Amazon already sells plenty of own-branded products, from USB cables and baby wipes to clothes and linen, but so far it’s steered clear of filling up your grocery cupboard with its own products.
Image: Hadrian / Shutterstock.com
A new report by the Wall Street Journal suggest that the online retailer is planning to launch a slew of own-brand products in the coming month, which will include perishable food and other household items.
Now, the Journal reports, it will launch “new brands with names like Happy Belly, Wickedly Prime and Mama Bear” that will products including “nuts, spices, tea, coffee, baby food and vitamins, as well as household items such as nappies and laundry detergents.”
Those products will apparently only be available to Prime members, and could start appearing on the site as soon as this month. The newspaper suggests that the Happy Belly line will feature staples like “nuts, trail mix, tea and cooking oil,” while Wickedly Prime will provide snacks. Meanwhile there will be a Presto! line-up of household goods and a Mama Bear brand for baby stuff.
Speaking of nappies, it won’t be the first time Amazon has tried to sell its own. It pulled a range of the things from its Elements line-up — designed to provide transparency about where goods were made — in 2014. The Journal claims that the same Elements label could now become a kind of premium brand for Amazon’s best-performing own-brand products.
Both consumers and retailers like own-brand goods: Consumers dig their lower prices, and retailers their higher margins, because they’re products they don’t need to bother marketing. How well such products will perform when being sold by Amazon rather than physical supermarkets remains to be seen, of course — but if you find yourself ordering Wickedly Prime candy with an Amazon Dash button, you’ll know it’s worked.
Australian Editor’s Note: Amazon Prime isn’t available in Australia, and while you probably won’t want to order your groceries from the US, we still thought this was pretty interesting news.
[WSJ]