'The Apple of potties': How My Carry Potty conquered toilet training on Amazon
My Carry Potty is about to enjoy its busiest year yet.
With a major rebrand under way, new product lines in development, major retail contracts coming to fruition, and the continual streamlining of its eCommerce presence, the innovative business is only going to get bigger and brighter.
My Carry Potty’s phenomenal success can be put down to a couple of things – the strength of the product, and the strength of its Amazon game.
The flagship product is a patented portable and leakproof potty, designed to encourage toddlers to toilet train by being especially attractive and personal to them, so they want to take it everywhere and use it.
At e-Comas we’re incredibly proud to work with this unique brand. Since 2021 it has grown meteorically on Amazon, overcoming several interesting challenges on the way, which provide a great example for other brands selling on Amazon to follow.
Branding challenges
It’s a deeply personal brand: its founder, Amanda Jenner, is still the face and heart of the business, and her son George Eteen-Bliss – the reason she invented My Carry Potty in the first place – is Marketing Director.
But this fantastic, family-focused, award-winning brand had one major branding issue to contend with – and that was with consumers’ idea of it as a travel potty, and therefore a seasonal product.
It’s not a travel potty: it’s a portable potty for use everywhere, indoors and out, at all times of year. “It’s the only potty anyone ever needs, and it’s for at home,” says George. That messaging needed to be amplified to counter an annual winter slump in sales.
One of the best tools MCP has for this is the Amazon Brand Store.
The Brand Store is updated according to season
Sellers can update their Brand Store whenever they want – which allows MCP to alter its messaging and imagery according to the season. For example, one particularly effective promo photo shows two kids in pastel puffa jackets that coordinate stylishly with their My Carry Potties. The winter Brand Store imagery also emphasises the home utility side of the product, rather than travel.
One of MCP’s other tactics is to take an ‘education first’ approach to messaging – and to keep it simple. The idea is to tell the story of the brand and how the product works as economically as possible, using catchy two-word phrases (“goodbye nappies!”) and ‘emoji’ icons – and letting the design speak for itself. Apple is a big inspiration.
“Steve Jobs basically changed the world of consumer-centric marketing, using three punchlines all the time,” says George, “and that’s why they’re so successful. You walk in any Apple Store, and you know exactly what you’re buying.”
Simplifying the messaging has had a real impact on conversion rates, says George – up from 2.17% on the webstore in 2020, to 5.46% now. “And this is just because we’ve simplified everything,” he says.
George also credits Amazon with My Carry Potty’s success in raising brand awareness. He says: “We really saw a huge growth in our brand awareness just through Amazon in 2020-2022; the demand for the product just soared. And that was thanks to Amazon, and that Amazon income allowed us to expand our marketing team. And now we have more time and resources to think about this sort of stuff.”
Omni-channel growth
MCP has a strong omni-channel strategy – but the team always prioritise Amazon, because so many shoppers use it for price comparison, and often end up buying there because of the unbeatable logistics. No other platform comes close, says George.
“People naturally go to Amazon,” he says. “Sometimes there’s better deals, and obviously, the logistics of Amazon are just incredible. And the UI is just ridiculous for customers.”
The brand’s Google and Meta strategies feed into Amazon. The brand is particularly successful on Instagram, with growth from 13,000 followers to 41,000 in the last year. The growth is remarkable given that it’s not a product that attracts lifetime customers: toddlers eventually grow up.
Engaging Instagram game has seen major growth
It’s achieved this through a few innovative methods: loopable ultra-short videos – up to four seconds – to grab scrollers’ attention; using micro-influencers; and giveaway collaborations with other brands.
But ads and posts on social media feed back into Amazon, and it works both ways. MCP is number 1 in the Potties category on Amazon, and George uses its hard-earned Bestseller badge at least once a fortnight in his marketing: “It just holds that authority and dominance,” he says.
Innovative ads
Amazon constantly upgrades the quality and variety of its advertising platforms, and MCP has made great use of them.
In the last year it has used Sponsored Video to great effect. This now has the highest conversion rate in MCP’s ad portfolio. The MCP team are currently creating 15-second CAD ads that will cycle through all the functions of the product, giving shoppers a compelling, at-a-glance reason to buy.
The team are also using Sponsored Brands ads with AI-generated backgrounds to show the product in context. “The possibilities are endless,” says George. “You can spend days doing this, hiring people to take those photos for you in real life – but you can actually just do it on your laptop.”
One other key ad strategy MCP follows on Amazon is brand protection.
For the last two years MCP has ensured that no competitors outbid it on its own brand name keywords.
My Carry Potty is a powerful name – easy to remember, associated strongly with the product, and therefore heavily used in searches by shoppers.
By making sure it’s the highest bidder on its own name – and by targeting its competitors so that MCP comes up on most potty product pages – MCP protects its brand and captures the potty market.
The rebrand challenge
So if the brand name is so strong, you might wonder: why are they changing it?
The reason is simple, and should be easy to communicate to customers. My Carry Potty is the flagship product, but there are so many more in the portfolio – toilet seats, steps, toilet training guides, and new ranges soon to be rolled out, including a swimwear line.
The new name – Kiddi – works better for them all.
The rebrand is being implemented gradually, with ‘My Carry Potty by Kiddi’ branding rolled out first to ease customers into the change.
Gradual roll-out of the new name has begun
In rebranding, the company has been careful not to rush into it, taking lessons from other brands. “You saw Twitter changing to X literally overnight,” says George. “I don’t think it’s been great for them.”
You also have to be a bit careful rebranding on Amazon. “They get slightly funny about using different brand names,” says George. “We’re going to check all of the specifications for that.”
New name, but same ethos, same look across products, including the new swimwear range. “All of our products will have innovative features, they always will,” says George. “There’s always going to be one or two things that separate them from others on the market.”
We’re so excited to see what this incredibly innovative brand does next – and to support them on their Amazon journey going forwards.