Tom Killalea has spent the past 16 years at Amazon in roles covering Security, Availability, Distributed Systems and the Kindle Content Ecosystem, and now joins Profitero as a board advisor. With CPG eCommerce sales growing exponentially, Tom discusses the critical areas that CPG brands need help with, and why Profitero is best placed to provide insights into previously unanswerable questions.
Consumer Packaged Goods companies have many important questions regarding what happens to their products when they reach retailers. These questions are under four distinct headings: Selection, Discoverability, Availability, and Price.
1. Selection
- Which of my products are on offer?
- What are my comparables, including both branded products and private label products?
- What are my selection gaps compared with competitors?
- What size, weight, volume offerings are available and are there gaps that could matter to potential customers?
2. Discoverability
- What position do my products hold in relevant keyword searches, and how does that compare with competitors?
- What positions do I hold on Best Seller lists, and what are the new entrants?
- Is my product content complete?
- How are my customer ratings and reviews?
3. Availability
- Am I in-stock for the fastest shipping speed?
- What is my in-stock rate over time?
- How is my availability for the destination addresses that matter most to me?
- Are my products eligible to ship to all destinations?
4. Price
- What is my price over time?
- How does my price compare with branded competitors and with comparable private label products in different sizes/volumes?
- Are the prices offered compliant with all of my contractual terms?
- Are my products eligible for bundles and other offers?
As sales have moved online, it’s been difficult for brands to get answers to these questions. Profitero is changing that. Having spent 16 years at Amazon, inevitably I’m drawn to companies that are data-driven in how they make decisions, and that are patient as they invent ways to answer previously unanswerable questions.
Profitero is serving the need for an independent, data-driven company to do product matching, data collection, and analysis at massive scale, and to provide compelling insights and answers to brands and to retailers. That’s why I’m delighted to join them as an advisor as they build the most trusted independent source for eCommerce intelligence.
Tom Killalea is an advisor to technology-driven companies. During his 16 years at Amazon.com, he held roles including responsibility for Security, Availability, Distributed Systems, Infrastructure, and the Kindle Content Ecosystem.
