Selling Perishables on Amazon Fresh and Using Whole Foods Market on Amazon (WFMOA)
How to Boost Whole Foods Retail Sales on Amazon
For CPG brands selling in Whole Foods, there is an opportunity to leverage that existing inventory and tap into the immense growth potential offered on the Amazon marketplace.
The opportunity hinges on two important qualities: good merchandising and smart advertising.
These are aspects that most grocery brands are already focusing their attention on, and the only difference here is that rather than focusing efforts on catching the attention of grocery shoppers in an aisle, brands selling perishable food items are now given the chance to seek out shoppers on their phones and computers, stepping into the largest marketplace on earth.
This opportunity comes in two forms:
1) Whole Foods Market on Amazon (WFMOA)
Whole Foods Market On Amazon is a program which allows any Whole Foods vendor to list their products on Amazon. This is following the Instacart model and gives consumers within a certain radius of a WFM the option to have product delivered within hours.
There is no dedicated page for shoppers to find WMOA products within Amazon, but the products are searchable and are, similar to any non-perishable CPG seller, able to grow their ranking within the marketplace.
On the advertising side, Amazon is currently only set up to allow Sponsored Brands campaign types for WFMOA listings. This leaves out both Sponsored Products and Sponsored Display campaigns.
2) Amazon Fresh
This program is a step up from WFMOA in a couple of senses. It is both more exclusive and offers more potential.
Similar to WFMOA, products listed through Fresh will be delivered to any consumer within range of a stocked Whole Foods.
But from a consumer acquisition perspective, Amazon Fresh is miles ahead of its sibling program:
Amazon Fresh listings use the full range of Amazon’s ad campaign types.
The Amazon Fresh program has its own suite within the marketplace, meaning that your product can meet shoppers deep down the conversion funnel, as they browse the Fresh pages.
Amazon Fresh is by invitation only, and only available to sellers who are already on Whole Foods shelves.
For any CPG brand being offered the chance to participate in the program, it is an opportunity worth considering.
Your Products are Already on Amazon
One aspect that many sellers don’t realize is that their products, which are for sale on Whole Foods shelves, are very likely already being displayed on Amazon.
And their listings do not flatter a product’s branding.
The creative on these WFM listings is generally only using the carousel images to show various angles of the product packaging, as though a shopper browsing on their phone had taken a product off the grocery shelf and was turning it over in their hand.
This approach to merchandising ignores one great branding feature of an e-commerce marketplace: that you have so much more canvas to work with than on product packaging. Lifestyle images, brand personality, use cases. Amazon’s carousel images are a wealth of branding potential.
Here is an example of how Whole Foods shows products in their default setup, by presenting all sides of the product with no attention to brand or product attributes.
Not to mention that the copy attached to these WFM listings is neither descriptive or beneficial for tapping into Amazon’s SEO reach.
However, it is possible to edit these default listings to better merchandise your brand.
By using that same real estate to show and explain product attributes and establish brand identity, sellers will give their products a much better chance at improving within Amazon’s algorithmic ranking system and convert sales.
How to Set up Amazon Fresh or WFMOA Listings
For both selling channels, the first step is to create a seller account through Amazon and to establish status as the brand owner of the products being sold.
By setting up a professional seller account and participating in Amazon’s Brand Registry program, grocery brands will give themselves a better chance at seeing their contributions accepted in place of the existing WFM creative.
From here brands are able to optimize their listings with great creative.
There are instances when creating a seller account can be avoided. By working with Amazon’s vendor team—who have the ability to manually update listing creative—it is possible to establish good branding on Amazon listings without ever setting up in Brand Registry.
As soon as listings are retail ready brands will be able to begin advertising. For WFMOA this spend will be limited to Sponsored Brands campaigns, but for Amazon Fresh sellers there is the chance to promote products across Amazon’s advertising platform.
WFMOA, Amazon Fresh, and Instacart: Meeting Shoppers Where They Shop
CPG brands with established distribution across retail locations are doing themselves a disservice by not participating in programs like WFMOA, because a not-insignificant percent of Whole Foods shoppers are never entering the physical stores.
This is part of a larger trend in selling grocery products, which is the importance of meeting consumers wherever they are.
Some shoppers will be in Whole Foods, some will be on their Amazon app.
And by the same token, Instacart allows sellers to seek out a more complete consumer base than simply presenting on grocery shelves. Because of the similarities between these e-commerce platforms, it is a good idea for any brand setting up on Amazon Fresh or on WFMOA to also use their creative assets for establishing Instacart listings.
The grocery space is in rapid flux, and for CPG sellers these platforms allow pre-existing retail inventory to be leveraged into massive reach by taking into account that not all shoppers are standing in store aisles.