Success Stories: TF Publishing

Overview - TF Publishing

TF Publishing was founded in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1996 and is one of the premier producers of calendars, planners, and stationery goods in the United States. Their product offering consists of strategic partnerships with a variety of brands (Coke-Cola, The Beatles, Travel + Leisure, NASCAR, Hallmark, LIFE), licensors, artists, and photographers as well as exclusive designs by their creative team. 

TF Publishing was in a 1P vendor relationship with Amazon which was consuming their organizational resources to manage. The day-to-day management of their listings required a significant amount of human resources.

Since TF Publishing’s products are widely distributed around the country in large brick-and-mortar retailers (Walmart, Office Depot, Target, Staples, Big Lots, Barnes & Noble, and CVS), they were facing many 3rd Party Sellers who were driving down the price of their products which resulted in Amazon lowering their prices and frustrating their large distribution channels. The 3rd Party Sellers were using a “race to the bottom” pricing strategy which is very common and the primary reason why brands like TF Publishing struggle to grow sales. 

TF Publishing began a partnership with Global Ecom Partners in 2020 to receive help with managing their Amazon relationship and the 3rd Party Seller issues they were facing. 

Strategy and Goals

GEP’s strategy included cleaning up the 3rd Party Sellers and helping develop the brand. Our teams created consistently optimized listings and presence across the platform including titles, bullets, A+ content, and the Storefront which we now do twice a year for all of TF Publishing’s products. 

In combination with the optimized listings, GEP incorporated AI-driven marketing to increase TF Publishing’s visibility on Amazon and to grow sales. We implemented Amazon programs including Bulk and Case Pack Discount Programs and Industry Exclusive Programs.

The Final Results

The partnership between TF Publishing and GEP has been very successful. Due to cleaning up the 3P sellers, we went from losing Buy Box 50-60% of the time to TF Publishing’s Academic Year line having 96.99% Buy Box. 

GEP has also helped develop and expand TF Publishing into Walmart.com along with expanding into Canada which had a 295% growth in 2022 from 2021. The AI-driven marketing has resulted in running approximately 23k campaigns which has contributed to much of the growth for the brand. 

Our strategies resulted in expanded market share and they grew sales even though e-commerce demand has moved back to pre-Covid levels. We have been increasing pricing to a healthy level and purchasing and retail pricing has increased for many of TF Publishing’s larger retail partners. This has resulted in us sharing the margin gain and increasing our purchasing price by up to 30% on many SKUs.

With a clean Buy Box, optimized listings, and all of our efforts in 2020, we grew sales by 44.6% in 2021.

Prior to GEP, TF Publishing’s 2020 sales rank for Susan Branch was 2.1M and got to Best Sellers Ranks #701,836 in Books, #1,872 in Calendars (Books), and #10,943 in Calendars, Planners & Organizers. 2021 sales rank for Susan Branch started at 2.3M and we got it to 1,367 (in the wall calendar category). Also, the 2022 sales rank for Susan Branch was 8.2k and we got it to 974 (in the wall calendar category).

Some other sales rank increases were the 21-22 Tropical Beaches that went from 86K to 594 (in the mini calendar category), the 2022 Tropical Beaches that went from 338k to 860 (in the wall calendar category), and the 2023 Tropical Beaches that went from 476K to 989 (in the wall calendar category).

Some best seller rankings that we achieved were for the 2023 Susan Branch Wall Calendar that went from 161K in “Office Products” to 2,330 and the 2023 Space Cats that went from 137K in “Office Products” to 1,204 (and from 1,374 in “Wall Calendars” to 30).