September 8, 2022

What's inside:

• A Message from our Co-Founders

• Announcing: we're opening our dashboards to non-clients

• Key Amazon Dates

• Our Favorite Monthly Tidbits from August for Amazon

• Fun Share About Cartograph

A Message from our Co-Founders

Hi everyone,Happy labor day! With the close of August we roll into the end of summer: no more melted product, and Q4 is right around the corner.This Past MonthAugust came in at around 4-5% down from July: roughly flat once accounting for Prime Day in July. In line with fewer Prime Day promotions, our clients also had lower advertising spend, but the pullback was less than just a normal correction. Belt tightening exercises may be loosening a bit as brands are looking for growth.Looking AheadOur first priority for September is getting ready for meltable products to ship into Amazon warehouses in just over 30 days. Last year, being ready to sell meltable products on October 16 (when warehouses reopen) had a large impact on sales performance for the full duration of the non-melt season (through April 15). Every day of momentum building counts.We're also getting ready for Q4 promotion inventory, and tying down inventory for the rest of 2022. Last week BF/CM fell within a 90 day window, which resulted in inventory limit reductions. Though we anticipate less logistic and supply chain pressure vs. the last two years given Amazon's capacity, it's still important to ensure your product is retail ready ahead of time.Notes from our WebinarA couple weeks ago we held a webinar: Profitable Growth in Uncertain Times. Here are the major takeaways from that webinar:

• Profitability is possible. Some key benchmarks:

  • GM is the biggest driver: 70% is the bare minimum, 80% is a good target

  • Emerging brands should target 10-20% contribution margin (beverage lower).

  • Most CPG brands spend 20% in reinvestment in the channel

• Our best margin expansion levers:

  • Price: 1-3% price increases often have no impact upon velocity. Test your elasticities

  • Advertising: ads drop to the bottom line. Test spend downward: we often see wasted spend in disorganized campaigns, or low return terms

  • Ops: sometimes, you need to reboot. New kits with higher price/unit and lower ship cost % might be the path.

• Here's an example Pro-Forma P&L with levers highlighted:

You should test pulling back ad spend by going line-by-line of your ad spend segments and turning down your least efficient. When you do this, you should have an estimate of how much sales will drop, by looking at the ROAS of each segment.Let us know if you'll be at Expo East. We'll see you there!Cheers,Chris Moe and Jon WillbanksCo-founders, Cartograph

Cartograph Dashboards Beta - now open to non-clients! 

We are opening up our P&L and Repeat Purchase Dashboards (both a big part of our process!) to non-clients. Shoot me a note if you'd like to be added to the waitlist for our Beta!

Fall Prime Week

Note that we still don't know the exact dates for Fall Prime Week. Our best guess is that it will be in mid-October.

➞ September 9 - Coupon Deadline to qualify for Coupon Date Auto-adjustment. Use placeholder dates of 11/15/22-11/16/22➞ September 12 - FBA Inventory Deadline*➞ Two Weeks Before Event - Prime Exclusive Discounts Due

  Meltables 

➞ October 16 - Meltable Season Begins on Amazon➞ April 14  - Meltable Season Ends on Amazon

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 Due

➞ November 2 - FBA Inventory Deadline*➞ Two Weeks Before Event - Prime Exclusive Discounts DueChristmas

➞ December 1 - FBA Inventory Deadline**Inventory should arrive at the Fulfillment Center by this date.

FBA Fees are Increasing for the Holiday SeasonAmazon announced that FBA fees will increase during the peak holiday season from October 15, 2022 - January 14, 2023. Fees will increase an average of $0.35 USD per unit sold using US and Canada FBA. The fee increase does not apply to the FBA Small and Light program. 

DSP Remarketing and Cross-Selling with Subscribe and SaveAmazon AEs can create a DSP audience of your Subscribe and Save customers. This can then be used in a few different ways:

• Negate this Subscribe and Save audience for DSP Remarketing campaigns so that you aren’t paying to advertise to SNS customers.

• On the flip side, you can also cross-sell your other products to this SNS audience.

New Vendor Central Invoice Cost Increase TemplateAmazon recently updated the Vendor Central Invoice Cost Increase Template. If you're submitting invoice cost increases and claiming it is due to raw materials' costs, you now have to specify WHICH raw material. Amazon allows you to select up to 3 raw materials per ASIN, and the list is pre-selected so you cannot input a material/ingredient that is not already listed. In addition, you have to identify the composition percentage of each raw material. To access this process, go to Vendor Central → Items → Edit Item Costs

At Cartograph, we love our furry friends. We even have a Slack channel dedicated to Cartograph Pets. Enjoy some of our favorite pet photos!

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