Thinking about Amazon as simply an e-commerce platform misses the point. Raghbir Rana, who runs marketplace enablement in the EU for a Wunderman subsidiary, Marketplace Ignition, helps brands to get onto Amazon. The platform is so important as to have fuelled an entire consultancy sector, which is unsurprising, but his insights are valuable for thinking about moving into Amazon, and about the way Amazon thinks about commerce. Rana is well placed to talk about the company, having worked there for five years.
“Amazon works very differently,” according to Rana. Meetings, sign-offs, and traditional business plans are...