“Amazon’s a great entry point for business because it’s very, very easy to set up and list your product,” says Andrew Dowley, chief operating officer and co-founder, sustainable home and personal care brand Wild & Stone. “There are certain things you have to learn but it’s such a big beast that learning by your mistakes is an easier way to do things than getting it perfect.”
For example, the company’s expansion into the US resulted in unexpected costs. “We sent our product to the US but we did have some initial issues where we were losing money constantly because of the FBA shipping fees across the USA’s three time zones,” says Dowley. “It’s a common thing that people come across when you’re selling a more cost-effective item like a toothbrush. You don’t have the built-in margins to deal with shipping from New York to California or to Chicago or to Texas.”
The brand also had to find ways to stand out in a competitive market that’s so dominated by big brands. This is where its environmental credentials came to the fore and were leveraged in its marketing with good copy and photography. By understanding the ideal customer and having good copywriters, “I could optimise my product and could beat someone else’s product without even knowing the marketplace because you can tailor the content to SEO content rules better than they can,” he says.
This is why he believes smaller brands can dominate on marketplaces, even against larger brands with extensive reviews and bigger budgets. “They’ve got economies of scale but just because you’ve got all those things, it doesn’t guarantee that you’re going to win on Amazon.”
Wild & Stone found that as sales grew across Amazon’s US and European marketplaces, it needed a better way to manage revenue. Turning to WorldFirst – a sponsor and panellist at the Amazon Sellers Summit – Wild & Stone can now collect and hold its marketplace payouts in local currencies, be they USD, Euros, GBP or another currency, as well as having greater control over when and how those funds are exchanged.
This profile appears in the Amazon Sellers Summit Report 2025.
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