One Click Retail predicts Amazon’s next private brand target areas

Based on analyzing Amazon’s past rollout of private brand products, One Click Retail has predicted three categories that will likely be the next target areas for the e-commerce giant’s own-brands expansion: pet carriers, diapers and patio heaters.

As One Click Retail, a Sandy, Utah-based e-commerce analytics firm, points out on its website, Amazon in the past has engaged in a three-stage process before launching a private brand. These stages include releasing sample products, monitoring performance for as much as a year, and then giving the highest-performing product lines a “full category release,” wrote Ojastro Todd, marketing analyst at One Click Retail, in an online article titled “Private Brands: Where Will Amazon Go Next?”

“By releasing a variety of products in quick succession, Amazon is able to collect a large amount of data in a short period of time, helping it quickly make decisions and determine which products generate the most consumer interest,” Todd explained in his article.

He pointed out that AmazonBasics Pet Carriers, introduced in 2016, brought in $2 million in estimated 2017 sales, a year-over-year growth of 80 percent. “Therefore, the introduction of new sizes and varieties of pet carriers is a major growth opportunity for Amazon, and we expect the expansion could happen any day now,” according to Todd.

One Click Retail expects Amazon to expand its selection of Mama Bear Diapers within the next 12 months because this is already a huge category for the company, with $530 million in 2017 sales. Todd also thinks Amazon will try to gain more of a foothold in the lawn and garden category with the seasonal release of patio heaters in the fall because the company’s outdoor stand heater in three styles has been a strong performer in the AmazonBasics brand.