Podean is an innovative Amazon agency and marketplace consultancy, challenging how brands leverage ecommerce marketplaces. Podean, (derived from “Antipodean”) works with major global and progressive brands from six individual regions, delivering on their needs as they relate to accelerating their presence and sales on Amazon and emerging marketplaces.
What makes Podean so unique is using using a holistic planning approach that takes into account Amazon SEO to ensure pages are ready to convert and DSP to fill the upper part of the funnel, to run the most efficient media possible. The business has also created a proprietary and industry-first Amazon media planning solution, Journey, which provides the statistical rationale to deliver the right mix of media for their objectives and budgets across Amazon’s manifold advertising channels.
Podean thinks about marketplace media not just in terms of the marketplace, but in the wider marketing context, taking the conversation beyond ecommerce and into branding and the realm of the CMO.
Managing director Ashley Wales-Brown says Podean’s services span ecommerce strategy, content creation and optimisation, media management, marketplace operations and innovation consulting.
“We are a business that embraces flexible hours, cloud solutions and innovation and lead with an authentic and collaborative approach,” Ashley says.
“Podean exists to bridge the gap between Amazon and brands. Amazon is renowned for running lean teams and therefore provides limited support for brands to get set up on the platform outside of what can be found via their self-serve platform.”
“For the majority of sellers who don’t necessarily have the budget to engage with a marketplace partner this works for them, however for medium to enterprise level brands they simply don’t have the resource or bandwidth to go through the lengthy process of setup and optimisation.”
Ashley says he’s always been interested in working with technology and/or application to find creative solutions to existing problems. Prior to working at Podean, he was running the Australian arm of a CRO eCom software platform.
One of the biggest challenges and obstacles faced during Podean’s early days was the difficult task of creating awareness.
“We still struggle with this despite having major brands on our books, people still don’t know who we are which makes the sales pitch that much harder. And not just for new business pitches but also attracting quality talent for our growing team,” Ashley says.
Podean’s biggest success so far has been putting the Tasmanian Amazon Store live, which was an enormous achievement.
“ It was a major project involving stakeholders across government, Amazon and the individual brands who are featured. It was 15 months in the making and we are so proud of the results – Amazon.com.au: TASMANIAN: Home page.
“We’ve also just been appointed by a major CPG to run their Amazon activity but we’re under NDA until the press gets released.”
What’s next for Podean?
“We’re looking to expand in to APAC next and we’re working with a couple of local brands who are looking to join us on the journey so hope to be live in the next few months.
Ashley says being part of the Fishburners community has been a great experience during the entrepreneurial journey and one Podean couldn’t do without.
“We’ve loved our time at Fishburners. We started life in the Sydney Start Up Hub on Level 1 and graduated to Fishburners at the start of 2020. Having a family means I wasn’t always able to be involved in some of the afterwork events which look amazing! I’ve managed to enjoy many of the “lunch and learns” however, as well as taken part in many of the other daytime events which are always so beneficial.”