SellerPulse Helps Brand Protect Revenue and Reputation

Deltran Global is a family-owned business that has been around since 1965 and started selling on Amazon about 20 years ago. Their most popular brand, Battery Tender, has become a household name.

“We are the Kleenex of battery chargers,” said Erik Palmer, Global eCommerce Manager at Deltran Global.

Erik handles the hard work of generating traffic to the brand’s eCommerce listings. The company sells through other eCommerce sites like Walmart and its own website, but Amazon has become its dominant channel. “It’s maybe a third of the profitability,” Erik noted.

That dominance is largely due to their growth during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. “Our CEO is just beyond excited with our growth,” shared Erik.

Unauthorized Resellers and Other Risks

But even such a recognized brand is at risk of being damaged by counterfeits and unauthorized resellers. And, despite how profitable it is, the Amazon channel is at risk from an influx of competition, whether from other sellers or from Amazon itself.

That’s where SellerPulse by eComEngine comes in. “It allows us to monitor things that a human wouldn’t be able to monitor, now that we’re such a large brand,” said Erik.

Erik particularly appreciates being notified about new resellers on his listings, using the Number of Offers Changed alert.

He shared that the brand has enrolled in the Amazon Transparency program, which requires a unique, manufacturer-provided serial number on each unit of the product. This program does a good job of preventing counterfeit products from being sold on Amazon.

“We have a very, very strict list of authorized resellers. So now, a lot of the unauthorized sellers have been removed from some of our top ASINs,” said Erik.

But even offers for genuine products can cause problems for Deltran Global.

Buy Box Monitoring

Erik gave the example of sellers purchasing a large pallet of miscellaneous electronics from a brick-and-mortar retailer that liquidates inventory, including Battery Tender products. “Those units were potentially part of our wholesale supply, not Amazon, not eCommerce. And then that supply muddies the waters of eCommerce,” Erik shared.

These unauthorized sellers then sell Battery Tender products on Amazon at unusually low prices, using Amazon’s fast, free shipping. This allows them to win the Buy Box against the brand.

“What’s become so valuable about SellerPulse is that now we can see when these listings pop up,” said Erik.

Deltran Global is a US-based company, but they also sell on Amazon Canada. SellerPulse has helped in a special way there. “The unique issue in Canada is that people sell US versions of things, whereas we have a Canadian version that has French on the box, and that’s sort of a law there,” said Erik.

Erik was one of the first users of SellerPulse when it rolled out in beta. An eComEngine account manager helping Erik with his FeedbackFive subscription mentioned that a new tool was available and showed it to him. The value of this new tool was immediately evident. “I said, ‘Absolutely, I absolutely want that,’” said Erik.

Besides the Number of Offers Changed alert, Erik regularly uses the Buy Box Lost alerts. SellerPulse offers the option to receive a daily summary of alerts, view a dashboard feed, or get individual alerts throughout the day. Erik found that the individual alerts for Buy Box loss showed him something surprising.

“Amazon itself somehow is getting inventory and selling it and taking our Buy Box, for one of our main listings, 21 percent of the time,” said Erik. Luckily, the Buy Box Lost alert in SellerPulse includes details about the winning offer and makes it obvious when the winning competitor is Amazon itself.

Erik also calls the Buy Box Suppressed alert “tremendously useful.” Amazon’s competitive pricing policies can cause a Buy Box to be suppressed if the same product is priced lower on other websites.

“That’s tremendously important,” said Erik, “because that lets me know that someone else is violating MAP (Minimum Advertised Price). … I have to find where is the lowest price online, and I can send them a nastygram,” said Erik.

Keep Tabs on Everything

Erik has a warning for people who are interested in starting an Amazon business: don’t go alone.

“Amazon can be a scary place, where money can go to die if you don’t have the ability to see what’s going on when you’re not around,” said Erik. But SellerPulse has given him a “watchdog ability” to keep tabs on everything: “It’s tremendously valuable.”

Interested in trying out SellerPulse? Keep tabs on your Amazon listings 24/7 with Buy Box alerts and more. Try it free! If you'd like to share your experience in our next case study, contact us.