The beauty of the Amazon marketplace is that anyone can win, from small one-man businesses to large billion-dollar corporations and everyone in between.

Thanks to the power of social media, in recent years certain influencers have launched their own products, sometimes offering them on Amazon.

With the growing popularity of these influencer brands, an important question arises: How do they compare to the big brands on Amazon and some of the lesser-known brands on Amazon?

Let’s explore the dynamics, benefits, and challenges that every type of brand faces on the Amazon marketplace.

The rise of influencer brands

Influencer brands are the brainchild of individuals who have amassed large followings on platforms such as Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.

These influencers leverage their personal brands and the loyalty of their audience to launch products that resonate with their followers.

The appeal of these brands lies in their perceived authenticity, identification and the trust they have built with their audience over time.

Unlike traditional big brands, which often rely on widespread advertising campaigns and brand awareness, influencer brands thrive on organic content and niche marketing.

They cater to specific interests, lifestyles and communities and offer products that often seem more personal and relevant to their target groups.

Prime Hydration, an influencer brand founded by Logan Paul and KSI, partnered with UFC in January 2023. Prime has since become a billion-dollar brand.

Even crazier is that it ranks in the top 10 hydrating drinks on Amazon in terms of sales. Aside from the fact that these two influencers have a huge following, that’s just impressive for a brand that only launched in 2022.

(Data from Jungle Scout Cobalt – Hydration Drinks, last 365 days)

Marketing strategies: authenticity vs. authority

A key difference between influencer brands and big brands on Amazon is their marketing approach.

Large brands typically leverage significant advertising budgets, sophisticated marketing strategies, and established brand authority to dominate search results and ad placements on Amazon.

In contrast, influencer brands rely heavily on organic marketing, especially through social media. Influencers promote their products directly to their followers, creating a sense of authenticity and trust that big brands often struggle to replicate.

One example is influencer Emma Chamberlain, who has 15 million followers on Instagram and 12 million subscribers on YouTube. She built a huge audience of loyal fans and launched a coffee company she loved in 2019.

This grassroots marketing approach can lead to rapid revenue growth, especially if the influencer’s audience is highly engaged.

However, large brands have an advantage when it comes to brand authority and advertising on Amazon. Their extensive resources allow them to outbid smaller competitors in Amazon’s pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, securing top positions in search results.

In addition to brand name recognition, many customers choose to purchase a brand they have heard of or have used in the past.

This visibility often leads to higher sales, even if the product itself is not necessarily better.

Later in this article, we’ll take a look at Amazon search volume and market share data for Chamberlin Coffee.

Product development: agility vs. R&D powerhouse

When it comes to product development, influencer brands and big brands are on different wavelengths.

Influencer brands tend to be more flexible and able to adapt quickly to customer feedback and trends. This flexibility allows them to bring products to market faster and adapt to changing customer preferences with minimal delay.

Large brands, on the other hand, benefit from extensive research and development (R&D) departments.

They have the resources to conduct thorough market research, develop proprietary technologies and ensure that their products meet strict quality standards. The result is often long-lasting, reliable products that are valued by consumers.

However, the lengthy R&D process can slow down their response to market trends, allowing influencer brands to capitalize on new opportunities.

Influencer brands are great at building strong communities around their products. Their customers often have a personal connection with the influencer, which encourages loyalty and repeat business.

This community-driven approach can lead to high customer loyalty and word of mouth, which is invaluable in a crowded marketplace like Amazon.

Large brands, on the other hand, benefit from their brand awareness and the long-standing trust of consumers.

Customers often choose these brands because they are tried and tested, and there is a certain level of trust in buying from a well-known name. With this brand loyalty, it can become harder for new influencer brands to compete, especially outside of their established follower base.

Sales success: niche success vs. mass appeal

On Amazon, sales figures for influencer brands and major brands can be mixed. Influencer brands often succeed in niche markets where their products are highly relevant to a specific audience.

Your ability to connect directly with these consumers can lead to impressive sales numbers, especially for niche or innovative products.

Big brands benefit from long-standing customer trust, but influencer brands can build deep loyalty through personal engagement and community building.

The personal connection between influencers and their followers can lead to repeat purchases and word of mouth.

Challenges and opportunities for both

One of the biggest challenges for influencer brands is scaling. While they can find initial success through their loyal follower base, it can be difficult to reach beyond that audience.

Big brands face the challenge of staying relevant in an increasingly crowded market. As consumers seek more personal and authentic experiences, big brands must find ways to build a deeper connection with their customers, which influencer brands do naturally.

However, there are opportunities for both sides. Influencer brands can use Amazon’s platform to reach a wider audience beyond their social media followers, while major brands can use more personalized and community-driven marketing strategies to increase customer engagement.

Influencer Brand vs. Brand Name: Amazon Sales

Let’s take a look at the Amazon sales of Chamberlain Coffee mentioned above compared to some of the major coffee brands.

Chamberlain Coffee

Those are impressive numbers for an influencer brand that launched on Amazon in mid-2022. In the last 365 days, Chamberlain Coffee has generated $2.8 million in sales and continues to grow on Amazon.

(Jungle Scout Cobalt data)

Emma Chamberlain introduced her brand to her huge social media audience, which likely gave her the sales boost and first reviews she needed, but the brand continues to grow as her Amazon selling strategy improves.

For a small Amazon brand launched by an influencer, 34% growth over a 12-month period in the competitive coffee market on Amazon is an encouraging development!

All Chamberlain Coffee offers feature high-quality images and infographics, optimized offer copy, premium A+ content, and an Amazon store to bring it all together. Not to mention, their products are highly rated and have lots of reviews.

And this is what the A+ content looks like.

It includes a video, the brand story, information about the product itself and some background information about the origin of the product.

Peet’s Coffee

Now let’s take a look at a brand that has been very well known in the coffee industry for decades: Peet’s Coffee. It has both brand recognition and customer loyalty because this brand is carried everywhere, in grocery stores, local stores and online.

Not surprisingly, Peet’s Coffee is doing big numbers on Amazon—over $160 million in sales in the last 365 days. Most major coffee brands are probably doing similar numbers on Amazon, if not more.

(These sales numbers do not include all subcategories in which Chamberlain Coffee sells, only ground coffee.)

In Jungle Scout Cobalt, I created a segment featuring some of the top brands in the coffee category, including Chamberlain Coffee. You can see that Chamberlain Coffee takes up a tiny slice of the coffee market on Amazon, a market dominated by giant corporations.

While it’s obviously possible to stay competitive in this market and make millions in sales, whether you’re an influencer or not, entering this market probably won’t make you the next Starbucks.

Can influencers compete against big brands on Amazon?

Definitely, as long as the quality of the products is good and Amazon pursues a competitive strategy.

In such a competitive category on Amazon, Chamberlain Coffee was able to grab a small portion of the market share.

While a large audience helps spread the message and increase sales, high-quality products and marketing help the brand grow even further and reach a larger audience on Amazon.

Final thoughts

When launching a brand on Amazon, it’s important to understand the size of the market and the big players in it, such as coffee. Coffee is a huge market with many big players, so entering a niche market with a unique way to promote and market your brand is more attractive.

Influencer brands excel at authenticity, niche marketing and community building, while big brands benefit from authority, mass appeal and extensive resources. As the e-commerce landscape continues to evolve, it’s likely we’ll see more collaboration and overlap between these two worlds, resulting in a richer and more diverse marketplace for consumers.