Sean Stone Advocates for a Dual-Pronged Ecommerce Growth Strategy: Owning Your Brand and Leveraging Amazon’s Spillover Traffic
Sean Stone, a prominent consultant in the ecommerce landscape, is championing a strategic approach for online merchants aiming for sustained growth and brand resilience. His core recommendation, which has inspired the name of his agency, Spillover Commerce, centers on a "one-two punch": establishing a robust, profitable, and branded direct-to-consumer (DTC) website, and then strategically capitalizing on the "spillover traffic" generated on Amazon. This dual approach, Stone argues, allows brands to cultivate their identity while still benefiting from the immense reach and established trust of the world’s largest online marketplace.
Stone, who launched his agency as Stone’s Goods in 2021 before rebranding to Spillover Commerce in January of the current year, has been immersed in Amazon’s ecosystem since 2017. His extensive experience managing Amazon advertising campaigns has led him to advocate for a paradigm shift. Instead of solely relying on Amazon as their primary sales channel, brands, in Stone’s view, should prioritize building and nurturing their own domains. Amazon, he posits, should be treated as a powerful secondary channel, capable of capturing consumers who are already within its vast orbit.
"The best way to grow an ecommerce business is to launch a profitable Shopify website and then leverage the spillover traffic that inevitably occurs on Amazon. It’s a powerful one-two punch," Stone explained in a recent interview. His agency, Spillover Commerce, now works with a diverse clientele, including established Shopify brands that find Amazon challenging yet too significant to ignore, as well as Amazon-first sellers seeking to diversify their revenue streams and build a more sustainable business model.
The rationale behind treating Amazon as a secondary channel stems from consumer behavior and trust. "Consumers love Amazon shipping. They trust it. If something doesn’t work out, they’ll be taken care of and made whole. And that trust is insurmountable for many brands," Stone elaborated. This ingrained trust in Amazon’s logistics and customer service creates a powerful gravitational pull for shoppers. Therefore, Stone recommends offering a curated selection of products on Amazon – perhaps a specific version, a single item from a broader collection, or a complementary offering – rather than mirroring the entire product catalog. This approach ensures that brands maintain control over their core brand experience while still tapping into Amazon’s vast customer base.
Bridging the Gap: Brand Building vs. Marketplace Optimization
The conversation around Amazon’s role often sparks debate, with some merchants expressing concern that the platform can dilute their brand identity. Eric Bandholz, the interviewer and founder of a DTC brand, articulated this common sentiment: "It makes sense. But the only people making money on Amazon are selling cheap, junk products. The shipping is good, but the entire experience trashes my brand. I don’t see how merchants can build something of value on Amazon. Many Amazon sellers are data- and spreadsheet-savvy. They aren’t trying to build a brand."
Stone acknowledges this challenge but insists it’s not an insurmountable hurdle. "We try to bridge that gap," he stated. "Success on Amazon and on Shopify comes from different skill sets. What wins on Amazon is the opposite of what wins on Shopify and Meta. But many merchants excel at both. That’s the one-two punch that can dominate, not being trapped by one platform over another." This perspective highlights the distinct marketing and sales dynamics at play across different platforms and emphasizes the importance of adapting strategies accordingly.
The "One-Two Punch" in Practice: Platform-Specific Offers
To illustrate his strategy, Stone provided a hypothetical scenario: a DTC brand aiming for a 60% revenue contribution from its own domain and 40% from Amazon. His advice for such a scenario is to create distinct, platform-specific offers. "Don’t sell the same thing in both places," Stone advised. "Whatever you sell on Amazon will be price-compared against similar items. Create an offer that makes sense for that environment. Perhaps it’s a lesser version of what you sell on your domain."
Furthermore, Stone stressed the importance of incentivizing direct purchases. "Provide incentives for shoppers to buy directly from your site. Maybe it’s a full bundle with the full experience." This encourages customers to bypass Amazon for the complete brand offering, fostering deeper engagement and potentially higher profit margins.
A compelling case study highlighted by Stone is that of Gymreapers, a brand specializing in weightlifting accessories. Despite the commoditized nature of products like wrist straps, where numerous competitors offer similar items at lower price points, Gymreapers generates a significant $10,000 in monthly revenue from these straps on Amazon. This success, Stone explained, is not solely due to the product itself but to a sophisticated branding and marketing strategy.
"Gymreapers’ strategy is obvious. They get huge sales on Amazon from roughly 200 Facebook ads," Stone revealed, referencing insights from the Facebook Ads Library. "They also use TikTok influencers." However, the crucial distinction is that these external advertising efforts are geared towards driving traffic to their primary website for higher-value purchases, such as comprehensive powerlifting bundles. "The Amazon sales are indirect," Stone clarified. "The Meta ads are for high-priced powerlifting bundles, such as belts, knee and elbow straps, and deadlift straps, all sold on Gymreapers.com. People seeking only wrist straps are searching for ‘Gymreapers’ and landing on Amazon." This indirect approach allows Gymreapers to command a 50% premium over competitors by leveraging their strong brand identity and external traffic sources to drive demand for their core Amazon offering.
Strategic Bundling and Brand Building Beyond the Marketplace
When asked about the effectiveness of bundling on Amazon for customer acquisition, Stone expressed reservations. "Bundling on Amazon doesn’t really work," he stated. "What drives organic ranking on Amazon is the conversion rate. In our experience, the best play is to have a high-converting offer on a product detail page and drive as many organic sales as possible. You can certainly bundle on Amazon, but it won’t perform as well as a single item with a strong conversion rate." This suggests that for Amazon’s algorithm, simplicity and a strong single-item conversion rate often outperform complex bundles in terms of organic visibility and sales.
For sellers looking to build their brand beyond the confines of the Amazon marketplace, Stone outlines a three-pronged approach. "First, they need Amazon product-market fit, which they presumably have if they’ve been selling there for years," he began. "Then they need a Meta market fit, which is our way of saying a product that benefits from Meta advertising. Don’t advertise a mop on Meta, but do advertise a cool robot vacuum cleaner." This highlights the importance of aligning product appeal with the advertising environment of platforms like Facebook and Instagram. "Third, the sellers need platform-specific offers," he reiterated, reinforcing his earlier point about tailoring products to each sales channel.
Unlocking Offsite Opportunities with Data and Engagement
Identifying offsite sales opportunities without relying solely on Amazon’s internal data presents a common challenge for sellers. Stone’s advice is straightforward: establish an online presence. "All sellers — on Amazon or otherwise — should have a website," he emphasized. "People will buy products from the site (even if your priority is Amazon), just not a lot of them." The real value, he suggests, lies in engaging with these direct customers. "Then engage with those customers. Ask about their preferences, such as likes and dislikes on Amazon as well as product suggestions. Just think creatively." This direct customer feedback loop can provide invaluable insights for product development, marketing, and overall brand strategy, helping to bridge the gap between marketplace performance and DTC potential.
The implications of Stone’s strategy extend beyond individual merchant success. In an era where platform dependence can be a significant risk, his "one-two punch" offers a model for building a more resilient and diversified ecommerce business. By prioritizing brand ownership and strategically leveraging the immense, yet often overlooked, spillover traffic from Amazon, merchants can cultivate a more sustainable and profitable future. The ability to adapt to different platform dynamics and foster direct customer relationships appears to be the key to navigating the complexities of the modern online retail landscape.
For those interested in learning more or seeking expert guidance, Sean Stone’s agency, Spillover Commerce, can be reached via their website at SpilloverCommerce.com. Stone is also available for professional networking and discussion on LinkedIn.
