Secrets to Amazon Marketplace with Recom

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Oliver Chen:
The future of retail is marketplaces. How do you optimize your business on a marketplace? What are they? And Amazon. Amazon is such a key partner for the future of retail in many sectors. Welcome to our latest edition of TD Cowen's Retail Visionary podcast series, a podcast about visionary ideas and people. I'm Oliver Chen, TD Cowen's retail, luxury and new platforms retail analyst. In this episode, we're really excited to feature Recom, one of the world's largest Amazon selling partners. Recom was founded in 2013 with the goal of enhancing a brand's enterprise value by unlocking its growth potential both on and off Amazon. Their team of more than 350 experts collaborate with leading luxury brands in the health and beauty industries among many others to optimize our global presence as well as increase omnichannel sales through marketplace platforms. Dana, it's a pleasure to have you here. Dana Upshaw serves as chief growth officer of Recom where her responsibilities include overseeing the company's overall growth strategy through cultivating partnerships with premium brands focused on optimizing their presence on Amazon.
Dana is widely regarded as a thought leader in the space. I've had the pleasure of meeting and knowing her throughout the years at many premier conferences. Dana, so thanks for being here. By way of introduction, can you share some details around your background? What brought you to Recom and what does Recom do?
Dana Upshaw:
Thanks for having me, Oliver. It's great to see you. You described beautifully what Recom does. So by way of background, I've been with Recom for the last few years helping to build out the sales strategy. You shared how long we've been in business and where we focus our time and attention. For our people who don't know or haven't heard of Recom, we are a tech-enabled e-commerce accelerator, and we work with premium brands to help optimize their presence and grow their sales on the major marketplaces, the biggest of which is Amazon. But we don't limit it to just Amazon. There are other marketplaces that we support, including Walmart, eBay and some of the other ones. We are a top-ten seller on Amazon. So we generate a lot of sales and revenue. We're very proud of the fact that we have a hundred percent positive customer feedback, and we process more than 300,000 orders every week across our national and international distribution centers, and we manage quite a few beauty brands along with vitamins and supplements, electronics and other categories within the Amazon platform and other platforms.
Oliver Chen:
Dana, what are some examples of the brands that you partner with on Recom?
Dana Upshaw:
So we support a number of brands across multiple categories. I'll throw out just a handful of them. We support Supergroup, Shiseido, Drunk Elephant, JBL, and we support them in different ways because we have different models that we provide to them. If you go to our website, you could see a number of the brands that we support. That's just a sampling of a few of them.
Oliver Chen:
Dana, why would somebody use Recom versus doing it themselves? What are some of the brands that we're familiar with that partner with you?
Dana Upshaw:
It's a great question, and we've spent a lot of time over the last few years trying to make the case specifically for Amazon as first a consumer motor skill, second an Omni-channel anchor and really a key component of successful brand building next to and in partnership with Direct-to-Consumer and Brick and Mortar. And we've seen the evolution over the years of brands spending more time and attention and revenue on the investment to make Amazon a key pillar of their strategic brand building strategy. As a result of that, brands oftentimes don't know where to start, how to manage, how to navigate the complexities of Amazon, and so they look to companies like ours to really help them not only build out the strategy next to and in partnership with their other omni-channel strategies, but also to figure out how do I navigate? What do I sell? What does my catalog look like? Do I sell my entire catalog? How do I market? How do I forecast? How much inventory should I have?
All of the things that are common to us as we manage the Amazon channel are oftentimes challenging and difficult to navigate for brands that are just getting started, or maybe are already on Amazon and not having the success they hope to achieve.
Oliver Chen:
Controversial question, but I'm the head of luxury goods. Does Amazon really build brands? How do you reconcile the pricing optimization engines relative to brand equity and full price selling?
Dana Upshaw:
It's a great question, and I always say to brands that being on Amazon doesn't mean you're going to cannibalize your other channels. The most successful brands are the brands that have a consistent pricing policy that manage promotions and marketing events across all of the channels to avoid cannibalization and provide consistent experience for consumers. There's nothing more frustrating, especially in the luxury beauty brand, than to see the product that you know and you love on Amazon for a much lower price being sold by a seller that you've never heard of. And we've, at Recom, having worked with as many brands as we do, have seen a transition with luxury beauty brands, and we call them premium beauty brands or prestige beauty brands, and they're really defined as the brands that are sold at Sephora and other luxury retailers. We've seen a transition over the last few years where more and more brands are actually managing their presence on Amazon. So they have consistent pricing strategy across all of their channels, they're managing that pricing strategy and they're managing their presence on Amazon to avoid unauthorized sellers or inaccurate pricing of their product on the platform.
