Amazon Product Launch Strategy: How niche products go global on Amazon
October 21, 2026
Reading Time - 1 min
Kamelia Pusheva
Author
Every new Amazon listing gets a honeymoon phase. Launch it unprepared, and you lose it.
Jeroen Polling joined Dartshopper six years ago to build its marketplace presence. Today he leads a growing in-house team covering advertising, content, international expansion, integrations and AI, and Dartshopper has grown into a top 10 Dutch Amazon seller with 15,000 SKUs shipping to 80+ countries. Jeroen also works as a freelance marketplace consultant.
He joins Lucas Bassa to share the launch playbook his team runs, and the bigger strategy behind it: how Dartshopper’s webshop and marketplaces work together, and which brands stay off marketplaces and why.
In this episode, you’ll learn how to:
- Know when a new listing is ready for ads, and avoid burning budget before it is
- Structure your Amazon campaigns and decide which products deserve budget
- Use automation to catch integration errors before they cost you sales
- Choose which marketplaces to add, and which to skip
Learn how to optimize, grow and scale on marketplaces with Channable
Listen to the complete episode:
Read transcript
Episode 9 – Transcript
Amazon Product Launch Strategy: How niche products
go global on Amazon
Host: Lucas Bassa (Channable)
Guest: Jeroen Polling (Dartshopper)
Lucas Bassa (01:31)
All right, welcome to a new episode of the Marketplace Growth Podcast. Today I'm joined by
Jeroen Polling from Dartshopper, and we're talking about all the lessons he's learned during
his time at Dartshopper, scaling quite a niche product globally across different marketplaces.
Because there are a lot of trials and tribulations along the way. Jeroen, glad you could join. A
short introduction?
Jeroen Polling (01:58)
Thank you. Jeroen Polling, 28 years old. I've been working at Dartshopper for six years now. I
did my internship there and stuck around ever since. So yeah, that's me.
Lucas Bassa
Nice. And a bit about Dartshopper. Of course, you sell darts. But how big is the darts scene,
and what products should we think about?
Jeroen Polling (02:19)
We have around 15,000 SKUs. That includes surrounds, which you put around the dartboard,
the dartboard itself obviously, and darts that we sell in all shapes, forms and weights. So we
have everything for the beginner, for the advanced player who wants to get better, or for
someone who just wants to play darts.
Lucas Bassa
So you say 15,000 SKUs, but it's quite a limited range of product types. So it's still very niche,
right?
Jeroen Polling
Yeah, there's only so much you can vary within the category of darts.
Lucas Bassa (03:14)
So we're talking about the way you approach it at Dartshopper. One of the interesting things
you mentioned is that you're a big retailer of brands, but you also own a few private brands,
brands you own yourself. Maybe to not dive in at the deep end right away: what's been your
approach to scaling Dartshopper on marketplaces?
Jeroen Polling (03:25)
Yeah, so like you said, it's really a niche category. From the start, I think nearly 11 years ago, we
started looking for potential in new markets. We scaled really fast to Germany, since the
market in the Netherlands was only so small. Then we went to France, Belgium as well
obviously, and we went south, east and west as well. And now we ship to, I think, more than
80 countries.
Lucas Bassa (04:10)
80?
Jeroen Polling
Yep.
Lucas Bassa
Wow. Okay. And what's the hidden gem for darts products?
Jeroen Polling
What do you mean exactly?
Lucas Bassa (04:34)
So what's the country that's really popular for darts products, where you sell a lot of items?
Jeroen Polling
The most potential is in the UK, where darts is the biggest. The brands we sell are mostly
UK-founded brands, and the best darts players are from the UK as well. So I think that's the
biggest market. But also Germany, of course. A lot of people live in Germany, which is also a
big potential for us.
Lucas Bassa (05:19)
Okay, so you're saying your main strategy over the last 11 years was to scale to more countries,
to the point where you now ship to 80 countries. So then maybe on to the retailer and brands
side of things. What's the approach there? What's the mix between reselling and selling your
own brands, and why?
