An overnight sales boom.
The rise from 0 units per day to 200.
The potential to increase revenue by over a million dollars.

Most businesses dream about these results. But Thrasio, a company that acquires and operates million-dollar Amazon FBA brands, made it happen. Now, Thrasio uses PickFu to replicate this success again and again.

Thrasio currently manages about 20 brands in-house and is on track to acquire two or three more every month, said John Hefter, V.P. of Creative and Brand Strategy. John’s team looks for creative opportunities in each product, including packaging, product listing photos, and video. “Sometimes the opportunities lie in the development of product variations,” he said, “but more often than not, the creative is simply not optimized, or at least not differentiated.”

The acquisition of Angry Orange

In 2018, Thrasio acquired the FBA brand Angry Orange, a citrus concentrate that neutralizes pet odors. Despite its lack of quality branded content, Angry Orange sold over 100 units per day at $22.95 each. The team at Thrasio hypothesized that with a strategic brand overhaul, overall market share could be improved.

John found Angry Orange’s existing bottle unattractive. “It looked like it belonged in a vape store,” he said. The design wasn’t compelling and didn’t build trust. Thrasio’s design team created about 70 iterations of new labels, but John didn’t fall in love with any of them.

“Amazon is an exceptionally visual medium,” he said. “We buy with our eyes first. When you scroll down the page, what makes your eye stop? Where does your mouse cursor just stop?” He set about to make Angry Orange the product that would stop someone by changing the color of the bottle itself. “Bright orange is not a color available on the regular market,” he explained. “It was an impossible bottle to find.”

So to prove that changing the bottle’s color would be worth it, John turned to PickFu.

The confirmation from PickFu

“[PickFu] was exactly what I needed,” he said, “because I had no way to take my qualifiable ideas and attach it to some quantifiable outcomes that could be useful for our investment team.”

After polling 800 people on PickFu, “the evidence became very clear that the new bright orange design was going to motivate people to purchase.”

With his idea validated, John had the confidence to negotiate with a new bottler to custom-make bottles with an entirely new cap and labeling system. He spent approximately $50,000 on the redesign and its companion photography, video, and enhanced brand content.

John recognizes that for smaller sellers, such a change is likely cost-prohibitive. However, he advises, “to any buyer of any scale who wants to make a change, particularly a visual one, you need a neutral focus group that’s going to give you real information. If you just rely on family or friends, they’re generally going to have an artificial confirmation bias that’s just positive towards you. Using a tool like PickFu is a great way to confirm your idea.”

Once the new images for Angry Orange went live on Amazon, Thrasio saw a dramatic increase in sales, practically overnight. John reported that the Unit Session Rate increased from 35% to 42%, and average units sold per day rose as high as 160.

Thrasio also took its re-design and created a new ready-to-use Angry Orange product. In the span of two weeks, sales grew from zero to about 200 units per day. If current trends continue, the new creative could result in a revenue increase of $1,124,000 per year. “It certainly proved out the testing results that we discovered using PickFu,” John said.

Your turn

Thrasio continues to evaluate and acquire FBA brands, with PickFu as a central component to its success. “You don’t really know what’s meaningful to people unless you test it,” John says. “If you’re willing to spend a little bit of money up front to get that stuff right, it makes a difference.”

He adds, “I volunteered to [be featured in this article because] PickFu really works for us. I’m just happy to share a really good tool so that other people can make good choices. I really think it’s a valuable thing to have in your arsenal.”

Ready to try PickFu to optimize your Amazon product listing? Start here.