The Amazon Seller marketplace can provide a new avenue to businesses of almost all; size, industry and marketing budget, however generating a return on investment (ROI) or return on advertising spend (ROAS) is not as straightforward as you may expect.
With great business opportunity comes myriad challenges, and this article shares my top 3 Amazon Seller tips which can work for you regardless of industry or business offering.
The main focus of this article is practical and actionable tips which you can implement today, or take note of when starting your new Amazon Seller account.
Making The Most Out Of Amazon Seller Central
Once you’ve read the terms and conditions and signed up to the Amazon Seller Agreement the temptation can be to simply submit your product feed and expect the sales to come flooding in, but that is unlikely to be the case for many businesses, especially if you have not considered the top tips and advice Amazon provide within their Seller Central business resource.
Whilst it may appeal to you to skips a few steps and recommendations included in Amazon’s Seller Central resource, try your best to avoid this, as whilst many of the feedback items are recommended best practice, they have been provided to help business to compete more effectively and ultimately to sell more. Frequently deemed small oversights (example not adhering to image guidelines) can have substantial negative impact (generally removing products from displaying in the Amazon marketplace).
What New Amazon Sellers Should Do:
- Supply a business name to support brand gains and trust
- Maintain up to date business contact information to remove barriers to sales
- Give buyers shipping/postage information (including price!) to remove buying ambiguity
- Upload a suitable business/brand logo to support visual recognition and mobile opportunity
Things To Take Note Of When Listing Products:
- Categories matter a lot – take time to place your products in the right search areas
- Be aware of the Amazon Style guidelines for products to help keep them active and ranking
- Create unique and compelling product descriptions – don’t scrape other content
- Use high quality, unique images to help your products stand out (a ‘picture paints a thousand words’ after all)
- Research the keywords that you use – include them in the product title and description where applicable
Focus Your Efforts On Generating Great Reviews
Positive customer product reviews on Amazon are a key area which you should focus on as part of your ongoing strategic approach towards successful marketing on the Amazon platform.
According to financial experts WorldFirst business should:
Try to encourage reviews from customers especially reviews including media, product pictures or descriptions of usage. Positive reviews can build trust with prospective customers and are a stamp of credibility when you are still building your profile. Source: WorldFirst – Amazon Sellers.
They go on to state that businesses should not be:
Disheartened by negative feedback and instead, use it as a way to improve your business. Addressing negative feedback proactively via the marketplace platform will make you look more engaged with customers and more committed to the customer experience.
When it comes to reviews it is not just about the review rating! The volume of reviews and frequency also matter considerably.
Customer reviews have an expiry time which offers business both an opportunity as well as a threat to the positive impact derived from generating and maintaining ongoing positive customer sentiment on the Amazon Seller marketplace.
All feedback (positive and negative) can be seen as an opportunity for the business to get involved with their target audience, settle disputes, and drive the customer sentiment towards a more positive outcome.
Reviews can become a fantastic means to turn ‘would be’ one-off customers into active brand evangelists who share purchases socially, talk about the brand naturally, and generally spread the positive word based on the experience they received (an unhappy customer is often more motivated to spread unwanted feedback – another reason to act on sentiment insight).
Price Point Is Crucial
If there is one single item that will impact your conversion rates on Amazon the most it is the price of your products!
Price is a primary comparison feature on the Amazon marketplace and as you would expect with Amazon shoppers, the price is also the key driver for transactional intent purchasing.
You may feel that your product offering differentiates itself based on other factors like features, value and more, however, Amazon buyers are much more price sensitive than the traditional online buyer, or website visitor. The main reason for this is that the user is considering Amazon as the comparison aggregator saving them time and money shopping around.
This Amazon buyer mentality lends itself to more expedient purchasing decisions and increased sensitivity to, and awareness of price points.
Many companies opt to sell products at discounted prices on Amazon compared to their main website(s) and supplier networks. Even minor price adjustments can substantially impact the volume of purchases and conversion rate optimisation (CRO) of product sales.
Whilst reducing prices can seem daunting, especially if profit margins are already fairly constrained, price changes can be implemented as part of the marketing mix. Amazon can become a marketing medium for stock clearance, change of product lines and selling frequently upgraded products (example technology) where prices can rapidly decrease with the introduction of upgraded ranges.
Conclusion
Selling on Amazon can provide businesses a wealth of new opportunity and access to a global audience but Amazon is not without its hazards.
Three of the key areas that you should consider when selling on Amazon are:
- Making the most out of Amazon advice in the Seller Central resource
- Putting in place ongoing measures for generating fresh, regular customer reviews
- Placing extra emphasis on price points – it matters more than ever on Amazon
