Enacting a SKU Transfer for a Client’s Top 2 Products
What We’re Celebrating:
Thanks to our team’s proactive process planning and quick reactivity to a specific roadblock, we were able to enact a successful transition of a client’s top 2 ASINs to new SKUs.
Overview:
GO partnered with a client as they were transferring 2 products that comprise 85% of their sales to new SKUs. This transition was occurring due to packaging changes; they tweaked the ingredients formatting on their product label to be more in line with the rest of the category. The client was concerned about this transfer because they didn’t want anything to go awry and cause them to miss out on a large portion of their sales.
Our GO team’s years and breadth of experience gave the client confidence that we would successfully help them in this endeavor. We instituted a transition plan to get this process over the finish line and quickly addressed hurdles when they happened to ensure the SKU transfer had a limited impact on their consumption.
The Challenge:
With these products making up the lion’s share of our client’s business, we needed to make careful and calculated decisions as we moved through the transition process.
We had to alter the products’ imagery to be consistent with the new packaging, and we needed to time this alteration perfectly to align with the new SKUs’ activation.
The brand experienced stranded inventory when we deleted their old listings, meaning we had to problem-solve to remove dormant products from Amazon warehouses.
The Strategy:
We developed an approach to enact the SKU transfer with minimal hiccups. This approach included:
Monitoring Weeks of Coverage (WOC). We closely looked at WOC on old SKUs to establish a timeline for the switch. We wanted to remove as little of the old inventory as possible, so we waited for the inventory to sell down before pulling the trigger on the transition.
Updating Product Detail Page (PDP) Imagery. Our in-house creative team, GO Studio, crafted new imagery that would be ready in time for the transition. The imagery showcased the new packaging with the updated label, ensuring consumers received exactly what they viewed on the PDP.
Compiling a List of Mid-Transfer Actions. We identified actions that needed to be executed in conjunction with the SKU switch, such as:
Executing Campaign Updates – we replaced the old SKUs in our ad campaigns with the new SKUs to ensure we were driving traffic to the new PDPs.
Initiating Subscribe & Save (SnS) Transfers – we transitioned the SnS coupons to the new SKUs so loyal consumers could still access the same deals.
Adjusting Scheduled Promotions – we transferred scheduled promotions to the new SKUs so they would still run according to plan.
Consistently Communicating with Our Client. We initially touched base with the client weekly, and then connected daily when getting closer to execution.
We encountered a road bump during the transition process, but thanks to our internal resources, experienced team, and quick reactivity, we solved the issue in just 3 days. Here’s what transpired:
Challenge. The button in Seller Central to close the old listings was unclickable, so we deleted the listings to avoid consumer confusion and products getting flagged for having different packaging. Because the deleted SKUs had active inventory, it resulted in stranded inventory for the old SKUs (which we anticipated) and the new SKUs (which we didn’t expect). This contributed to the brand briefly losing the Buy Box and the Best Seller badge.
Solution. We reinstated the deleted SKUs with the same SKU names as before so that the stranded inventory could be returned. Once this occurred, we placed a removal order to get the inventory down to 0 before deleting the listings again.
The Results:
We successfully transferred the client’s top 2 ASINs to new SKUs. It took us ~2 weeks to complete the process (from the first day of the partnership through the transition execution).
While the Best Seller badge was lost briefly, we earned it back within 24 hours of solving the roadblock.
Want help transitioning your product to a new SKU?
Our team is efficient and has the internal resources necessary to ensure a successful product transfer from one SKU to the next. Interested in learning more? Get in touch with us.