Airborne Athletics Amazon Case Study: Fixing Brand Registry and FBA for the Dr. Dish Catalog
This case study is about how Goat Consulting helped 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 lineup on Amazon, the preferred shopping destination for many of their customers, which is why they reached out to Goat Consulting for assistance.
The Challenge: Brand Registry Not Properly Tied to ASINs
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. Because 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.
The Approach
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 the product information to be the winning contribution for bullet points, images, and title, and allowed us to utilize the Amazon Brand Registry merchandising opportunities.
Merchandising Unlocked by Brand Registry
Once the Brand Registry linkage was fixed, we were able to use the full suite of brand-owner tools:
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 through lifestyle images, key product details, and branded content.
Video: Airborne Athletics has a suite of video assets that we share with Amazon customers on 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.
Storefront: The Dr. Dish storefront further connects with Amazon customers by outlining the benefits of the product and brand. Using the different modular capabilities, we have pages that link directly to the product listing, including brand-related images, comparison charts, and product videos.
Posts: 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 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 customers to the Dr. Dish brand.
Sponsored Brands Ads: With correctly enrolled Brand Registry, we were able to access Sponsored Brands Ads, a campaign type that was previously unavailable.
Fulfillment Consulting and Shipment Troubleshooting
When we first started engaging with Airborne Athletics, the iC3 product was fulfilled 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 an FBA cost analysis by comparing estimated costs of merchant fulfillment with FBA, we discovered a comparable cost structure 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 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 able to identify missing units from Amazon and reconcile shipments to ensure all items shipped were successfully received.
Amazon Ads
We are reaching more Amazon customers, athletes, and coaches through Amazon Ads. We employ a strategy with both awareness and sales-oriented goals by running campaigns with different goals and purposes:
Sponsored Products: Targeting keywords that customers might search to find and purchase Dr. Dish products, and targeting categories and products related to the product, so ads appear on the search results page when customers are looking to make a purchase.
Sponsored Brands: With the video assets available, we 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.
Results
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. By fixing the Brand Registry ASIN linkage, the full suite of merchandising tools became available. By moving from merchant fulfillment with a roughly 7-day lead time to FBA 2-day Prime shipping, the customer experience improved significantly. And by reaching more customers through Amazon Ads across multiple campaign types, we are growing brand awareness and sales for Airborne Athletics.
In Their Own Words
"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
Wrapping Up the Airborne Athletics Amazon Case Study
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.
If this resonated with you or you want to learn more about increasing sales and mitigating risk on Amazon, please reach out through our contact form.
About the Author
This post was written by Reed Thompson, the CEO at Goat Consulting. Reed helps lead the Goat Consulting team and their clients sell on Amazon by increasing sales, mitigating risk, reducing costs, and solving problems. If you want help with Brand Registry and Amazon merchandising or assistance with other aspects of selling on Amazon, please reach out through our contact form.