Amazon merchant Trend Nation thrives building brands

LAS VEGAS, Oct. 23, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- As Halloween nears and retailers prepare for the holiday rush, Trend Nation, one of the fastest growing companies in Nevada, celebrates delighting its 4 millionth customer. Over the past 3 years, Trend Nation has transitioned itself from a retailer of over 200 popular brands such as Tommy Hilfiger, Tumi, and Calvin Klein, to a seller building its own brands. Trend Nation is one of Amazon.com's largest 3rd party sellers and sells over 2,500 items under 6 of its house brands through online marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, Home Depot, and Walmart.

"Our company has over a decade of experience selling top fashion brands on marketplaces. Ultimately, we realized that online shoppers care less about the big brand names and more about high-quality products with good customer reviews. The transparency of consumer's feedback (positive or negative) has leveled the playing field across the competitive spectrum. We identify pockets of unmet consumer demand, disrupt these niches by introducing great products at a value price point, and delight our customers," said Brad Howard, CEO and Founder, Trend Nation, LLC.

According to the National Retail Federation, retail sales are expected to grow ~4% in 2018, while online sales are projected to climb 10-12% as consumers continue migrating to online shopping(1). As the online marketplace leader, Amazon projects operating income in third quarter 2018 to be between $54.0B and $57.5B, up 23-31% compared to third quarter 2017, with an operating income of between $1.4B and $2.4B, up from $347M in third quarter 2017(2). This translates into a huge opportunity for 3(rd) party merchants. As an expert in product development, Trend Nation is expecting 20% year-over-year growth and sees consumer preferences shifting towards high-quality products at value prices rather than often overpriced household brands.

"As of this writing, Trend Nation has the top-rated Men's Robe and three of the top 10 Halloween Costumes on all of Amazon selling under our brands Ross Michaels and Silver Lilly, respectively. While Ross Michaels might not ring a bell today, the nearly 600 positive customer reviews on our hooded men's robe more than make up for the current lack of brand awareness," said Brian Campbell, President, Trend Nation, LLC.

Trend Nation studies online shopper's search and buying patterns to find supply and demand mismatches which it then uses to develop new products. Once product opportunities are identified, they go through an extensive vetting process before moving to production. One of Trend Nation's keys to success has been the team's obsession with reading reviews of competitive products, identifying issues, fixing those issues, and adding innovation. Products typically take about 6 months from ideation to being for sale to an end customer.

"Half the battle in being a successful online seller is identifying consumer demand mismatches. The other half is being an excellent online marketer. The marketing challenge is twofold, discoverability and buyability. Basically, does the product show up when a customer is searching for the item and once they find it, how likely are they to purchase," said Brad Howard. Consumers have more options than ever with over 572 Million products being offered on Amazon during the fourth quarter of 2017(3). To stand out, Trend Nation meticulously creates content, prices competitively, and focuses on product quality. Still, breaking through that clutter isn't easy and Trend Nation relies heavily on sponsored product advertisements.

"Over the past 2 years, we have seen rapid adoption of Amazon's sponsored product ads and believe Amazon will seriously compete with Google as the online advertising king in just a few years. Amazon's advertising offerings continue to evolve and more and more placements on Amazon's site are being converted from organic to paid search positions," said Elliot Cole, VP of Merchandising, Trend Nation, LLC.

Trend Nation, LLC is an e-commerce retailer and online marketplace pioneer. The company owns and operates numerous up-and-coming brands and supports dozens of major brand partnerships. With over 4 million completed transactions to date, Trend Nation has earned itself a spot on the Inc. 5000 list five of the past 7 years. "Trend Nation is exactly the kind of company the Inc. 500 was designed to honor," said Eric Schurenberg, Editor-in-Chief of Inc. Magazine. In addition to marketplaces, Trend Nation operates several niche e-commerce sites that support its branding initiatives and traditional brand partners.

If you would like more information about this topic, please contact Elliot Cole at 702.857.8722 or email at Elliot@trendnation.com.

1. Source: Forbes, February 2018 | 2. Source: Amazon Press Release, July 2018

3. Source: Scrapehero, November 2017

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SOURCE Trend Nation