And the definition of management can be through somebody like a Recom, through Amazon directly or they themselves are managing their presence if they're proficient in navigating the complexities.
Oliver Chen:
That's something we're following closely as well, the prestige beauty brands going to Amazon. Why is that happening now? There's been what seems like an acceleration of adoption there.
Dana Upshaw:
There's been a huge acceleration of adoption and I think that consumers go to Amazon because it is ease, it is convenience, it is consistency and experience. I can buy toilet paper the same way I buy my skincare products. The look and the feel of a product on Amazon is the same regardless of what I'm buying. I have a motor skill understanding of add to cart, buy now, subscribe and save. And so I think consumers are looking for convenience, expediency and they get that with Amazon. And I think as a result of that, particularly with beauty brands, they recognize that they can't ignore Amazon and they really do need to look at Amazon the same way they do the direct to consumer sites and the same way they do brick and mortar retail presence. And so as a result of that, brands are going where their consumers choose to shop. And in fact, we, every year, survey consumers.
So we do a random survey across a randomly selected population of individuals regardless of age, regardless of socioeconomic status, regardless of any of that, and ask them two questions. If you could buy a premium beauty product at the same price on Amazon or elsewhere, what would you choose? And 85% of them prefer to purchase on Amazon because of everything that I just described. And what's even more interesting is if they're not buying on Amazon, they're researching product at the rate of about 80% of the individuals that we survey are researching before they buy on Amazon. So Amazon's really important, and I think it's why brands, like what you've seen, big brands... Estee Lauder announced earlier this year that they were working in partnership with Amazon to move into premium beauty, and we're seeing more and more brands do that.
Oliver Chen:
There's no doubt, Dana, then that would negatively impact department stores, Sephora, Ulta, other places you could buy certain brands, right?
Dana Upshaw:
It doesn't, Oliver. And you may say, "Well, wait a minute, you're an Amazon provider. If Sephora were in the room with you, would you answer it the same way?" And my answer would be yes. I mentioned at the onset of our conversation that we've worked really hard to try to educate brands, not just in the beauty space, but in all categories, that Amazon should be a key pillar and part of every conversation as brands are building out their brand building strategy. Being on Amazon and managing presence on Amazon expands reach of the product. Having consistency in pricing and availability of product expands growth for the product. It doesn't cannibalize the direct-to-consumer site or even Sephora or Ulta or any other luxury retailer that sells a premium beauty brand. If anything, it actually increases the sales across all the channels because the consistency is there. Therefore the consumer can make the choice of where they buy. Sometimes they'll buy on Amazon, sometimes they'll be in the department store and buy at Sephora. Sometimes they'll choose to go to the direct-to-consumer site.
So if anything, it actually increases growth consistently across all the channels, and that's what we've seen with the brands we work with.
Oliver Chen:
Dana, should brands have special assortments on Amazon relative to Sephora or Ulta? How might that manifest?
Dana Upshaw:
It's a great question. And when we are building out a tailored solution for a brand, whether they're already on Amazon looking to improve their optimization or they're looking to expand their presence, we evaluate the full catalog and assortment of products. We do work with a number of brands that have priority with other retailers whereby they'll introduce a product at the retailer for a period of time before it goes to Amazon. But our rule of thumb is as long as you have availability of the product and you don't have any supply chain issues, that you should offer the full catalog to the consumer.
Oliver Chen:
What are the hardest parts of this for the brands? And that's a broad but interesting question, and what are the hardest parts for Recom?
Dana Upshaw:
I think for brands it's figuring out multiple things. It's the catalog assortment, how do I set up the catalog? What should my listings include? How do I variate if I have different sizes, different colors, different flavors? You insert any kind of a variation. How do I set it up to maximize the ease of experience and research for the consumer? Pricing consistency is something we've already spoken about, but that's a big thing. How do I market to consumers? So once my product is on Amazon, and Amazon is the largest marketplace in the world, how do I make sure that my product shows up when a consumer's doing a keyword search to try to find something? A skin lotion, vitamin C drops I can throw at anything. Marketing is really key, but I think the foundation is a well-organized catalog that leads to beautiful content and listings on the platform that then leads to the opportunity for the marketing group to market appropriately.
