Since early 2009, Pilots HQ has recognized the value of not only eCommerce but online marketplaces, specifically. From its inception, Pilots HQ has driven the majority of its sales through traffic sent to our eCommerce site via Google, Yahoo and Bing Shopping. Through our success over the last 10 years we have recognized that marketing efforts outside of the marketplaces simply do not perform in comparison. Additionally, online shoppers have shifted their focus and desires to the following key points.
- Customers want a single place to shop. They do not want to have to complete purchases at multiple stores shipping from multiple locations.
- Customers want to trust and see that they are getting a fair deal on their purchase. This means visibility of multiple sources for both vendors and products.
- Customers want to trust that their products will be delivered in a timely manner.
These 3 key shifts in consumer behavior is what has driven the success of the online marketplace movement and has led to Amazon becoming the industry leader among online marketplaces.
Marketplace Brand Challenges
The consumer shift to online marketplaces and the growing popularity of the Amazon marketplace has created many new challenges for brand owners and manufacturers including:
- Pricing and competition transparency has generated price wars that devalue products and the profitability required to properly inventory, distribute, and market.
- Crowd sourced product data leads to misrepresentation of products, resulting in poor customer experiences.
- Retail and surplus arbitrage has generated a large volume of unrestricted, unapproved, and value diminishing marketplace vendors.
- Large scale foreign manufactures has led to an increase of counterfeit products as well as a wide array of competitive private labeled alternatives.
- Decreased profitability has increased the number of non-value adding vendors and drop shippers hindering viable brand level marketing efforts.
- Increased transparency with product reviews highlights customer complaints and dis-satisfaction.
- MAP and other Distributor and retailer agreement violations, including but not limited to Copywrite infringements and Trademark violations.
As progressive early adopters within online marketplaces. Pilots HQ has built the expertise to navigate online marketplaces and trends. So much so that our CEO founded and successfully launched the first eCommerce marketplace dedicated to the Aviation Industry.
This expertise specifically within the Amazon marketplace has ranked Pilots HQ as the most used aviation retailer on Amazon. This ranking has created working partnerships with Amazon that has enabled Pilots HQ to pay for dedicated support staff working within the Amazon organization. Granting the use of special tools, programs, and enhanced features not normally available to other Amazon sellers.
Standard Distributor/Retailer Value
- Stocking Distributor
- We actually stock the products we sell!
- Our enhanced inventory management system can handle lot, serial number, and expiration tracking as well as internal and external inventory locations across all platforms.
- Customer Diversity
- 100,000+ current customers
- Robust online marketing has generated customers across multiple industries beyond Aviation.
- Innovative software allows Pilots HQ to support both B2C and B2B segments with retail and contracted pricing.
- Enhanced Customer Reach
- Leveraging 3PL warehousing allows faster and more reliable transit of products to customers across the United States.
- Multi-Channel Marketing
- Direct to Customer, B2B, B2C, Google, Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Facebook, and more ...
- Amazon and Marketplace Consulting
- Amazon Product Page Management
- Product detail page enhancements including videos and platinum keywords.
- Product Page Data Locking – Preventing misleading crowd sourced product data.
- Product Page Optimization for better search results
- Amazon Product Brand Protection
- Unauthorized Seller Removal
- Copywrite and Trademark Protection and policing
- MAP Policy Policing and Reporting
- Amazon Brand Level Marketing
- Generate and manage brand level marketing campaigns on products regardless of the seller in the buybox.
- Amazon Special Programs
- Lighting Deals, Daily Deals, PrimeDay, Cyber Monday, and much more…
- Amazon Product Reviews
- Initial Review Program Now Called Vine
- Product Review Solicitation
