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Art and Science: Rebranding for Amazon FBA Businesses
A behind-the-scenes look at how we helped Kleiner Fuchs differentiate its products from the competition.
There’s something magical about the moment of unboxing, whether it’s on Christmas morning, your birthday, or just a normal Tuesday. But packing holds more than an adrenaline rush. It’s also a way for savvy FBA sellers to stand out.
Unboxing a big redesign
Kleiner Fuchs is a leading bamboo utensil brand for children in Germany. Founded in 2016 by entrepreneur Timo Fuchs, its mission is to offer kids the sustainable and practical products they need for everyday life.
And over the last several years Kleiner Fuchs has fulfilled that mission and also seen strong financial growth under the ownership of Mantaro Brands. But lately, they have struggled to differentiate its brand on Amazon from direct competitors, which these days are a dime a dozen.
Enter Niharika, one of our all-star brand managers at Mantaro. After receiving a fashion bachelor’s degree she decided to grow her career in e-commerce and content. This is the story of how her team took on the challenge of brand differentiation at Kleiner Fuchs and thought outside the box.
What’s inside? Cheap cufflinks?
A week before the introduction of her latest project into the world, Niharika took me for a spin on Amazon. The trend of bamboo plates and cutlery caught on around 2017. Now so many brands are offering them that it’s now really tough to stand out. After scrolling through dozens of similar items, she scrolled back up and picked the product from the brand she’s primarily responsible for growing: Kleiner Fuchs.
Upon further inspection, the product we were looking at was a beautiful wooden plate with a suction cup for latching it on tables. I remarked that my nephew, who loves throwing tantrums at the table, could really use this. “I get that a lot,” she said.
But the challenge was how to make a great product stand out on Amazon, from cheaper imitators.
Niharika’s eureka moment came when something her boss said stood out to her. She recalls him saying how much he loved the brand. “But when I look at this box, I think I’m going to find some cheap cufflinks inside,” he added.
That was the flash in the pan for her great idea.
So she set to work with a qualified designer. After many rounds of revisions, she had a proposal. Her idea was to not just tackle the packaging but completely reimagine the Kleiner Fuchs brand.
Let’s look at the big changes.
Rounding the edges and adding color
Before the rebrand, the logo and font were all straight lines against a dark backdrop. Niharika’s first idea was to round the edges and add more vibrant colors. If her theory held correct, then the product would stand out more to female shoppers. The new designs would also make the packaging even more appealing to children.
When Niharika first started working with a designer on this project, her goals were straightforward:
• Create a more child-friendly logo
• Make the logo consistent with the new brand design
• Add colors and shapes to make the logo brighter, rounded and happy
Rather than worry about how the logo and font might be less recognizable for return customers, she decided to focus on new customers.
“For me, the whole goal was to create an experience on Amazon that really differentiates it from other products,” she said.
Check out the logo (before and after). The new logo borrowed from the theme of the old, one but added brighter colors and embraced the cute animal motif even further.
Amazon sellers might think there isn’t room for brand differentiation when everything comes in a boring Amazon box.
“You’re not trying to differentiate at the doorstep, you want to differentiate at the listing,” Niharika says. That’s why her team made sure the new designs were featured prominently on the Amazon listing in the fourth carousel.
There are some areas on Amazon’s listing page where branding can have a big opportunity to improve conversion. Niharika advises brands to focus on the USP images and A+ content, which can make big difference on sales.
Here’s the new A+ content for Kleiner Fuchs.
“For me, the whole goal was to create an experience on Amazon that really differentiates it from other products.”
Surprise and Delight
Finally, recognizing that gift-giving was a strong driver of purchasing behavior, Niharika thought it would be interesting to explore packing a little extra surprise inside the box. Packaging inserts, which Amazon sellers can use to communicate with customers and promote their brand, are a hot trend in e-commerce. To make the Kleiner Fuchs package more fun, she went with insert cards with colorful child-friendly designs so that children can color in the shapes.
On the outside, the new designs help attract interest in the listing. On the inside, the designs increase the joy at the moment of unboxing.
A valuable difference
The main KPI that Niharika will look at to see how well her rebranded products are performing will be Unit Session Percentage. She will look to understand if the new listings convert better than the old ones. Then she can decide whether to scale the rebrand across other channels.
During one test when product listings with the new packaging and the old packaging were available at the same time, the products with the new packaging sold out within days even though they were a few dollars more expensive. With no additional marketing and no functional change to the product itself, it had become more valuable just through the power of good design.
Packaging was at the very heart of this big rebrand. Packaging is far more than just a mode of delivery. It’s also an important tool to help brands further articulate their value to customers, from the initial click to the moment of joy when unboxing. It can be an easy source of differentiation for savvy sellers.
“Even if you don’t have much capital or bandwidth, it’s okay to bootstrap it and start small with maybe a logo change or something cheaper like hand-written insert cards,” says Niharika.
There’s not a moment to lose before refreshing your brand strategy. Mantaro Brands offers seller consulting and makes exit offers to FBA owners. Check out our site for more information.
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