All the while the buy box or the product itself is protected from unauthorized sellers. You put all that together, that's the recipe for success. It's also the recipe for failure for certain brands if they don't have all of those key components working in synergy with each other consistently to deliver optimized performance.
Oliver Chen:
We're also excited about Walmart. What about their marketplace? How does it differ? I teach a class at Columbia called Magic and Logic at the business school, but we're always thinking about this tension between the number of sellers and curation and trust. How would you compare and contrast Walmart's marketplace relative to Amazon's?
Dana Upshaw:
It's a great question, Oliver. And we've also had conversations. And I'm going to focus on premium beauty because the newest thing that Walmart's focused on. I would say that Walmart is probably where Amazon was six or seven years ago as it relates to the perception from brands. Some brands are apprehensive to want to participate and be part of the Walmart marketplace and they're waiting to see what everybody else does before they jump into the mix. And what I think is that if Walmart... Again I go back to, brands should always look through the prism of be where your consumers choose to shop. And what's interesting with Walmart is that we see that some of the demographic details of the average Walmart shopper are changing. In fact they're increasing. Average income is increasing, average purchase percent of total purchases is increasing, and Walmart's investing a lot of time, energy, and money into competing with Amazon.
Doesn't mean the two can't exist in the marketplace and still not cannibalized direct to consumer and retail, but I think Walmart is a few years behind. But brands should be watching closely because what happened with Amazon and the explosive growth that Amazon continues to see across multiple categories, beauty being a big one, is probably what we're going to see with Walmart. And so as we speak with brands, they're very invested and interested in under understanding at what point, if I'm not on Walmart, should I consider Walmart? What should I sell on Walmart? Should it be identical to what I sell on Amazon? And then what's the best path forward and how I do it.
Oliver Chen:
Those are all good questions. What are some highlights in terms of your answers to those questions?
Dana Upshaw:
Consistency is king in my book. So if you don't have any pre-agreed restrictions as it relates to what you can sell on any commerce marketplace, like, for instance, what I mentioned earlier, when you introduce new products, you have to allow retail to sell for a period of time before e-com. If you don't have that, then you should have consistency in the catalog that you sell on both of the marketplaces. I as a consumer should be able to go to Amazon, go to Google and type in something that I'm looking for or go to Walmart and see the same price, the same product, the same look, view, feel of what I'm looking for because it gives me peace of mind to know I can buy it at any one of them and get the same product without issue.
Oliver Chen:
You work with a lot of premier brands, so what about the margin structure for Super Group or Drunk Elephant or any one of these great brands when they think about selling at Amazon or selling at a specialty retailer or selling at a department store?
Dana Upshaw:
Every business model is a little different. I can't speak specifically to the margin structure of retail and how it works. And I think that, without going into specific margins of what we do, there's a full analysis first of how does the brand want to sell? And I'm going to answer the question specific to Amazon because it's the largest platform we sell on. How do they want to sell? And we have a number of models that we provide to brands based on where they are in their life cycle, where they want to be and how they want to recognize revenue. Our most popular one is what we call the Recom-III-P model where we're buying inventory and selling it on our account on Amazon to consumers. We buy from the brands at wholesale, we sell at retail and we use the margin dollars to fulfill all the service components that we offer.
Alternatively, if a brand is very vested in making sure that the consumer sees their brand but they also enjoy the wholesale revenue, we have a second model called Center Stage where we will buy the inventory and sell on Amazon with the brand's name. And then the third model that we have is one where if the brand is very vested in recognizing [inaudible 00:16:11], maybe they're at a certain point in their investment life cycle, we have a model where we will actually manage their account, and instead of buying the inventory, we just charge a percentage of revenue or a cost per unit. It just depends. And we try to be really flexible, Oliver, so that the decision made is more about the experience and what's best for the brand versus pennies.
Oliver Chen:
Sounds very customer-centric. You have a menu of options depending on your needs. What about take rates? What should we know as we think about this chart of take... What are the take rates like between different marketplaces and how does that impact your menu of options?
Dana Upshaw:
It depends on how you sell on Amazon. Amazon has a similar model where they're buying from brands at wholesale and then selling at retail. When you sell on Amazon, there are fees that you have to pay. One fee is just the referral fee. Think of it as a commission to sell on Amazon and it's a percentage of the revenue, and it varies by category. It can be anywhere from 8% to 15%. If you're a beauty product and you're a premium beauty, that doubles to 30%. So that's an important component to brands, especially beauty brands as they're contemplating that. The second fee that sellers pay is what's called a fulfillment fee, and that's the cost to ship via Prime to the consumer. That's really important. In fact, we recommend... Everything we sell, we sell via Prime because we see sales increase by greater than 20% when it's available for Prime fulfillment. And what used to be two-day Prime is sometimes now same day.
