Snapshot
- Category: Bags (Amazon US)
- Timeframe: December 2021 takeover, 8-month turnaround through August 2022
- Starting Point: Multiple SKUs OOS, negative net margin, rankings in freefall, priced 35% above category median against low-cost Chinese competition
- Key Result: Amazon Brand Turnaround – Monthly sales grew 220% from ~$22K (Dec 2021) to ~$71K (Aug 2022 peak); COGs renegotiated down 7%; brand exited negative margin and hit ramp-shaped profit growth
The Challenge: A Brand Under Pressure on Two Fronts
When I took over this Bags brand in December 2021, it was losing ground fast — and the problems were piling up. Poor Amazon inventory management had pushed multiple SKUs out of stock, so rankings were already sliding by the time I came in. Air freight to replenish from China had driven COGs so high that the brand posted negative net margin in November. And this was a category flooded with Chinese competitors pricing 35% below this brand’s retail price, with far more design variation on offer.
The margin didn’t have room for aggressive PPC spend to fight back for ranking. You can’t outbid the field when your contribution margin is already in the red. So the sequence mattered: fix the structural problems first, then grow.
I had five months to get the brand ready for the upcoming season. That shaped every decision.
The Strategy
The audit pointed to four areas that needed fixing simultaneously: inventory, cost structure, rankings, and PPC. Pulling one lever without the others wouldn’t hold.
- Audited the full catalogue and identified the best-selling SKUs to prioritize — not the full range, just the ones where recovery would have the most impact on overall P&L
- Built a proper inventory forecasting model incorporating both seasonality and a realistic growth factor, replacing the reactive approach that had caused the OOS crisis in the first place
- Coordinated with the sourcing team to renegotiate COGs with the China supplier reduced them by 7%, which was enough to open a small but critical window for ad spend
- Conducted thorough market research to map competitor positioning, pricing, and design gaps in the category essential given the price differential we were working against
- Planned and executed re-ranking campaigns for the priority SKUs, using a mix of PPC strategies tested in sequence rather than all at once
- Set up targeted promotions to give an early sales velocity boost to the recovering listings, rank needs sales history, and promotions bought us that history faster
- Monitored and adjusted the Sponsored Products campaigns throughout, pulling budget toward what was converting and away from what wasn’t — the same structural approach covered in the Intimate Care PPC restructure case study
One thing that didn’t go smoothly: the first round of re-ranking campaigns moved slower than expected because the catalogue still had inventory gaps during the early weeks. We had to phase the ranking push around stock availability rather than running everything in parallel, which added lag. By February, inventory was stable enough to push properly.
The Results: Amazon Brand Turnaround
The recovery didn’t come all at once. December and January were about stabilisation — stopping the bleeding, getting stock back in, and resetting the cost structure. February onwards is where momentum started building, and the chart tells the rest of the story clearly.
Monthly sales grew from approximately $22,000 in December 2021 to a peak of approximately $71,000 in August 2022 — a 220% increase over eight months. Net margin climbed out of negative territory and followed a ramp-shaped trajectory the brand hadn’t seen in months. The Real ACOS held at 16.75% across the full period, a number that would have been impossible without the COG renegotiation creating margin for ad investment.
A Bags brand going from OOS and negative margin in December 2021 to its highest monthly sales figure ever, eight months later — driven by inventory discipline, cost restructure, and staged re-ranking.
The brand also entered the upcoming peak season in a fundamentally different position: ranked, in-stock, and with a supply chain that wasn’t flying inventory in by air at the last minute.
Is Your Brand on the Wrong Trajectory?
A brand losing ground on Amazon is rarely just a PPC problem or just an inventory problem — it’s usually both, and they’re making each other worse. If your rankings are slipping and your margin isn’t giving you room to fight back, the fix starts with the audit, not the ad console.