Amazon Ads success story · Small business selling handwoven home goods

How a small home goods brand grew its Amazon sales 350% and kept selling through a stockout.

Name: Overtop Media Digital Marketing
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Telephone: (704) 237-0707
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Kazi sells handwoven home goods made by artisans in Uganda, Rwanda and Ghana. Video ads told the story behind the products, a simpler hero product brought in new buyers, and when that product sold out, the ads moved to the rest of the range instead of going quiet.

Business: Kazi
Market: United States
Goal: More awareness and more profitable sales

Handwoven round baskets arranged on a light wooden wall

The results.

Sales from June 2023 to June 2024 compared with the previous year.

350%higher sales on Amazon than the previous year
80%of Amazon sales came from Amazon Ads
4return on ad spend in the best month of 2024

Data provided by the brand to Amazon Ads, United States, June 2023 to June 2024 (return on ad spend: March 2024). Amazon featured this brand in its Rising Stars small-business series, and says the businesses in that series were compensated for taking part.

The challenge.

Kazi is a mission-driven small business in San Diego selling handwoven home goods made by artisans in East and West Africa. Few shoppers knew the brand or the story behind it, and a beautiful basket is easy to scroll past when nobody knows why it matters.

The business also needed its Amazon sales to be more profitable, not just bigger.

What they did.

Sponsored Brands image and video · Sponsored Products · Display ads · A+ Content

Told the story in video: Sponsored Brands image and video ads, together with richer product page content, explained the artisans and the mission to shoppers who had never heard of the brand.
Tested a simpler hero product: Alongside ornate pieces, the brand tried lower-priced everyday items, woven placemats. They became the hero product, with 300% higher sales than its other products.
Kept selling through a stockout: When the placemats sold out for weeks, the budget moved to matching products in the same material through Sponsored Products and display ads, so the brand stayed visible and kept selling.
Moved back when stock returned: Once the hero product was back, spend moved back to it, and shoppers who came for the placemats also bought the matching pieces.

Why it worked.

Our read on the decisions behind the numbers, and what any business can take from them.

An easy first purchase: A lower-priced everyday item is an easy yes for a new customer. Once they trust the brand, the bigger pieces sell more easily.
Ads never went dark: Pausing ads during a stockout lets competitors take your place in the results. Moving spend to related products kept the brand’s position and its sales momentum.
Story sells handmade products: Video gave shoppers a reason to choose a handwoven piece over a cheaper copy. That reason is hard to fit in a product title.
One plan across ad types: Brand ads built interest, product ads caught the searches, display ads followed up. Each did one job.

How we would run this play for your business.

You do not need a national budget to use the same ideas. This is how Overtop Media Digital Marketing puts them to work in our amazon ads management.

Pick the right hero product: We look at price, margin and search demand to choose the product that wins new customers best, then build the account around it.
Plan for stockouts: Inventory is checked with the ads every week. Before a product runs out, the budget already knows where to go next.
Use video to explain: If your product has a story, a short video ad tells it. We plan the video and the ads around what shoppers need to hear.
Grow beyond Amazon: The same story can win customers on your own site. Our Meta ads and Google Ads teams carry it to shoppers there too.