Supplements: Amazon Private Label Exclusive Brands to Watch in 2019
Amazon Private Label Facts
With the first digitally-native generation shifting its consumer spending towards private label offerings, Amazon, the biggest e-commerce retailer, naturally followed the trend by launching its first private label offering, Pinzon, in 2009. With decades of customer information at their disposal, Amazon has continued to use that deep intel to launch private labels. In fact, several reports point to Amazon currently owning around 100 private label brands that were on pace to generate $7.5 billion in 2018 as of June. Though some of these labels bare the Amazon name, the vast majority do not.
Amazon’s private label success is undeniable, estimates from investment firm SunTrust predict that revenues will climb even further to $25 billion by 2022. That growth rate is staggering, but optimism is high, as Amazon launched the Amazon Accelerator Program in early October of 2018. This program essentially flips the normal private label creation process on its head. Instead of Amazon coming up with ideas for all of the brands and products and then putting them out for bid with manufacturers, it is inviting manufacturers to “join the Amazon family of brands” and be part of the creation process.
With this invitation, Amazon is essentially eliminating time spent on brand and product development processes and allowing approved manufacturers to launch “exclusive” ideas on the platform. In exchange, Amazon will give these approved manufacturers an array of valuable resources, services and placements that usually have high costs associated with them for vendors and sellers. This new partnership model allows Amazon to create private label and exclusive brands at a much faster and dynamic pace. Early indications are that its working extremely well, as the Amazon Accelerator program has created over 100 new exclusive and/or private-label brands in only two months.
“Top 5 List”
Regardless of the growth of Amazon private label and exclusive brands, this list was tough to make in 2019 because I could only work off the available list right now. Which was only about 30 options, if you also count coffee/tea only brands.
(Note: I am not going to mention Amazon Elements because I have done a video already highlighting this private label and though its extremely important, I wanted to stay away from “Amazon X” private label or exclusives)
#1 — Solimo
This is probably one of the biggest (if not the biggest) consumer packaged goods and fast-moving consumer goods private labels on the Amazon platform.
- Link to Solimo Listings
- Over 500 Listings with multiple variants that account for 1000s of SKUs
- Solimo sell everything from coffee, protein cookies, vitamins, to toothbrushes, diapers, and trash bags
- This private label is starting to look like the direct competitor to Target’s “Up & Up”
- I focused on this brand because its coffee pods usually have two in top 100 listings in the entire grocery category, which equates to over $60K weekly in revenue per listing alone
#2 — Dedlift
This is currently one of the smallest Amazon exclusive brands but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be paying attention to it.
- Link to Dedlift Listings
- Currently two SKUs (one at end of 2018)
- Dedlift is currently outperforming other exclusive brands in the accelerator
- Amazon wants exclusive brands to launch products at hyper speed to test and get data but is this a more effective way? (Quality over Quantity?)
- This brand is more in line with general product trends in the sports nutrition market
- I would look for new products in 2019 and this brand could likely use a branding adjustment to become more premium in the private label world (yes, there is premium private labels!)
#3 — OWN PWR
I included this brand in the list because its most like a “traditional” specialty sports nutrition brand in its development. I originally thought this brand was being built by Nutrabolt, as it looked very close to the old “Cor Performance” line but I think its actually Glanbia or at least they are handling some of the manufacturing (along with Arizona Nutritional Supplements).
- Link to OWN PWR Listings
- They currently have about 40+ SKUs
- The products are 3rd-party tested by Informed Choice
- The labels are transparent and open, which is another big trend in the supplement industry
#4 — GNC (Challenge By and Informed Nutrition)
How can you have a “top list” and not included the biggest physical specialty retailer of supplements “partnering” with Amazon to sell its exclusive private label(s)?
- Link to Challenge By Listings
- Link to Informed Nutrition Listings
- GNC currently has over a dozen products between the two private label brands
- In my opinion, this move is about staying relevant in digital-first product searches and staying close to Amazon
- Private label is already huge for GNC’s business and this is a core competency for them
- These are different than the private labels sold in GNC physical locations but they do also sell GNC private label brands and other store brands on Amazon
#5 — Revly
- Link to Revly Listings
- Revly currently has about 40+ listings and they are aggressively launching more weekly
- The brand is mostly vitamins and minerals, but this is where an estimated close to 100% growth is happening on Amazon
- Personally, I think this brand is visually appealing and should work well with female consumers that are gaining more buying power in the nutritional supplement category
Prefer to watch a video on this topic? Click on the embedded YouTube Video from my channel below!
