Primarily a manufacturer, Clearly Innovative had let resellers control their listings and brand on Amazon. Clearly decided it was time to focus on selling direct and control its brand identity.
The Challenges
Founded in 2007, Clearly Innovative Glass Chairmats created a better solution to the standard plastic chair mat. Clearly Innovative was primarily selling to retail distributors and doing a small amount of direct-to-consumer sales via their website. When Clearly approached OperationROI they were a new seller on Amazon and their resellers had full control of their product listings.
Since Clearly was a new seller on Amazon it was a learning process for them. We helped guide them through many of the early steps. Working with the team at Clearly, we helped identify some of the initial goals that we needed to accomplish including:
- Optimizing Product Listings
- Getting Brand Control from Resellers
- Acquiring Product Reviews
- Investigate Using FBA for Oversized Products
- Developing a Brand Store
- Leveraging A+ Content
- Increasing BuyBox Visibility
From the onset they had to overcome a variety of challenges, however, following proven strategies Clearly Innovative has been able to grow exponentially.
The Solution
As simple as it sounds, our initial goal was to list Clearly’s products under their seller account on Amazon. We knew it was the first in many steps to get their account heading in the right direction. We understood that Clearly needed to get control of their reseller listings and merge all of the various listings for their products. Since Clearly Innovative Glass Chairmats was a new seller building the brand and targeting the largest competitor in the space were also essential goals.
Phase 1: Get Control
OPTIMIZE THE LISTING
As mentioned above, the first step was to create product detail pages for Clearly that were optimized. Knowing Clearly would eventually take over control of the reseller’s listings, the new listings needed to be created correctly right from the start. We developed a direction for the titles, product details, and product imagery to make sure the product content and brand had consistency across their product catalog.
BRAND REGISTRY
The next step, get the brand registered and get control of the brand’s intellectual property. Resellers had control of many of the listings as well as duplicate listings for their most popular sizes. While Clearly is still embracing its resellers, they want consistency for its intellectual property.
CLEAN UP THE CATALOG
Once Clearly was Brand Registered, we started working with the Brand Registry and catalog teams at Amazon. We helped fine-tune the pricing, created new variations with no re-sellers, merged duplicate listings, and cleaned up the Amazon catalog.
Phase 2: Building Brand Awareness
ADDITIONAL IMAGERY
Clearly Innovative Glass Chairmats is not a well-known name in the space, yet they have a patented beveled edge. This is an important differentiating factor that separates them from the competition but was not something the resellers had focused on when they built their listings. When we created the listings, we developed compelling additional imagery with a new look and feel that highlighted the beveled edge. We then used that new look and feel to expand the brand experience.
A+ CONTENT
We developed A+ content matching the newly developed additional imagery. The A+ content focused heavily on the durability of the glass chair mat, as well as the patented beveled edge.
BRAND STORE
In our goal to build more brand awareness, we also developed a Brand Store to again showcase the brand, the growing product line, and highlight the differences between their products.
PAID SEARCH
Optimizing the listings and developing the brand assets was only part of the plan, as paid search was another key component for building awareness for Clearly. We began with Sponsored Products ads and expanded to Sponsored Brand, Sponsored Display, and Sponsored Video ad formats as well. Traffic and sales began to increase, but we knew there were a few more key decisions that had to be made to help increase the sales velocity.
Phase 3: FBA for Oversized Products
WHY USE FBA?
Fulfillment By Amazon, or FBA, is a service in which sellers send products directly to an Amazon fulfillment warehouse and they handle the pick, pack, and shipping of the merchandise. The advantage for sellers to use FBA is the product become Prime eligible, meaning consumers can receive the product within 2-days. From our experience with other sellers, we understand the value of being Prime eligible and how it can increase sales.
FBA FEES & PROCESS
However, Clearly isn’t selling your normal-size product. They sell an oversized or bulk item. So, shipping to Amazon for them did not seem financially plausible, especially since they had worked out special rates with another carrier service. We worked with the team at Clearly to break down the fees and review the shipping process.
TEST FBA
It was decided to test FBA for one of their top-selling sizes. It turned out that certain sizes were more cost-effective to ship via FBA, more importantly, we started to see an increase in sales on the ASIN we tested. Since that initial test, Clearly has been leveraging FBA for most sizes and has seen a steady increase in units being sold for all sizes.