Jeroen Polling
So there are two types of what we do. Of course we have our own webshop, which we have
several domains of. 15 now, but we want to scale to more domains as well. And we have the
marketplace strategy, where we use European marketplaces like Amazon to reach a bigger
audience in more countries easily. Regarding your question on reseller and our own brands:
on the webshop we sell everything. So we have Winmau or Target, which are the biggest
brands in darts. On marketplaces we sell a few of those brands, not all of them, simply
because of either strategy, the compliance that comes with it, or the operational issues we
face with reseller brands.
Lucas Bassa (06:24)
So the operational side, I mean, okay: you're either not allowed to sell or distribute, or there's
more trouble with compliance or brand registration. But you also mentioned strategy. What
sort of strategy are you referring to?
Jeroen Polling
Some parties are getting really big within Amazon, and if we keep selling their active offers,
eventually they could become even bigger than we would want, as Dartshopper. So for the
webshop we want to create that one-stop shop where we have the biggest assortment. We
do have the biggest assortment in the world. But on marketplaces, we really want to focus
on our own brands and give them the most potential with customers.
Lucas Bassa (07:31)
Is that a strategy? So what's more important for you guys: growing your own brands, or using
a marketplace to drive webshop traffic?
Jeroen Polling
I think it's a mix, to be honest. In the last couple of years we really saw it as marketplaces
versus the webshop. But in the last year we found out that we should embrace marketplace
growth and use it as a channel to redirect customers to our own webshop. Growth has
always been the main focus and strategy of the company. I've been working at Dartshopper
for six years now, and I think we've moved warehouse four times since we've grown so big. So
we move to another warehouse every year and a half or so. And it's a small product, so that's
a lot of stock.
Lucas Bassa (08:31)
Okay, so on the one hand you use marketplaces to drive webshop traffic. On the other hand,
it's a good place to boost your brands. Why is it such a good place to sell your own brands
and have them grow?
Jeroen Polling
I think other parties underestimate the potential that marketplaces have. Amazon, for
instance, has by far the most customers. Also with Prime, which are very loyal customers. You
see it with Select on bol as well. And I think there's always that particular group that only
wants to shop on Amazon. They start searching on Amazon. If we focus on the webshop only,
we lose the potential of reaching those customers, instead of embracing it and selling to
them on another platform.
Lucas Bassa (09:13)
So you're saying there are just a lot of users you'd miss if you only sold on your webshop.
Jeroen Polling
Yeah, correct.
Lucas Bassa (09:41)
Because I have a feeling that the whole cannibalisation problem, which was discussed for a
long time in the marketplace world, where marketplaces cannibalise the sales on your
webshop, we're sort of past that. Now it's about leveraging the two together. And in growing
those brands: because you have a big name as Dartshopper, if you start with new brands, you
already have a bit of a starting position, right? Was it complex to get those brands shown and
bought on Amazon or other marketplaces?
Jeroen Polling
It takes time, of course. But with new brands you already know the playing field: how it's
done, what you should do, the dos and don'ts you've learned over the past years. It gets
easier over time to start new brands. However, we never start with a new KYC or a new
registration number, because we've built up authority as a company on those marketplaces.
So we can add brands, but we'll never start a new company for marketplaces only. Simple
fact: ranking-wise, when you don't have authority, it's very hard to reach the top rankings.
Lucas Bassa (11:16)
So you're saying you have an account that has reviews and a lot of good-selling products, so
adding new products is advantageous for you. You see more traffic right from the get-go?
Jeroen Polling
If you launch properly, then you do. But what we tend not to do is simply go live with listings
without a clear strategy, like Vine or an advertising strategy. Simply launching products isn't a
good fit for us anymore, because the market is getting more and more competitive. We're
looking at the market, and we see that other brands really know what they're doing. So the
simple days are over, unfortunately.
