Winning in E-Commerce: Ryan Flynn, '05, Transforms Brands on Amazon
By Lia Kizilbash Gillet

Ryan Flynn, '05, founder and CEO of ExpertCPG Commerce, helps brands start out or scale their Amazon business. (Photo: Ryan Flynn)

Navigating Amazon’s endless options and reviews can be dizzying for consumers, but for brands, the landscape presents far greater complexities. 

Ryan Flynn, ‘05, founder and CEO of ExpertCPG Commerce (formerly Charmac) helps brands navigate the chaos. He is a 
seasoned expert committed to guiding brands through Amazon.

Flynn leads a skilled team of 12 full-time employees based in the U.S. and the Philippines to ensure his clients stand out and create more meaningful connections with customers.

“We offer programs for brands just starting on Amazon as well as full account management for brands that need support scaling and growing,” Flynn said. “We provide the strategy and execution for Amazon so our clients can spend their time growing other areas of their business.” 

Since 2015, Flynn has grown ExpertCPG into a seven-figure-a-year business, consistently working with over 30 clients.

“Our clients include brands selling millions of dollars a year on Amazon alone to clients that can be found on store shelves across the United States and worldwide,” he said. 

Working with Blue Stop Max, a Texas-based company that sells personal care products to relieve body aches and joint pains, Flynn and his team developed a strategy to transform Blue Stop Max’s Amazon business. They developed a fully optimized approach responding to Blue Stop Max’s unique needs.

“We overhauled their listings, addressed pricing conflicts with their in-store SKUs, and helped grow their account to new heights through advertising and marketing,” Flynn said. “It’s been rewarding to see their success both on and off Amazon.”

ExpertCPG tailors its strategies to respond to its clients’ specific needs and goals, but its success didn’t come without unexpected challenges. In 2019, Flynn faced the tough decision to shift ExpertCPG’s business model.

“What we were doing wasn’t working,” he said. “We learned that we couldn't serve everyone who wanted to sell their products on Amazon. Instead, we identified the profiles of our ideal clients in order to replicate the success we had with our first few brands. It required restructuring agreements, laying off some folks, and rethinking everything—but it led to where we are today.”

Flynn shares his knowledge and interviews insightful guests on his ExpertCPG Commerce Podcast. Episodes offer actionable tips and inspiring stories from brands that transformed their feelings about Amazon from anxiety to affection.

From as far back as he can remember, Flynn wanted to own his own business. He was drawn to the appeal of seeing a vision come to life and the thrill of doing his own ‘thing’. His first job was a paper route starting in fifth grade which he kept all the way into high school. He also worked at Kellogg Golf Course in his hometown of Peoria, Illinois. 
 

After graduating from NIU with a bachelor's degree in management, Flynn entered the retail management training program at JPMorgan Chase. There, he spent nine years in business development and his last four years working directly with small business clients. 

“I managed some clients who were seeing great success with Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), which had just opened up to independent sellers,” Flynn said. “I started researching more about it and then slowly began selling things on Amazon myself. Six months into it, I left the bank and pursued the business full-time. Over time, we evolved from selling random products to helping brands optimize and grow their presence on Amazon.”

Flynn said NIU gave him a well-rounded foundation in business, building his confidence to leap into entrepreneurship. He chose NIU because he wanted something different and liked its proximity to Chicago. He lived in Grant and Stevenson Towers from 2001 to 2003, fondly recalls watching football games with Michael Turner and Garrett Wolfe on the field, and became a campus tour guide, later helping to manage the tour guide program. 

“My godparents went to NIU,” he said. “My family mostly went to Illinois State, but I wanted something different. When I visited NIU, I loved the campus. Barsema Hall was just being planned at the time (it opened my sophomore year), and it was exciting to be a part of that. I knew I wanted to be a business major, and after a brief stint as an OMIS major, I switched to organizational management. I often wonder how my life might be different (and how good my Excel skills would be) if I stuck with OMIS.”

Joining the Society for Advanced Management (SAM) at Northern helped Flynn connect classroom learning to real-world applications through competitions and speaker events. This experience was further enriched by the influence of NIU Management Professor Russ Hagberg, who made a lasting impact on Flynn's education.

“The exposure to business history and case studies through SAM was invaluable and is something I often go back to,” he said. "Professor Hagberg, with his extensive real-world experience, would frequently pick out stories from the Wall Street Journal’s ‘What’s New’ section and relate them to what we were learning in class. I credit him with inspiring my ongoing subscription to the Wall Street Journal to this day!”

Despite his entrepreneurial success, tremendous support from his wife, Michelle, and personal pride stemming from the courage to carve his own professional path, Flynn said entrepreneurship can be lonely and has advice for new entrepreneurs.

“You’re out on an island, and it’s not like the corporate world where others are doing similar roles,” he said. “No one in my immediate or extended family is an entrepreneur, so I am not the norm, nor do I have people close to me who I can relate to. Joining a peer network of entrepreneurs really helped me work through that and they have been critical in my journey.” 

Flynn stays motivated by his innate desire to create solutions that solve problems, but he says the key is to stay resilient.

“You have to be able to adapt and keep going despite setbacks,” he said. “It took me years to finally leave my corporate job, but I'm a big believer that it's never too late for someone to start their own business.”