Reason Automation launches to the public
Reason Automation launched publicly mid-pandemic on July 2020. Co-founders Andrew Hamada and Joseph Shao first worked together at Amazon in 2012. More from them below:
Reason Automation was born of two distinct, overlapping experiences: our time managing brands at Amazon, and our time leading eCommerce sales teams.
Our time at Amazon taught us how to structure data for analysis, how to analyze efficiently at scale, and what it means to make data-driven decisions. We brought those skills to other companies and brands, hungry for data. We were surprised to learn that while Vendor Central and Seller Central provide loads of information, the data can be taxing to work with. Just charting an ASIN’s performance over time requires downloading multiple reports.
When pulling data takes time, you do it less often—and anyone managing an Amazon business knows that speed and frequency matter. If ad performance fluctuates daily, can you afford to look at your business data weekly or monthly?
The products we found shared some key flaws:
1. Our data was locked into a dashboard, often no better than what was already available in Vendor and Seller Central. We didn’t want to learn new software, and we already knew how to manage our business—we needed easy access to the inputs.
2. Options were too specialized. There are plenty of advertising and marketplace reporting solutions, but few for Vendor Central and virtually nothing for hybrid or multi-brand strategies. They lack the flexibility and features that modern businesses depend on to launch and grow brands.
3. No history. Many products simply provide snapshots with no history. Our Amazon-taught techniques rely on granular, historical data to understand contribution to year-over-year and week-over-week changes.
We wanted a database: a single source for all Amazon-related metrics, that could plug into Excel and whatever other software we (or the bosses) wanted. We heard the same things from friends at other brands and agencies: everyone wants to make data-driven business decisions. They want data without the daily downloads, expensive VAs, or costly data platforms.
Reason exists to address those problems.