August 5, 2022

Cartograph's July Wrap-Up

  What's inside: 

• A Message from our Co-Founders

• Upcoming Key Dates

• Announcements: Webinar on August 24th

• Our Favorite Monthly Tidbits from July for Amazon.

• Fun Share About Cartograph

A Message from our Co-Founders

Hi everyone,Hello and happy August! Hope you’re staying cool: we’re experiencing a record summer here in Austin. We’re re-starting our monthly newsletter where you’ll receive market data and trends on Amazon.July finished strong: total client sales* +2% vs. June. This mirrors May and June; after big months of +5-10% growth across our portfolio Jan through April, we’ve sustained small growth months as economic uncertainty climbed and Amazon reported sales declines. Natural CPG demand has held for now. (*GMV ARR of $130mm++).Prime Day took place on July 12th and 13th, and nearly all of our brands participated. Brands saw 2-4x average daily sales on the two days, with some as high as 8-10x. The best performing brands ran Prime Exclusive Discounts (PEDs), and used email and social media to promote their deals. Many successful brands felt a “halo” of 10-20% sales and traffic in the week following. Nonetheless, if you remove the Prime Day boost, average daily sales in July were slightly down vs. June.These results haven’t come easy: most clients are belt tightening, and we’re managing to contribution margin targets, with a focus on margin expansion on our Amazon P&Ls. Amazon continues to be a strong place to generate cash: we have new formulas for estimating demand elasticities when pulling back ad spend. About 2/3 of our clients had lower total ad spend in July vs. June. Some brands have raised prices with minimal impacts on velocity.Profitability and profitable growth feels as important as ever. We’ve heard dozens of stories of a painful fundraising environment, with long and arduous dead-end processes, pulled term sheets, and even terms and valuations adjusted at the 11th hour. P&L priority guidance seems to vary widely; most suggests moving to cash flow positivity on Amazon. Velocity of capital has slowed: many brands are very cautious to start new projects or make investments.Supply chain woes persist. This week we're seeing multiple recalls or shortages in raws: eggs, chicken, peanut butter, charcoal, protein shakes, cans, and other packaging. Warehouse capacity at Amazon and domestic freight don't seem to be a problem at the moment (the first time in over 2 years!).On August 24 we’re hosting a webinar where I’ll update you on our growth outlook in CPG, our playbook for margin expansion on the channel, and how to plan for Fall Prime Day and Q4. Early numbers suggest strong consumer demand for food & bev in August.As always, please reach out with any questions, ideas, or if you’d like to brainstorm on Amazon.Cheers,Chris Moe and Jon WillbanksCo-founders, Cartograph

Upcoming Webinar:

Amazon: Profitable Growth in Uncertain Times

Join Chris Moe, Co-founder and CEO of Cartograph as he discusses how to find profitable growth on Amazon in the current economic climate. The webinar will take place on August 24th, at 3:00pm CST.

Register to Join us Here

Chris will layout Cartograph's internal playbook for margin expansion, and cover 2022 trends and demand highlights. Furthermore, he will discuss how to think about shrinking ad budgets, Fall Prime Day and Q4 planning, as well as why now could be a good time to push for growth on Amazon.A former McKinsey consultant and mortgage industry veteran turned CPG and eCommerce expert, Chris wrote the popular Cartograph newsletter that helped brands navigate the Amazon supply chain woes in 2020. It’s a discussion you and your team don’t want to miss! 

Fall Prime Week Lightning Deals

Amazon extended the Lightning Deals deadline for the Fall Prime Week to August 5th for both Vendor Central and Seller Central. So, get your Lightning Deals in by 11:59 PM PDT tonight. We encourage brands to accept all recommended deals and then you can decide over the coming months what you actually want to keep.

Dates:

➞ August 12 - You should be able to submit Prime Exclusive Discounts for Prime Week by this date.➞ September 12 - FBA Shipping Deadline➞ Given the FBA Shipping Deadline, we estimate that the Prime Fall Deal Week will be in early to mid-October.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday

It's already time to start thinking about Black Friday and Cyber Monday!➞ September 2 - Lightning Deals and 7 Day Deals are due by this date.

PALLET AS CASE FOR NEW SHIPPING WORKFLOW (Attention Beverage Brands!)With Amazon phasing out the old FBA shipment workflow on August 31st, our team has come up with a way to send in a “Pallet as Case” via the new "Send to Amazon" workflow in FBA. This is a way for brands who sell entire cases as sellable units to avoid applying carton labels on each unit (and apply only one per pallet). You’ll use the File Upload process instead of the web form and set the Units per Box = Number per Pallet; Number of Boxes = Number of Pallets; Box length, width, height, and weight = Pallet dimensions and weight.This results in the pallet receiving 1 master carton label and 1 pallet label. Amazon has dimension and weight restrictions on the web form so you have to use the file upload process.

VINE WITH VARIATIONSVine is a program that helps brands get up to 30 reviews on their newly launched items on Amazon. Reviewers known as "Vine Voices" are able to enroll to receive your product at no cost to them in exchange for reviews on Amazon. We recommend that you create each new item separately, without a variation, in order to receive up to 30 reviews for each ASIN.Once all 30 Vine units are claimed, you can create the variation before all the reviews come in. If you create the variation before they are claimed, you will only get a max of 30 reviews for the total variation.

PACKAGING/FORMULATION CHANGESWhen your product is going through a packaging change and/or a reformulation and Amazon has both versions on hand, we see it as a ‘must do’ to include an image in the carousel indicating to the consumer that they might receive either packaging and/or formulation. You can then refer back to the image in the case of an Andon for customer complaints.

The Cartograph Team and some of our Perpetua partners gathered in Austin this past May for the annual Cartograph Retreat. This picture is from a dinner cruise we went on one evening on Lady Bird Lake overlooking downtown Austin.

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