Popfunk: How Licensed Brands Can Maximize Their Potential on Amazon
Logos (much like soundtracks) define famous movies, comic books, tv shows, characters, and more.
Just think of Batman. Most people will recognize those black bat wings almost anywhere – whether it be on a t-shirt, water bottle or sticker.
Unfortunately, as a customer when your shopping online to purchase an item with a legitimate logo, the internet is going to serve you a flood of knockoffs, which can lead to some serious customer dissatisfaction.
For example, would you be happy if you ordered a Pokémon product and this is what arrived at your door?
Probably not.
Trevor George, President of Popfunk is on a mission to put an end to those terrible knockoff experiences, so that consumers can confidently purchase high-quality, licensed goods.
Founded in 2008, Popfunk offers thousands of different products for men, women, kids, and babies all licensed from your favorite movie, TV show, cartoon character, pop icon, or classic brand.
In 2016, Trevor transitioned his business to Amazon, with a focus on brand building utilizing creative such as A+ Content and Amazon Stores.
Today, PopFunk is considered one of the most successful licensed apparel brands on the Marketplace.
In the following interview, Trevor shares his secret to selling success and why he believes counterfeit products no longer have a place on Amazon.
Popfunk Joins the Amazon Marketplace
Trevor’s father founded Trevco in 1990. Trevco is one of the nation’s largest soft lines manufactures of licensed merchandise with the rights to over 600+ licensed properties ranging from popular brands such as Warner Brothers, to Dreamworks, NBC/Universal, Paramount, KISS, ACDC and many more.
In 2008, Trevor decided to launch a new direct to consumer brand under Trevco’s umbrella called Popfunk.
Today, Popfunk’s team operates outside of Detroit, Michigan where they create and market licensed merchandise.
“For the longest time, we sold most of our merchandise online at Popfunk.com. But in 2016, as we started to notice a shift in online shopping trends, we transitioned our focus to creating a brand on Amazon,” Trevor said.
“We shifted our business to Amazon for 2 reasons: Demand & Convenience.”
“Consumer demand shifted from making a search on Google to Amazon. Today, statistics show that 55% of all searches start on Amazon, whereas only 28% start on Google. We saw a decrease in potential traffic from Google advertising, so we decided it was time to go where the consumer goes.”
“The second reason was convenience. The average selling price for most of our products is $18. That combined with the ability to get free 2-day Prime shipping and 1 click checkout made our selling opportunity on Amazon much greater than our website.”
“As much as we made it a point to include things like Apple Pay on our .com – the checkout process wasn’t as seamless as it is on Amazon. At least for now, we believe Amazon is a better marketplace for the items that we sell.”
Popfunk Invests in A+ Content & Amazon Stores
Shortly after teaming up with CPC Strategy, Popfunk invested in the development of A+ Content & Amazon Stores.
A+ Content integrates detailed product descriptions, rich images, charts and narrative copy to help customers make informed buying decisions. This premium content from manufacturers is meant to drive more conversions on a detail page.
According to Amazon, A+ Content can increase sales on average 3% to 10% by educating the consumer about your product and brand.
“We understand that consumers have doubt about the validity of some products sold on Amazon. Specifically in our industry, it’s insane how many bootleg products are available using brand names like Batman or DC Comics.”
“Even today, my wife will ask me to help her buy proactive toner on Amazon because she’s concerned the toner might not be legitimate. We invested in A+ Content (along with inserts in our packaging) to assure our customers that our products are 100% officially licensed and authentic.”
BLOG POST: Amazon Announces New Free A+ Content for Vendors
Manufacturers vs. Licensing Brands
According to Trevor, the problems facing branded manufacturers on Amazon are very different than those in the licensing space.
“For example, a brand like Dyson can open up a 3P account and sell the product via Amazon because they actually make their own product(s). Whereas a licensing brand can’t necessarily operate in the same way because they license everything (including logos) out to companies like us (who make their products).”
“So the question is: How do licensed brands maximize their potential on Amazon? I believe that Amazon Stores lives in very center of that conversation and we’ve created a business model (using Stores) to represent these licensed brands on Amazon.”
Amazon Stores: Creative Management Solution For Vendors & Sellers
According to Trevor, Amazon Stores is still in its “infancy stage” but there’s future potential.
“Amazon just rolled out their version of analytics, Amazon Store Insights. In comparison, Google Analytics is 100 times more robust. Also, if you compare Amazon Stores to the customized look, feel and experience of your CSS (website), the program still feels a bit rudimentary & rigid.”
“That being said, Amazon Stores are a starting point to claim a vanity URL, send traffic to it, and create a home page. It’s an evolving program and I believe it will continue to improve with time.”
“If Amazon’s goal is to deter retail companies from selling products on their own website (very much like TMall has done in China) then they will need to continue to invest in Amazon Stores and make the program more robust. And the proof is in the pudding for Amazon Stores based on the speed at which new features and functionality are being rolled out. It’s almost weekly.”
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