In fact, yesterday I ran out of a hair product that I use, went to Amazon at like 10 o'clock in the morning and by four o'clock in the afternoon it was at my step. So consumers are getting used to that and frankly expecting it, and so there's a fee associated with it. And I'll tell you that Amazon has some of the best fulfillment shipping rates that are out there. I can ship through Amazon via Prime cheaper than I could do today via FedEx or UPS just because the rates, they're so competitive from that standpoint. So those are the takes that Amazon has. There are other fees that Amazon will charge for different services, but those two are the biggest ones that you have to consider.
Oliver Chen:
It's such a big range, Dana, from seven to 30%. Why is it 30% for Prestige beauty?
Dana Upshaw:
Eight's usually around the baseline low. 30%. So in the beauty category, there is an option to enter into the premium beauty category, which allows a brand to gate, and that's a lingo term. But gating essentially allows the brand to authorize who can sell on Amazon. So it prevents unauthorized sellers from being able to sell. It exists in the beauty category. There is a premium, no pun intended, associated with that gating and that translates in the referral fee that you pay for each sale.
Oliver Chen:
It's an interesting question. So I'm one of the leading luxury analysts and sometimes I get disturbed about brand building. How do you build a brand on Amazon relative to all the things we love like a Glossier store or Barneys, New York, or Bergdorf Goodman? What's your approach there and why should you pay a lot of extra for gating?
Dana Upshaw:
Brand protection is the foundation of Recom. It's why the company was founded. And when I say brand protection, it's protecting a brand on the Amazon platform from unauthorized sellers, from price dropping, from all of the things that could impede the brand's integrity, if you will. And so everything we do centers around brand protection. Having the ability to have Amazon, which is an open marketplace, anyone can sell anything on Amazon within reason, of course. There are certain limitations. But for all intents and purposes, anyone can sell on Amazon. To have a program where Amazon will restrict sellers and you take that element of concern off the table, it now allows a brand to focus on everything else, on brand growth, on brand strategy, what am I going to market? How am I going to drive conversion? What promotions do I want to do? And it takes that concern of protecting the buy box off the table.
You can invest a lot of money in marketing, but if you don't have buy box, you can't maximize the capabilities of those marketing dollars. And so that is one significant benefit for brands with begetting opportunity. It does only exist in beauty, it is expensive, and it just depends on what's important to a brand. If there are beauty brands that sell through a lot of channels and do regular promotions and price drops as new products come out, the likelihood that there will be more unauthorized sellers on Amazon's platform is high. And so we spend a lot of time with our beauty brands, even if they're not in premium beauty, protecting that buy box, understanding what is your planned promotion with Sephora, with Ulta, with other retailers, and how do we make sure that your promotion isn't significant enough where a rogue seller could go out and buy a bunch of product and the next thing you know, it shows up on Amazon, which impacts the ability for the brand to be selling their product at their targeted price?
Oliver Chen:
One of the other classes we teach, I teach is artificial intelligence and how large language models, computer vision as well as humanization of search and the transformer models we're using now are really profoundly changing the customer journey. What's happening broadly in AI, and then unfortunately I'm pretty addicted to TikTok. So we talked a lot about TikTokification of retail as well. Would love your thoughts on both topics, how AI impacts your business and short form video as well.
Dana Upshaw:
Yeah. I spoke at WWD earlier this year and AI was a big part of what I discussed because it's the new cyberspace, social media, online streaming, smartphone hysteria. It is the new thing and it's everywhere. It's the new everything to everyone that's promising to solve everybody's problems. And I think as exciting as it is, it can be very difficult to figure out, where do I use it? How do I use it? To whom do I use it with? What's interesting is we surveyed consumers about the impact of AI on their online shopping experiences, and we found that 39% of respondents had had a positive impact with AI. Now what's the definition of AI? Well, Oliver, in beauty, it's virtual try-on. What does it look like? You mentioned earlier the experience I have in a Sephora or a Bergdorf. I can actually pick it up, I can look at it, I can put it on my hand to see what the color looks like.