Phase 4: Growth Opportunities
LAUNCHED NEW PRODUCTS
While Clearly was seeing a steady increase in sales, chair mats weren’t the only products that they were planning on selling. Since Clearly launched on Amazon, they have introduced new products such as glass dividers, desk pads, and fireplace screens. These products, while still large in size, are smaller than the chair mats making the use of FBA a simple decision.
REVIEWS
Understanding the importance of product reviews, especially for a new seller, we needed to get reviews for Clearly. Before Amazon changed how messaging solicitation worked, we were able to build up a decent amount of reviews using FeedbackFive. We have since adapted to the new guidelines set forth by Amazon, but aren’t seeing the success rate of our old multi-e-mail approach. For some of the newer products launched by Clearly we have leveraged Amazon’s Vine program, which has had mixed success for this client.
COVID
The growth for Clearly has been steady, but it has not come without some challenges and obstacles. COVID was a big obstacle they had to overcome early on in their journey. As with all of us, no one knew how COVID would affect sales and manufacturing. Clearly was fortunate to see a sales increase from the push to work-from-home, but challenges with inventory required them to be more agile in shipping and fulfillment options. Fortunately, things are slowly returning to normal, and inventory is being produced at a steadier flow again.
MISSING INVENTORY
While using FBA, has had a positive effect on Clearly’s sales, FBA isn’t a perfect system either. Over the past two years, issues have arisen such as shipments temporarily disappearing, product intake numbers varying from what was sent, and product returns not being accounted for correctly. Since this is not a specialty for OperationROI, we worked to get Clearly set up with GETIDA for automatic research on missing inventory. They have helped them identify thousands of dollars in potential funds that may be able to be recovered from Amazon.
PATENT VIOLATIONS
One of the unique selling features of Clearly’s glass chair mats is their patented beveled edge. We’ve made sure to focus on this selling point because it’s a true differentiator and the competition has noticed. Unfortunately, we along with the team at Clearly identified a seller violating the patent. We processed patent violations through Brand Registry. After going through a review process Amazon removed the offending listings.
Sale Velocity and Profitability Continue to Increase
With the continued growth in sales and increase in paid search spend we continue to hit new sales records, while consistently keeping the ACoS at or below target goals.
The Results
For OperationROI, Clearly has been one of those clients who has not only been great to work with, but exciting to see the growth and future growth potential. When we met Clearly, they were a new seller on Amazon whose resellers had full control of their brand identity. Their catalog of products was a mess, terms like FBA and A+ were foreign to them.
Now almost 3 years later, the efforts of both OperationROI and Clearly can be seen by the steady sales growth. We’ve continued updating and optimizing the product listings and paid search campaigns to maximize visibility for Clearly and their expanding product line. The development of A+ Content and the Brand Store has helped build brand awareness and so they now have a consistent feel throughout Amazon.
Our paid search team is still working diligently to expand the advertising campaigns. From our initial launch until now we have seen a huge improvement in the ACoS percentage and sales attributed to the advertising campaigns. Initially, we launched only using Sponsored product ads, however, that has changed as they are now taking advantage of several advertising opportunities including video ads. The ACoS percentage now compared to the initial months has decreased by over 40%, with our best month having an ACoS below 5%.
With all of the incremental improvements, the sales for Clearly continue trending in the right direction. Sales recently hit an all-time high with over 6500% growth since starting with Clearly. And we think there is still plenty of growth potential left! With inventory numbers returning to normal, the additional products being offered, and years of focus, we believe this year’s sales will easily beat last year and we couldn’t be happier with the results. We think the team at Clearly is pretty happy too!
What Our Client Has to Say
“Our company Clearly Innovative Home and Office Products started with OperationROI in November of 2019. We had no idea how to sell and advertise on Amazon. OpROI had the experience to establish our brand and product(s) – we have added two more completely different products over the last 2.5 years.”
“Working with us as a team, we have been able to grow our Amazon sales 10X and navigate through Amazon’s frequent rule changes. Our business continues to grow with OperationROI always there for us.”
— Ken James, Founder/President
