Pearson's Candy Amazon Case Study: A Heritage Confectionery Goes Full-Service on Amazon
This case study is about how Goat Consulting helped Pearson's Candy sell on Amazon. Pearson's Candy has a rich heritage of making delicious confections that make everyday moments a little sweeter since 1909. The Goat Consulting team grew up eating Pearson's brands like Salted Nut Roll, Mint Patties, Bun, and Nut Goodies, and helping Pearson's Candy continue to reach their customers on Amazon is a true privilege. It hits close to home with Pearson's Candy being headquartered in Minnesota where Goat Consulting is also located. With support from Goat Consulting, Pearson's Candy has been able to provide an amazing shopping experience for customers on Amazon, share what makes Pearson's Candy special through product listing merchandising, reach new customers through Amazon Ads, and make actionable insights through managerial strategy reporting.
Amazon Account Setup and Food Operational Considerations
Selling candy and food-related products requires additional considerations beyond general merchandise. Pearson's Candy makes it a priority that all customers receive high-quality, fresh, and consistent products at every purchase. Fresh candy means more happy customers, more sales, and less risk. Goat Consulting helped achieve these requirements by ensuring accurate account setup and compliance with Amazon's policies for selling food.
Brand Registry
Brand Registry helps sellers build and protect their brand on Amazon by providing a suite of tools to showcase the brand and protect listings. We ensured that Pearson's Candy went through the correct Brand Registry process that tied their Amazon listings to their account.
Amazon FBA Training
For sellers that have never sent in an Amazon FBA shipment, it can be a confusing process. Goat Consulting successfully trained the Pearson's Candy team to utilize the Fulfillment by Amazon service. Committing to FBA provides the best-in-class shipping experience for online shoppers and allows Pearson's Candy to focus on what they are really great at: making delicious candy.
Meltable Policy Compliance
An important consideration for Pearson's Candy is complying with the Amazon Meltable policy. This FBA policy states the acceptable temperature range for products in Amazon warehouses. Given the chocolate-based products Pearson's Candy sells, it is vital to comply with the Amazon Meltable policy, not just from an Amazon compliance perspective, but to ensure that customers receive consistent high quality candy.
SKU Tracking by Expiration Date
An extra measure to ensure candy freshness for customers: we developed a SKU and offer-based tracking system to send in FBA inventory in batches.
Product Listing Merchandising
Pearson's Candy has a long history of manufacturing and selling delicious candy. Goat Consulting helped spread that message through product listing merchandising. Pearson's Candy is available across the country at convenience stores, grocery stores, and anywhere candy is sold. A combination of Amazon allowing any seller to create a listing prior to Brand Registry, and Pearson's Candy being widely available, created a situation where there were duplicate and one-off product listings created by third party sellers. Pearson's Candy wanted to own the customer experience from search results to purchase, so we cleaned up the listings and offers and merchandised the product listings using best practices.
Product Listing Analysis
Goat Consulting scraped the Amazon marketplace to identify all the product listings sold by third party sellers. Using the listing merge tool, we were able to cut down the number of duplicate product listings. This created a more seamless shopping experience for customers, so now when a customer wants to buy a 24 count Salted Nut Roll, they can easily find it from the Amazon search results.
Product Listing Copywriting
The title, bullet points, and product description allow sellers to showcase product specifications, value propositions, and brand voice. Each Pearson's Candy listing is clear about the box size, individual candy bar size, and number of candy bars in each box.
A+ Enhanced Brand Content
In partnership with Pearson's Candy, Goat Consulting used product and lifestyle images to show the different product offerings and explain the history behind the 110+ years of candy making. The images show the different situations where customers love eating the candy, from an on-the-go snack at work to outdoor activities like camping, hiking, and fishing, to sharing a treat with a grandfather and grandson.
Storefront
Pearson's Candy sells a variety of delicious candy brands including Salted Nut Rolls, Mint Patties, Bun, and Nut Goodies. The Storefront on Amazon is where Pearson's Candy showcases what is special about each brand in the portfolio. We launched the brand store with a unique page for each brand that includes links to each product listing, an about page to share tradition and ingredients information, and a home page for a holistic perspective. The Storefront was modeled after Pearson's Candy's own website to create a uniform and brand recognizable shopping experience.
Subscribe and Save
Goat Consulting ensured enrollment of listings in the Amazon Subscribe & Save program that provides a discount to customers who opt into repeat deliveries. This is a win-win because customers automatically get delicious candy delivered and Pearson's Candy gets recurring revenue.
Reach New Customers Through Amazon Ads
The Amazon Ads platform has allowed Goat Consulting and Pearson's Candy to reach new and returning customers and increase sales. We set up Amazon Ads campaigns using a mix of Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display, all in an effort to reach customers at each stage of the shopping cycle including building awareness, driving consideration and purchase, and building loyalty. These campaigns are continually improved upon with optimization efforts to ensure meeting goals and objectives.
Sponsored Products display in the search results page in line with organic search results, reaching customers in both awareness and consideration. Sponsored Brands display a banner image served on the search results page, driving traffic to the Amazon Storefront to help customers understand what makes Pearson's Candy special and showcase different brands and options. Sponsored Display ads serve at unique stages of the shopping experience including remarketing to customers that have purchased the product, and audiences with lifestyle, interests, and purchasing habits that would be interested in Pearson's Candy.
Actionable Insights Through Managerial Reporting
Amazon provides a wide array of data and metrics available to sellers. The important thing is knowing what the key drivers are to make actionable decisions. Goat Consulting and Pearson's Candy continue to collaborate on the key performance metrics and drivers to the business.
KPIs: Goat Consulting reports key performance indicators such as sales, advertising, and storefront data. These metrics guide decisions on where to allocate resources or indicate historical trends to help plan for the future.
Categorization by Brand: Amazon provides ASIN-level reporting, but for a company like Pearson's Candy, more in-depth categorization is required. We categorize each ASIN into its respective brand to see trends and sales diversification based on different product brand categorization.
Geographic Sales: At Pearson's request, Goat Consulting created a combination of a visualizer tool and non-customer identifiable zip code order information to help visually display the national reach of sales. This helps Pearson's Candy pair their off-Amazon marketing efforts to see the effects on Amazon sales.
Amazon Attribution: Amazon Attribution allows sellers to measure marketing efforts outside of Amazon to impression, click, and conversion metrics on Amazon product listings. Goat Consulting shares charts and graphs with the ability to dig into channels and sources of traffic to help Pearson's Candy understand how marketing outside of Amazon translates to sales on Amazon.
In Their Own Words
"Goat Consulting helped Pearson's Candy get started with the Amazon FBA platform, supporting us along the way as we grow and evolve within the Amazon environment. The Goat Consulting team is always quick to help support our needs and willing to dig into topics from strategic planning to tactical execution. We are glad to have Goat Consulting as a partner and look forward to continuing to grow our business on Amazon." -Pearson's Candy team
Wrapping Up the Pearson's Candy Amazon Case Study
Pearson's Candy has a long history of providing amazing tasting candy to customers. Pearson's Candy has been around long before Amazon was an idea, but they understand the importance of reaching customers where they shop and connecting with a new generation of customers that can enjoy their products. Goat Consulting is proud to assist in those efforts through providing an amazing shopping experience for customers on Amazon, sharing what makes Pearson's Candy special through product listing merchandising, reaching new customers through Amazon Ads, and making actionable insights through managerial strategy reporting.
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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 selling food products on Amazon or assistance with other aspects of selling on Amazon, please reach out through our contact form