For most large companies, branding is one of the most important aspects of their marketing strategy.
The word “brand” can be used in so many different ways when discussing a company that its meaning is slightly murky. Some people may use the word to talk about trademarks that the company may own, such as a logo. Other people may refer to the name of the company as their brand.
These definitions are understandable, given that the word “brand” is also used when describing the use of a hot ‘branding iron’ to create an imprint as a means of identification. The phrase ‘brand name’ is also commonly used to describe the name that a business operates under, which can lead to further confusion.
But over the years, as marketing as evolved, we have come to see that the brand of a company is much more than a logo or name.
What is a Brand…Really?
A brand is the way an entity, such as a business, is perceived by the public. It is a result of the combination of all of the unique characteristics that distinguish the business from other businesses.
In other words – a brand is not just a name or logo. It is what people think about when they think about the business, and it comes from all of the things that a person experiences when they come into contact with a business.
A brand is affected by numerous things. Aside from the more obvious items, such as promotional materials, colors and language used, imagery and video advertisements, and many other marketing-related items, there is also a huge impact on brand from non-marketing related activities, such as:
- Quality of product.
- Pricing.
- Shipping policies.
- Packaging.
- Speed of response to issues.
- Culture.
- Work ethic.
- Values.
- Social responsibility.
- Financial stability.
- And many others
How is a Business Affected by their Brand?
Since a brand are all of the things that a person relates to your business when they think about it, it heavily impacts the reputation of a business.
The brand is one of the things that has the most impact on the success or failure of a business. It can be the difference between customers choosing to buy from you, or intentionally avoiding your products or services due to a perception that they have about your business.
For example, when app-based ride-sharing first began to boom in the US, Uber had a 90% market share. In more recent years, however, Lyft has grown their market share to almost 30% (secondmeasure.com, 2020). This drastic drop in market share from Uber can largely be attributed back to many branding issues that they have run into, many of which are due to questionable decisions made by senior leadership at the company.
You may remember the trending #deleteuber hash tag on Twitter in 2017, which was a result of Uber being accused of taking advantage of the Taxi strike which followed the US governments travel ban on immigrants from a list of countries. Uber was faced with huge backlash for price gouging at airports, and this was just one in a string of issues where the company failed to show corporate social responsibility. As a result, many people began to turn to Lyft for their ride-sharing needs.
On the flip side of the coin, a business can see sudden surges in demand for their products or services due to improvements to the perception of their brand by the public. For example, for years, Microsoft was considered an example of a corporate juggernaut that ate up small competitors, had a competitive culture that led to overworked employees, and did very little to give back to the world. In the past few years under the current CEO, Satya Nadella, the company has managed to turn this perception around.
Focusing on improving employee culture, fighting for data privacy, working diligently on diversity and inclusion, releasing products to help people with disabilities, and many other efforts, the company has managed to dramatically improve the Microsoft brand. The improved brand contributed to an increase in trust from both consumers and businesses purchasing Microsoft products, and the results for the company can be seen in the ever growing profit numbers reported each quarter.
Is a Brand Important for a Reselling Business?
By now you may be thinking that none of this really applies to you, because you are reselling products from other companies, so their brands will apply to your sales and you can reap the benefits without putting in the work. This is absolutely true, and it is an incredible benefit of building a reselling business. Apple can put years of work into building their brand, and as a result of that work, we can sell iPhones to happy customers.
You may also be thinking that since you sell your items on a marketplace site such as eBay or Amazon, you don’t need to worry about attracting customers through branding, because the eBay and Amazon brand is doing that work for you.
There is some truth to this, but I think we need to look at it a little differently.
Yes, you can get sales on eBay or Amazon without putting any effort into building a brand. You can build a completely generic store, and as long as the item you want to sell has demand, and your price is competitive, you can get a sale.
But unless you put some effort into helping the customers remember you, it is unlikely that you will have repeat customers, and unlikely that your customers will refer other people to buy from you. Therefore you are missing out on tons of potential business by not putting a little work into branding.
Depending on your sales channel, branding may be at different levels of importance, but it is always important.
If you sell via a Shopify store, you need to do all of your own marketing. Therefore your brand will be the center of everything you do to try to attract customers. However, if you sell books on Amazon, then you don’t even have your own listings – your items are joining the ranks with every other seller of that item, and the sales will naturally flow to you. In many cases, people don’t even realize they’re not buying from Amazon themselves.
These are the two ends of the spectrum. Shopify and Poshmark – branding is extremely important. Amazon – branding is slightly important. Note that here we are talking about reselling items on Amazon, e.g. by wholesale or arbitrage. This doesn’t apply to private label or selling your own products on Amazon. In those cases, branding is extremely important.
Poshmark is a platform that requires some level of focus on your brand due to the social nature of the marketplace. Similarly, Etsy is a brand-centric marketplace, due to the fact that many items are custom made by the seller. This requires a lot of trust from the buyer.
So if you sell wholesale or arbitrage on Amazon, does this mean you shouldn’t worry at all about branding? Not exactly, no. A strong brand doesn’t only apply to your sales. It can also lead to opportunities with new suppliers, networking amongst the reselling community, and additional income sources.
Where do I start?
Your brand is everything that contributes to the perception that a person has about your business. Therefore, it really needs to apply to everything that you do that is in the public eye.
Marketing material is the easiest starting point. Try to use consistent imagery in your stores, Instagram, or any other touch point with customers. Imagery helps people to remember, and a strong logo and color scheme can make you stand out.
Think about your customer engagements, and how they are perceived. Do you use friendly language? Do you try to be as helpful as possible to your customers and potential customers?
Think about the items that you sell, and the prices that you set. If you sell items that can be deemed to be taking advantage of a bad situation (e.g. people up selling toilet paper during the recent lockdown), think about how this can damage your image in the long term, and whether it is worth the short term profit.
Overall, if we try to be as ethical as possible in our business, and focus on portraying the positive aspects of our business through marketing (think ‘what’s in it for the customer’), we should have a great head start on building a brand for our reselling business.
It’s a long and complicated topic of course, but I hope this helped you to think about where you are today on the journey.
If you found this helpful, make sure to check us out on Instagram (@resellingtips), where we share frequent quick tips to help resellers to grow their business.
Let us know your thoughts on this topic. Do you think it is important to build a brand for your reselling business? Comment below!
