Trends and Predictions for 2022

Old techniques are not working and by older techniques I mean the techniques you were using back in 2020 and 2019 as much of the processes are changed and you need to “Innovate”, you can’t think that way anymore. You have to think as much as it’s possible, like a year ahead. If you’re just sitting on the sidelines and you’re taking the playbook that you just ran this year or last year, you’re going to run into issues because what we’re already seeing, what the data shows a lot of these trends have morphed, even from a year ago. This year, they’ve changed. They’re going to change a lot next year as well. And so getting out ahead of those a little bit and the data kind of shows this, it’s going to put you in a better position from an Advertiser perspective.

What will eCommerce look like in 2022? How will our industry change, and how can we plan ahead?

According to a prediction, all the regulators in the House and the Attorney General’s offices across the country have all realized that existing laws aren’t going to help them break up Amazon and reduce some of their power. So they’re making new laws. There are 14 laws going through Congress. I have one special request that outlawed the practice of buy box oppression. If they do that and they pass that one law, I think it would have huge repercussions and open up the competition with the other marketplaces.

Amazon is building its own social media where all the buyers can talk about a thing that is convenient and reliable. Like someone found an alternative for a $50 product with the same quality but different pricing like he finds it for $40 then he will post it on social media. By social media, it will be easier for sellers to advertise their product to a specific audience, not like Facebook and Instagram where you will find a diverse audience.

Back in 2019 many of the Chinese were privately doing business on Amazon FBA and now they have an entire eCommerce division. Shopping malls in China are filled with Amazon sellers with pallets of goods using them as storage. Within a span of 2 years, the people who were secretly selling on Amazon FBA are now millionaires. So we can predict that same will happen from 2 years from 2022 as the eCommerce business is for the people who are opportunists and patients. Despite the fact that Amazon is increasing its fulfillment charges, still, chances of becoming a millionaire are great, as Amazon’s FBA market share is increasing globally.

So the whole landscape has completely changed the global supply chain issues that we have started to see this year, which will also continue to 2022. We’re going to see a little more congestion, at least in the first half of 2022. In the old days, brands would just try to survive Q4. There’s so much going on, so much selling, some of them would have a listing suspended, have to appeal it. And they’d be troubleshooting. But they wouldn’t be planning, right? They’d just be trying to get through Q4 because that’s their peak of the year, not for seasonal items, but for all other brands. You can’t think that way anymore. You have to think, like, as much as it’s possible, like a year ahead.

The biggest thing is what you saw, especially last year early in Pandemic. We’re talking like April, May, June 2020 was there was huge volatility in terms of the keywords that are popular right from month to month. Those were changing a pretty considerable deal. And what we’ve seen is now typically looking years past that it remained relatively constant. Obviously, there’s a chance you’re seeing this year, that kind of started to push back where now those popular terms are staying popular a little bit longer. So because of that lack of volatility, what that means for you as a seller is you need to understand what those terms are, be able to capitalize on them, and then where there is volatility.

Is Amazon going to have to remove its private label business? Is Amazon going to have to separate FBA their fulfillment network as a separate business? And how does that affect me is AWS going to be peeled off? And I think if any of those things happen, then you must consider that Amazon has the right to do anything. Like if your brand is selling above average then there are chances that Amazon will launch a product against you and you will see Amazon as the main competitor. Obviously, you can’t beat that as Amazon knows what customers prefer more than sellers.

There’s a bigger global presence more and more Amazon marketplaces are growing globally. So I think we’re going to see continual growth, but also a lot of change in terms of supply and demand. There’s going to be a lot more people entering the marketplace and also a lot of people that are in the marketplace are going to get knocked out because they either don’t have the margin to compete or they just are having so many problems with the changes in the supply chain.

There are currently two trends that are making users excited, one trend just from an opportunity perspective. You’re seeing all these brand aggregators out there. So we’re seeing some consolidation happening in that space. There is much competition around there, some of the brand aggregators are probably going to have or who’s the best operator out of them. The other thing that is predicted to happen is there’s going to be consolidation on the seller services site. So it’s not just the aggregators who are consolidating brands, but the seller services market. Folks like the Caspians of the world, other folks, software services, where the IPOs there, Where’s the consolidation, the acquisitions there.

Profit margins on these marketplaces are going to get more crimp. Sellers have to get more and more strategic and creative about how they can really get the most out of their presence there because it’s not going to be if you’re a successful seller five years ago to be a successful seller. Now you have to do a lot of things differently, whether that’s bringing in a 3PL partner, whether that’s really finding those efficiencies and advertising as best you can with again, we use real-time bidding and other things to kind of keep you in the forefront.

But you got to have these strategies because you’re up against more competition. All the consumers are flocking there more. So it’s even more important for you to be on there and really capture that demand. So it’s just a lot more difficult and those margins are going to be crimp. So it’s like the best-sellers are going to be the ones that can get around that.

When we talk to Buyers usually two things are discussed diversification of ads and diversification of fulfillment. When diversification of ads is discussed then a variation of ads and effective bidding strategies are discussed as the cost of ads is going up. And the second thing is diversification of fulfillment that successful brands are using FBA and FBM both so if one fails other is there to support. Now, don’t just rely 100% on FBA. Also have either your own warehouse tech capabilities or, better 3PLs in multiple locations so that you can deliver fast not only for Amazon FBA Channel but for your Walmart channel, for your Shopify channel, for your BigCommerce channel.