I think on the e-commerce online platforms, the virtual try-on, whether it's for beauty, for clothes, furniture in a room, clothing on your body, it allows a consumer to get a feel for what they're about to buy, which is a very big thing for brands because that ultimately also decreases the likelihood of returns on a product which nobody likes because it's the loss of revenue and it's also incremental cost in the processing of those. And so we found that respondents have a positive view of AI, and I think consumers are getting used to the idea of AI. And so for Amazon specifically, there are chat-bots, there's generative search, there's all kinds of things in front of and behind the scenes that are trying to help consumers make informed decisions on purchases they make. AI is transcending into fulfillment and supply chain. That's why I mentioned earlier what used to be two-days is now same-day shipping. So AI is being used and we use it for forecasting of volume of brands and products and how much should we have at Amazon and when do we think spikes will happen?
We use AI from a marketing standpoint. What's the best way to target customers? What's the time of targeting customers? We utilize AI quite a bit. As it relates to TikTok, TikTok is big. TikTok shop is blowing up. I was reading something this morning about TikTok Shop and the rate of growth that it's experiencing. It's unlike anything that we've seen before. I'll tell you, I'm not a TikToker. I envy you that you are. My daughters are, and I watch stuff that they share with me, but I'm becoming a TikTok shop person because I'm watching to see how consumers use TikTok to make shopping decisions because TikTok used to be you watched videos and you watched trends and you watched things that people were doing, and now if I can watch something and then buy it immediately, I think the conversion rate is that much higher on TikTok. So brands have to be considering TikTok now, and I think Amazon was moving very quickly to try to figure out how can they help with fulfillment from TikTok shop to consumers that are accustomed to Amazon shopping.
Oliver Chen:
What about your TikTok advisory practice? What will happen there? I did buy from TikTok shop and I look at TikTok every day, every night.
Dana Upshaw:
TikTok is becoming part of our everyday conversation now with brands. With our existing brands and with new brands, it, to me, is becoming as important as Amazon was from just a brand building strategy. So it's not just, are you on TikTok? It's, how do you want to sell on TikTok? Because remember, just because you have people that are posting videos on TikTok about your product, it doesn't mean that they can buy your product.
Oliver Chen:
Yeah.
Dana Upshaw:
You have to actually...
Oliver Chen:
A lot of friction. I mean there's still some weird friction, but they're going to get to that quick buy button, it's just a matter of time.
Dana Upshaw:
It is just a matter of time. So now's the time to be contemplating that. And whether it's you watch a video on TikTok and then you jump over to Amazon to buy it or you watch a video on TikTok and there's a link to buy right there, brands need to have that. To me, it's no different than contemplating Walmart as a marketplace or the other marketplaces that are out there. Brands need to be in front of everything that's coming to decide from their brand building strategy perspective, where do they want to offer their product? And more importantly, where are their consumers looking to buy their product? And that should really drive where they're focusing their time and attention.
Oliver Chen:
Okay, and a hot topic you mentioned, of course, is returns. In dresses, to be honest, we can see 50% plus returns. Beauty's been a lower return rate. What are return rates generally like and what are some of the hot issues around increasing or decreasing returns? Hopefully not increasing.
Dana Upshaw:
Yeah, we want to try to avoid increasing returns. And you're right, apparel has some of the highest return rates, and I think that's why virtual try-on is becoming more important from the perspective of trying to reduce return rates. In the beauty space, we see return rates single digits. So not incredibly high, but the target return rate is zero. And so what we do to try to combat returns is content is king. And so making sure that when a consumer sees the product, imagery represents what the product is. The description of the product is key. How do you apply it? How do you use it? What can you expect? We spend a lot of time looking at reviews on the actual product to drive changes to creative content, to ultimately expand the experience and set the appropriate expectation for the consumer. But the result of that is it decreases return rates. And so we're always looking at content and modifications to content to do that.
When you marry that, Oliver, with some of the AI technology like virtual try-on, like chat bots like that kind of stuff, it provides more insights to the consumer to see it, to ask questions about it before they make the purchasing decision, which we know will decrease the return rate of said product.
Oliver Chen:
Thanks for that. This is a bit like an ask me anything session. So Dana, a hot retail topic is shrink unfortunately. On these marketplaces, perhaps you can sell anything, but there is regulation changing and beauty is quite attractive in terms of the cost of the item and marketplace sellers. What's happening with shrink from your perspective and anything you see there as certain regulations take impact as well?
