The Una Brands Acquisition Process: Unearthed

Are you currently considering exiting your ecommerce business and wondering what the process and offer from an aggregator actually looks like? Una Brands is a seller-centric ecommerce aggregator, fostering transparency and awareness regarding the acquisition process. Our talented team of leading industry experts have decades of experience in Amazon, Shopify, Shopee and Lazada platforms as well as deep supply chain and technology expertise, and can supercharge your brand in no time. Don’t believe us? Take a look at this case study of one of our very first acquisitions: an Amazon Clock Company!

The Acquisition

4 years ago Kim from Melbourne founded a successful amazon business that sells clocks and timers. Last year Kim was looking for an exit and so decided to approach Una Brands. Kim lacked the time to manage and scale her business further and had concerns about negotiating the best supply-chain options for her rapidly growing brand. After we heard how Kim had managed to grow her brand into a thriving enterprise, we were thoroughly impressed, and saw a great fit in terms of leveraging our expertise and processes to create a best in class business.

The Valuation

Una Brands considers various metrics when valuing a brand - some of which include the annual profit, revenue growth, total SKUs (Stock-Keeping Units) amongst other things. (If you would like to learn more about how to get the best valuation for your business, check out our other blog post here!) After careful consideration by our Investments team, Una Brands was happy to offer Kim a generous SDE multiple (Seller's Discretionary Earnings) for her business (the SDE is equal to the revenue minus the COGS, fulfilment and marketing expenses). This high multiple was due to the incredible work she had put into maintaining a high SDE profit margin, high year-on-year growth, low number of SKUs, and a number of other factors. After the quick 5 week process of finalising the acquisition and conducting due diligence, Kim happily accepted our offer as well as our profit-share and consultancy arrangement for her to continue to profit off her continued advisory work in the future. This component is an optional arrangement for sellers who desire to stay involved in the brand post acquisition.

Trailing 12 Month Profit For Kim's Clock Business

The Operations Team: Business as Usual

After the acquisitions process, we then handed over the daily running of the business to our operations team in order to manage business. Our migration process begins with a thorough review of Kim’s entire systems, to fully integrate all necessary processes into Una Brand’s proprietary tech platforms. This means that previously manual work such as managing changed orders, processing refunds, and managing customer feedback has become fully automated.

Additionally, within the first few months our operations team optimised Kim’s warehouses, integrated her clock company fully into our trusted and resilient supply chain networks, and we also negotiated a 33% price discount from her suppliers. Meanwhile, our in-house marketing team worked on maximising Kim’s SEO (Search Engine Optimization) by doing extensive keyword research and further improving her product listings.

Growth: Accelerating the Brand

At this stage, Kim’s brand has a dedicated team of experts ensuring its success. Kim’s brand managers work with her to develop and research new products that arise from extensive data-driven research, and her team is further looking into expanding Kim’s clocks both internationally, and also on other platforms. Additionally, our in-house marketing team have been working tirelessly to optimise PPC marketing, market on additional avenues like social media, as well as to film new product videos and pictures that showcase her clocks in their best light. Since the initial valuation, the annual profit of Kim’s brand has increased by 43%.

As she was able to decide her level of involvement, Kim still consults with us about the direction of her brand. Una Brands is incredibly proud of what we have managed to achieve with Kim’s clock company, and we are looking forward to seeing what new heights it will reach next!

Are you looking to sell your brand, or know someone who does? Sign up for a free valuation with us today! 30 minutes is all we need.

If you would like to learn more about our acquisitions process, come watch a short video here!

Contact: elle.solferini@una-brands.com

*All seller names used are pseudonyms