Lucas Bassa
Do you have a lot of Asian competition as well?
Jeroen Polling (11:31)
Yeah, yeah. We add new designs all year round, for new products that aren't on the market
yet, and we see that Chinese competitors are unfortunately very good at what they do in
product sourcing. This year we've seen our bestsellers being listed with a similar design, but
at a lower price. To a point where you can't compete with a profitable margin.
Lucas Bassa (12:36)
So I was thinking: in darts it's not like fashion, where you have seasons and old SKUs being
replaced by the new season. But you do iterate on designs, you add new designs. Is that
always a new listing, or do you add them as changes or variations of existing listings?
Jeroen Polling (13:10)
It really depends on the kind of changes you make. You can make changes to some
components, but once the changes are big enough, inevitably you have to change the EAN
as well, which automatically creates a new listing. But yeah, we tend to create new designs
and find new product opportunities, simply because, like I said, otherwise the Chinese
competitor will outprice you with a similar design. Maybe lower quality, but they always
communicate it like it's the best option, and there's a price point where customers say: well, I
just have to try this.
Lucas Bassa (14:01)
Yeah, the problem as well is that previously, three or four years ago, you'd really see a
difference in visuals. Most of the products are still made in Asia, but European brands would
have amazing visuals, and the Chinese sellers would have quite basic, text-editor-style
visuals. But now with AI it's quite easy to make pretty decent visuals. So the difference in
perception is really hard to see. I notice it as a consumer myself as well. At some point you
just have to try it.
Jeroen Polling (14:20)
Yeah. Luckily for us, AI finds it really hard to generate a good dartboard. Once generated, it's
mostly as big as a table or as big as half this wall. So it's not always the best fit. For regular
darts, for instance, it's really easy to add an atmospheric image, something like that, to make
it fit in and really give the customer the atmospheric experience they want. But dartboards
are one of those things AI struggles with.
Lucas Bassa
Like counting up or down, too.
Jeroen Polling (15:25)
Yeah, or the number ring. The numbers are wrong. It's a benefit for us, since we make most
of our images ourselves. We also support it with AI, but we have high brand standards for our
images. So it's a chance for us to have it as a USP. Otherwise, we can't really embrace AI
ourselves for product imagery. So it's still a lot of manual work.
Lucas Bassa (15:55)
And you're saying, okay, sometimes when it's a small change, you'll keep the existing listing.
But indeed, as you mentioned, and I've experienced this as well, there are rules for product
changes. If the packaging changes, if a dimension changes by a certain percentage, or the
product changes colour and shape, you need a new product code, a new EAN or GTIN. And
therefore a new listing. To me that sounds like you'll still launch quite a few new listings
throughout the year, right? New products.
Jeroen Polling (16:24)
Yeah, especially now, since we made a shift within our company structure. We really focus on
product development, and we think that for our own brand, that's where the future is.
Instead of adding some bestsellers and hoping they sell next year. Especially with the
strategy of the Chinese competition, next year is not an option for us. So we really have to
invest in the brand itself, to make sure customers can have a one-stop shop for our brand as
well.
Lucas Bassa (16:53)
Yeah, so you want to build very strong brands that aren't prone to different retailer
agreements and whatever. So if you launch products, from your experience, and you already
mentioned a few things: do you have a playbook when launching a new product? What are
the steps you take to have a good launch?
Jeroen Polling (17:19)
So first of all, obviously, you have to make sure your listing is perfect, so there are no flaws in
the listing. Whether it's the bullet points, a bad SEO title, or your imagery. It has to be perfect.
I tend to focus on variations as well, because giving the customer good options tends to lead
to a higher conversion rate. Vine: I've already told you I'm a big fan of Vine, but we don't use it
for all products. I think we have to really specify which products are potential bestsellers and
which aren't, because price-wise it can be a bit on the high side. And advertising-wise,
starting immediately with top of search while you only have three reviews can be quite
costly. So you have to slowly start building advertising authority, and build your organic rank
likewise.
