of outsourcing fulfillment to Amazon

  • Operational Training - Goat Consulting was successfully able to remotely train, communicate, and coordinate with the Airborne Athletics and third party logistics team on the operational steps in order to create a shipping plan, and send in shipments.

  • Resolution of Shipping Issues and Reconciliation -  Identifying missing units on a shipping plan, Goat Consulting was successfully able to identify missing units from Amazon and reconcile shipments in order to ensure all items shipped to Amazon were successfully received.

Reach More Customers Through Amazon Ads

Utilizing Amazon Ads, we are reaching more Amazon customers, athletes, and coaches. We are employing a strategy with both awareness and sales oriented goals by running campaigns with different goals and purposes including Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brand, and Sponsored Display campaigns.

  • Sponsored Products - Targeting keywords that customers might search to find and purchase the Dr. Dish products and targeting categories and products related to the product we are serving ads on the search results page so that when customers search those terms, our ad and product listing is featured when customers are looking to make a purchase

  • Sponsored Brand - With the video assets available, we are able to show potential Amazon customers the product in use. This is a great ad format, especially with the nature of the product in use, so customers can see the basketball return system in action.

  • Sponsored Display - We are increasing the potential customer base by reaching a wide audience on and off Amazon through display advertising.

A Word from Airborne Athletics

Working with Goat Consulting has been a wonderfully easy and fruitful experience - they are proven partners that have helped us build a solid strategy for Amazon now and for the future. We are constantly presented with opportunities to advance our listing and showcase our products, giving us more brand exposure. As we continue to try new things, we have a partner to teach us how, while troubleshooting any issues that arise; saving us many headaches. I would highly recommend Goat Consulting to any business that feels stuck trying to best merchandise on Amazon.

- Emily Stiemsma, Airborne Athletics

Conclusion

Again, we are proud to serve our Minnesota based neighbors Airborne Athletics, and help increase sales, mitigate risk, and reduce costs for selling on Amazon. We are doing this by merchandising products to best practices, providing optimal fulfillment for customers, and reaching more customers through Amazon Ads. By reaching more Airborne Athletics customers on Amazon we are improving athletic training efficiency to hopefully create the next Lebron James or Kevin Garnett (for you local Minnesota Timberwolves fans).

If this resonated with you or you want to learn more about increasing sales and mitigating risk on Amazon, please reach out below.