What Amazon was really buying with their acquisition of Selz
Amazon recently acquired Selz, which is not yet ANOTHER alcoholic seltzer brand, but a platform designed to help small-to-mid sized businesses (SMB) sell products and services. Name an online business model, Selz sells it:
- SaaS
- Content
- eLearning
But the core of their appeal is ecommerce. With the emerging success of the Walmart/Shopify merger, which did $978 million in Q4 sales, Amazon is trying to respond by offering sellers more control over their brands.
Shopify carved out an impressive ecommerce niche in 2020, fueled by their success in lifestyle categories like home, pets, beauty, and craft foods. Amazon took notice, and while it is superior in its marketplace reach and fulfilment capabilities, Shopify clearly has an advantage in brand identity – which is extremely important to consumers 25-40. The Selz acquisition is really Amazon saying “no more Mr. Nice Mega-Corp.”
Beyond offering a branded site, Selz is specifically designed to help the seller conduct operations. Sort of like selling your own homemade burgers at McDonalds, but instead of them throwing you out (again), they put it on the value menu and show you how to open a Burger King. What a guy, that Ronald!
Selz presents a large value proposition for merchants, where they offer:
- Done-for-you marketing and email automation
- Tax and invoice assistance
- Ecommerce coaching
- Integrations for selling on Facebook and Instagram
- Domain management with SSL integrations
The world of ecommerce has gone from steady growth to an outright explosion over the past year, and it’s not likely to slow down anytime soon with ecommerce retail purchases expected to rise from 14.1% to 22% by 2023. By showing Shopify that it is willing to compete in the SMB market, Amazon is trying to increase its already impressive reach, whether the merchant prefers to sell via FBA or FBM.