Lucas Bassa (18:20)
Maybe good to highlight: Vine is something Amazon offers. You pay Amazon, and Amazon
ships your products out to Vine reviewers. I would love to become a Vine reviewer, but I think
you have to be invited for it.
Jeroen Polling
Yeah, I've already asked, because I want to be one as well.
Lucas Bassa
You get a lot of new products.
Jeroen Polling
Yeah. Well, you can accept products. There's a whole Vine page where you can click, like, "I
want this product." And then you have to write a review within two months of receiving it.
Lucas Bassa
So you build up to 30 reviews for an investment.
Jeroen Polling
Yeah, but you build them up quite easily and quickly. Amazon itself says you need about 15
reviews for your listing to be advertising-ready. And I've also experienced this: advertising on
a listing that has no reviews is just throwing money away.
Lucas Bassa (18:46)
There are always alternatives that work well, but it can still take some time, so it's something
you need to start early. What would you say is a good starting point to really crank up
advertising? How many reviews would you need?
Jeroen Polling (20:08)
I think it really depends on the category you're in. For instance, we have a category where we
sell one particular product that doesn't really have competition. Of course, demand is still
low, but you can redirect traffic to it from other listings you advertise on. So I wouldn't say
there's necessarily a clear number of reviews you need. It really depends on the amount of
competition you have. If there's a lot of competition, I think starting at 30 or 40, depending
on how high your star rating is, is good enough to really open the tap on advertising.
Lucas Bassa (20:56)
And you mentioned redirecting as an alternative way to get traffic to new listings.
Jeroen Polling
Exactly. So you can start slowly by advertising on a product that doesn't really have
competition. A dartboard and darts, for example. Or let's say you have a new surround and
you want to advertise it on the dartboard. You can do that, or you can use the bullet points or
the description as well, to subtly communicate that adding the surround to your setup is a
good benefit for your complete setup.
Lucas Bassa (21:37)
So you'd run product-targeting ads with your surround, where you're targeting your own
listings?
Jeroen Polling
Yeah, correct.
Lucas Bassa
Okay. And one that I've liked to use in the past is highlighting the listing as a newer variant of
an older listing. So then people see: hey, there's a newer variant available.
Jeroen Polling
Exactly.
Lucas Bassa (22:10)
So, okay, once you have a bunch of reviews, you start advertising more heavily. Is there a
specific approach you take to advertising?
Jeroen Polling
Well, we use a clear strategy with three different kinds of campaigns: an auto, a manual and
a PAT, so a product targeting campaign. We separate the three campaigns. One is for
harvesting, one is for our well-performing keywords, and one is just for product targeting, like
I mentioned before. And we use that strategy on either focus products or products with a
lower margin. So we've built a scale of products that are interesting for us to advertise on,
and ones that are less interesting.
Lucas Bassa (22:54)
And that scale: what is it based on? Is it based on profit?
Jeroen Polling
Several factors. It can be profit, it can be potential. We've done market research into how big
the market is, and in which category. We've analysed a lot of listings on Amazon. It was very
time-consuming, but we've now learned the strategic possibilities. So let's say a product only
has ten sales a month, but it could potentially reach a thousand sales a month. Margins
could be lower, but in potential it gets a much higher score. So we've made a whole
scorecard, and based on that scorecard, we put each product in a certain bucket.
Lucas Bassa (23:43)
Cool. And you mentioned a term that not all listeners might understand. You have a
campaign for harvesting. What is harvesting in this context?
Jeroen Polling (24:17)
Harvesting means, for instance: I have a dartboard, and I add a harvesting campaign, which
doesn't only advertise on the word "dartboard" but also on "dart space board" or "dart board".