Dana Upshaw:
It's interesting because we've all experienced the macroeconomic situation with inflation and interest rates, but I would say that one category that has weathered the storm better than any other is beauty. Consumers are willing to spend. If Covid did anything, it put focus on self-care, and consumers were more, and I am one of them, so I'm not speaking as if I'm not one of them, consumers are willing to spend more money on product that make them feel good, that make them look better, and that ultimately drive that self-care mentality. That said, it's a frothy market when it comes to product. And there's a lot of players in the space, and so I think every brand is contemplating price and do I lower my price to drive conversion? And some have stood strong and said, "No, my price is my price. I have a premium brand and it will stay."
Some brands are testing the concept. I actually don't know, Oliver, where it's going to fall. I think beauty will continue to weather the storm, if you will, of the shrink challenge. I do think as more players come into the space, I think it makes it harder for consumers to make choices. I think price ultimately does become a component of conversion decisions and I think that brands just need to watch it closely. So that's really not an answer to your question, but I think it's because it's fluid and it's ever changing and I think beauty is a step ahead of some of the other categories that have not weathered the storm as well, and so the only thing they can do is decrease price. Electronics is a classic example of that. They've really gotten hit hard.
Oliver Chen:
And Dana, what about theft? It's been an issue in terms of the beauty category unfortunately, and people have been reselling this on marketplaces.
Dana Upshaw:
A couple of years ago when I spoke at WWD, I was asked a question about counterfeit. I think that consumers are becoming more knowledgeable, paying attention to who they're buying from, and I think especially in the beauty space, you have to be careful. Amazon has a great program in place for counterfeit and to keep it off, but you have to identify it first and you have to know that it's not the right product. And so I think that programs like that premium beauty program help work against things like counterfeit products. And so I think that it's... Again, having control of your supply chain is critical. Having control of distribution of your product is critical. If you have that, you can counterbalance the risk of counterfeit theft, those kinds of things. If you don't have that, then it's programs like premium beauty that you need to look to to ensure that you limit who can sell on Amazon, and as a result you limit the risk of counterfeit product.
Oliver Chen:
Yeah, the other problem is people stealing product at Ulta and Target and trying to resell it in marketplaces.
Dana Upshaw:
Yep, and that happens. I will tell you, I didn't answer that specifically in the question that you asked. We haven't seen that as big of an issue because even as bad as it is that somebody would steal lots of product and then try to put it on Amazon, there's a short runway. You only have so much and it's going to cause a ripple. A brand runs the risk of losing buy box because now it's stolen product that's being sold at a lower price, but there is an end to it. It's repulsive, it shouldn't be happening, and I think that there's a challenge for brands across all retail outlets to ensure that they don't have theft and shop-lifting going on. But it is one thing that... It will cause a ripple, but it's not a long-term ripple like a counterfeit type issue.
Oliver Chen:
Yeah, they're both pretty horrifying.
Dana Upshaw:
They are. They're terrible.
Oliver Chen:
So Dana, in closing, what do you think is most often understood or underestimated, and which part of the business is most fun for you? Thank you.
Dana Upshaw:
I would say underestimated is brand protection, just making sure you're protecting your brand and preserving your buy box because there's such an effect on that. That would be the first. That's one A. One B is catalog on Amazon. Having a well-organized catalog is so critical because brand protection and catalog are the foundations of success, in my opinion, to Amazon for brands. As it relates to what I love the most, well, I love watching a brand grow. I love the excitement that a brand experiences when they see that they're not impacting their other channels as they're growing on Amazon. I love planning for the promotional events and I love Beauty Hall and Prime Day and Turkey 12. I love watching that happen and I love, as a result of that, having a seat at the table with the brand as part of their team, and I think that's what Recom really focuses on.
We don't want to just be a vendor that does a service for a brand. We actually want to have a seat at the table as the brand is building out the strategy and have a voice to help them with their marketplace strategy and make sure that it complements their direct-to-consumer strategy and their retail strategy. So there's a lot of stuff that excites me. I think growth is the biggest one. I'm the chief growth officer. Obviously I want growth for the brand and watching the brand prosper on the platform, whether it's Amazon, Walmart, or any other ones, is really exciting to me.
Oliver Chen:
Well, it's been really exciting to hear so many views, Dana, across growing and building brand equity and helping a brand flourish. The buy box, the catalog, the curation, and what's happening with the future of distribution. This was all hot and interesting. Dana, thanks for your time.
Dana Upshaw:
Thanks Oliver. Have a great day.
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