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Amazon Unwrapped featuring Kara Babb

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The Vendor (1P) side of Amazon is invite-only, but Kara notes it's becoming more attractive for larger sellers. While 1P means losing price control, it can help brands break through growth barriers once they reach a certain size on the 3P/Seller side.

For brands interested in becoming vendors, Kara outlines what Amazon looks for:

• Brands with $50M+ in revenue get attention, but smaller brands with strong social presence (especially on TikTok) or strong relationships with retailers like Walmart or Sephora can also attract Amazon's interest.

• Amazon values partners who improve their contribution profit/margin.

• Brands need diversified supply chains and ability to manage large inventory volumes consistently.

• Strong brand presence outside Amazon is a major plus – Amazon values brands that can draw customers to their platform.

Hybrid models: Getting the best of both worlds

Kara has seen success with hybrid models, especially when 1P brands onboard an authorized 3P seller like Recom or Pattern. This approach:

• Provides leverage in negotiations with Amazon

• Enables selling products Amazon may not want to carry

• Creates essentially another retail channel through the authorized partner

• Allows diversified selection strategies

Amazon in the broader e-commerce strategy

Rather than viewing Amazon and D2C as competing channels, Kara recommends putting them under the same leadership team and defining specific roles for each:

Amazon's role: Fulfillment engine, volume play, first purchase D2C's role: CRM engine, custom assortments, personalized experiences

As Kara explains, "Amazon, if they're the ones selling it, they own the customer. Vendors have very little ability to contact customers. It's a walled garden. But if you can get customers over to D2C and your social pages, you will always have that customer relationship."

She points to beauty brand Gisou as an excellent example of building community through D2C and social that informs all aspects of their strategy:

• Product development

• Design for social visibility

• E-commerce shipping and fulfillment optimization

The changing role of agencies

The traditional model of having a large agency handle all advertising is evolving. Kara is seeing:

• Brands bringing more work in-house, with one advertising lead managing all retail platforms

• Agencies moving from "keyboard clicking" to providing holistic, actionable strategy

• Greater emphasis on insights across competitors and trends

• Simplified deliverables – "three slides with the most crucial things" instead of 200-page decks

What brands are missing: Organic TikTok

When asked what brands are overlooking, Kara didn't hesitate: "The power of an organic TikTok brand account."

"TikTok is Amazon's number one traffic channel and most brands are just doing influencers. That's fine, but there's three legs to that stool: influencer, paid ads, and organic social."

Brands like Scrub Daddy, Gisou, and The Pink Stuff have demonstrated the value of organic social presence. While many brands shy away because it's harder to attribute direct ROI, Kara emphasizes the broader benefits:

• Better ad performance

• Increased ROAS

• Improved forecasting for vendors

• Faster-spinning flywheel overall

If you want to work with Kara, she can be found on LinkedIn. The experience she has is rare and I can’t recommend her enough for brands who are serious is better executing the omnichannel strategy. https://www.linkedin.com/in/karababb/

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