So several keywords that wouldn't necessarily be in the manual campaign. It tries out
potential. Sometimes it gives visibility to certain keywords. It's like the learning phase for your
manual campaign
Lucas Bassa
Yeah, so you might get a conversion on "red dartboard", and it might do very well. That tells
you: hey, this could be a keyword we want to target manually. So you can tweak it a bit. And if
you have a keyword in your high-performing manual ad group, do you exclude it from your
harvesting campaigns?
Jeroen Polling (25:04)
Yeah, we use a system that does that automatically. But how we tend to do it is that we also
track rankings on certain keywords for certain products. We have several focus products, and
we check the organic rank daily or weekly to see if we've risen in the organic or sponsored
rank. That way we can also see the potential of those keywords.
Lucas Bassa
Ideally you want to be in first place organically, and you can use advertising to help your
organic rank grow.
Jeroen Polling (25:51)
It really depends. Sometimes we also want to isolate the number one sponsored spot. But
that's mainly due to Chinese competitors who are lower in price, for instance.
Lucas Bassa
So you just want to maximise your exposure. And the tool you use for advertising: is that an
in-house tool or a third-party tool?
Jeroen Polling
Third-party tool.
Lucas Bassa
And you probably also do the advertising setup with that tool, right?
Jeroen Polling
Yeah.
Lucas Bassa (26:21)
Nice. Okay, and once you have advertising going, do you stick to that plan for all products? Or
is there a moment where you say: okay, these products are meeting expectations, these
aren't, so we'll tweak some things?
Jeroen Polling
It really depends, again, on potential and also on forecasting. There's only so much stock we
can purchase before the season. The season is always at the end of December and the
beginning of January.
Lucas Bassa
Is that the darts season?
Jeroen Polling (26:52)
Yeah, the darts season. That's because football has stopped. It's the winter break, and then
there's the World Championship. And it's very cold outside. When it's 30 degrees, nobody's
going to play darts indoors.
Lucas Bassa
I remember, actually, we were in an Irish pub and they were showing the darts, and everyone
was watching. It's quite a popular pub sport to watch here. So your peak season is from
December until...?
Jeroen Polling
The end of January. So it's a very short season. The peak starts earlier, but that's when most
people are interested.
Lucas Bassa
So it's Q4 up until the end of January.
Jeroen Polling (27:46)
Yeah. When you watch a Champions League final, you don't think you could do it yourself.
But when you watch two guys throwing darts at a dartboard, it looks like an easy game.
While it's actually really hard, to be honest. But it looks easy.
Lucas Bassa
Have you ever thrown a 180?
Jeroen Polling
I did once, but yeah, that's it.
Lucas Bassa
You probably have dartboards in every meeting room.
Jeroen Polling
Yeah, we do.
Lucas Bassa
Nice. We have one here in the canteen as well. It sees quite a lot of use. It's a low barrier to
entry, but it's very hard to do well. But okay, you have a very short season, so scaling up or
down depends on the analysis you made up front, whether you're meeting expectations, and
the season. Because you probably won't discontinue advertising if it's not the season yet.
Jeroen Polling (28:40)
No, and it also really depends on the amount of stock we have. We've made a forecast, but if
a product is doing very well on Amazon and the webshop is also doing very well, then we
have to make a choice before getting a restock in. Those are the moments where we have a
discussion: do I really need this on Amazon, or do we focus on our own webshop? And it's not
always the same answer.
Lucas Bassa
So it's situational?
Jeroen Polling (29:00)
It really depends. If there's a lot of potential on Amazon and I really need the listing live.
Because if you go offline on Amazon, you're basically screwed. You have to start all over again,
especially in the season. So no, it's not always the same answer. We tend to look at it per SKU.
Lucas Bassa (29:28)
So you mentioned that quite a bit, right? That it's situational, case by case. I think that's a
good takeaway: there isn't always one answer for every case. So maybe for the next segment:
we've discussed quite a few things. Launching products, going from reseller to private labels,
scaling to new countries. What would be the three golden nuggets you'd give the audience,
that they can learn from your experience at Dartshopper?
