Now more than ever, consumers are relying on Amazon to meet their shopping needs in a post-COVID world. To help drive revenue, university licensing programs should improve their schools’ Amazon presence by creating a college-branded Amazon Storefront, and work with their licensees to improve product listing quality.
The Impact of COVID-19 on College Licensing Revenue
The COVID-19 pandemic has left a wake of chaos across schools and universities. The cancellation or postponement of many NCAA activities has put incredible strain on college revenues. Additionally, brick and mortar retailers, such as Dicks Sporting Goods, have faced significant declines in store traffic, which is further undermining revenue.
Amazon is the dominant shopping destination during COVID-19 crisis
Meanwhile, consumer visits to Amazon have increased significantly since the start of the pandemic. In June, there were 5.2 billion website visits to Amazon.com globally, up 27% since March, and up 40% since January. There were 1.2 billion unique visitors to the site – 123X more than Fanatics.com and 4X more than Walmart.com. Given the importance of Amazon in the post-COVID world, it is imperative that college licensing programs review their Amazon strategy as soon as possible.
Universities already garner sales from Amazon despite having poor listing quality
Most college official licensees are already selling on Amazon. Many universities already have ~$20MM or more annual sales on Amazon today. However, these sales are happening despite the fact that many products are not following e-commerce best practices. Across a sample of 20 schools, 50% of the product listings do not contain the university name in the product title. Furthermore, 18% do not contain the university name anywhere at all in the listing. Worst of all, 12% of the listings reference the wrong college name. (This issue is more serious at some schools than at others, depending on the licensees used.)
With optimization, universities can grow their Amazon sales by ~5X or more
All this means that there is a huge upside opportunity. With optimization, universities can grow sales on Amazon by ~5X or more, while also improving customer shopping experience. HINGE COMMERCE can help create an Amazon Storefront for your school to make it easier for your fans to find officially licensed products. We can partner with your licensees to optimize their existing product listings, making it easier for consumers to search and find your products. We can also help add new listings to grow your presence on Amazon and meet consumers’ expanding needs. And, we can help you monitor your unauthorized sellers with regular reporting tools.
Reach out to us to learn more, or talk to us about the work we are already doing with other schools.