Jeroen Polling (30:13)
I think, apart from Amazon: from our experience, try not to invest in all the marketplaces and
be active on all of them. It really depends on the potential of that marketplace. You have a
KYC requirement you have to pass, you have the integration within your integrator you have
to do, and you have to get it into your own e-commerce environment. And sometimes the
potential, the market on that particular marketplace, is really small.
Lucas Bassa (30:51)
So are you focusing on that particular marketplace, or are you getting rid of all the
marketplaces?
Jeroen Polling
Well: stop adding all the marketplaces, and focus on the ones with the highest potential. I
think the second one is advertising. Only invest a lot of time and money in advertising once
you feel your listing is perfect and offers the perfect customer experience. Because in the
end, advertising is very costly, so you want to get the most out of it. Get the best variations
and the best listing possible. And the third is: make the integrator work with you, and see the
potential of using the best integrator. We've built our own AI agent that scrapes all the API
errors we might have in our integrator and automatically reports them to us. So it really saves
us a lot of time. We don't need to check everything by hand, because Amazon tends to
change a browse node once in a while. Or, like I found out recently, I saw it on LinkedIn:
Amazon is shifting from very long titles to very short ones. Eventually there will be API errors
on those listings as well.
Lucas Bassa
And you get a notification from your agent.
Jeroen Polling
Yeah.
Lucas Bassa
You have to show me that sometime, because that sounds very interesting.
Jeroen Polling
Yeah, because it changes quite a lot.
Lucas Bassa (32:44)
So, okay, summarising. The first one is: don't just jump on the trends, but really look into a
new channel before adding it. Because you're also saying every new channel you add
removes focus from the channels that really add value for you.
Jeroen Polling
That's how we see it. And I think, sorry, once you really know you've done everything well on
your side, then there's time to look at other marketplaces. Adding new marketplaces also
adds operational complexity for your team.
Lucas Bassa (33:21)
Yeah, so really know what you're getting into when you add a marketplace. And the second
one was advertising. In general, advertising can be a big money pit. You're saying: really,
really optimise your listings, strive for 100% completeness before you start advertising, and
really get those reviews in. There's Vine, there are other ways you can do it as well, but be
creative. You need those reviews. And the third one is: work with your integrator, not against
it. For me that's also about having your integrator really set up, though it's a bit of a sales
pitch from my side. If you have your integrator set up properly, then the first point, scaling to
another marketplace, also becomes easier, because the operational core is already there. And
I think you mentioned something with the AI agent that's really cool to dive into after the
episode. But I think those are some concrete tips. I also liked the way you went through the
product launch part. I think that's still a bit tricky, especially if you launch a lot of products. It's
quite hard to do it right every time. You also have to take into account that launching a
product well can be an operational nightmare, since you don't want to launch the product
right away once it comes in. Some parties tend to do that, just launch it, but then you lose
the honeymoon phase immediately. So you need a good structure settled in your company
to really make optimal use of the honeymoon phase on Amazon, and on other marketplaces
as well.
Jeroen Polling (35:22)
Yeah, correct. Those first three weeks after launching a product.
Lucas Bassa
So do your preparation before launching, not once your item is live. That's a big takeaway.
Okay, Jeroen, I think that wraps it up. Thanks for the conversation.
Jeroen Polling
Thanks for having me.
Lucas Bassa
Great insights. And let's throw some darts.
Jeroen Polling
Yeah, okay, will do. Thanks.
Kamelia Pusheva
Author
Kamelia Pusheva is a Demand Generation Manager at Channable, passionate about building marketing that balances strategy, creativity, and impact. She focuses on demand generation initiatives that educate and engage B2B SaaS audiences, collaborating closely with brand, product marketing, and sales to turn ideas into campaigns that drive measurable growth.
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