Selling on Amazon can be challenging. The platform has changed significantly over the last few years and is constantly innovating and improving on its offering. It can be hard to keep up with the latest best practices of what to do and what not to do.
What are the dos and don’ts of selling on Amazon?
#1 – Do advertise on Amazon
As you would implement a PPC strategy for your owned site, you should do the same with Amazon Advertising. Invest in paid search advertising on the Amazon platform to make sure your products can appear for relevant search terms and audiences.
At the bare minimum, you should be running brand protection campaigns to make sure you can compete against others who may be running campaigns on your brand terms.
#2 – Do invest in high quality imagery
High quality product imagery is one of the cornerstones of best ecommerce practice whether this is on your site or on your Amazon store.
Some customers will still have a level of mistrust against some Amazon products and will use imagery to identify if the product is authentic or not.
Customers will use your imagery to visualise the product and help them understand if they would like to make the purchase, so you need to make sure it is high quality.
#3 – Do use A+ content
Amazon uses its A9 algorithm to organically deliver the best product to the right search term (although it does affect paid advertising too).
You need to optimise your product descriptions, bullet points, imagery etc. to make sure your products have all of the right information and so that the algorithm can deliver your products accurately in search results.
#4 – Do create an Amazon Brand Store
An Amazon Brand Store can act as a ‘homepage’ for your store on the marketplace, where you can promote content, products, videos and more.
On this page you can promote your USPs as a retailer, commonly asked questions about your products, your history and heritage and more, to effectively communicate your brand positioning to potential customers.
Amazon Brand Stores are also one of the places on the marketplace where clients will not see ads of your competitors.
#5 – Do encourage reviews
Reviews are the backbone of Amazon and you need to make sure you have a reviews strategy when selling on the marketplace.
You want to make sure that you minimise the number of negative reviews by encouraging positive reviews, improving the customer experience through purchase to delivery, and providing all of the relevant information for customers so that they have well-managed expectations about the product.
#6 – Don’t forget to register your brand
Don’t forget to register your brand on the Amazon Brand Registry. To be able to enrol in the registry, you need an active registered trademark and you need to be able to prove ownership of the brand.
Once you have a registered brand, you will have greater control over your product listings and also have proactive brand protection from suspected infringing products or inaccurate content.
#7 – Don’t ignore Amazon rules and ratio targets
Amazon has criteria you need to meet in order to win the ‘buy box’ and be a respected Amazon seller. If you do not meet some of this criteria, then Amazon will undoubtedly punish you in your search rankings and ‘buy box’ win rate.
These vary from ratios about product pages and imagery through to rules about delivery.
Make sure you are familiar with all of the relevant rules and make an active effort to ensure your team is following them.
#8 – Don’t add text to images
Don’t add medium or small text to your product images. Those images will be sized down to fit different areas of the marketplace and sized down again to fit small mobile devices.
Your original message will be a blurry cheap creation to run away from.
#9 – Don’t launch products too late
Don’t launch products a few days before their expected top-selling period. Amazon uses algorithms. They need data and time to understand your product and you need time to optimise the listing and advertising to achieve the highest ROI.
Seasonal products rarely do well on Amazon regardless, but if you are launching new products only occasionally, make sure you speak to your Amazon agency to best manage the timing of the launch.
#10 – Don’t expect Amazon to work like other platforms
Finally, don’t expect Amazon to work like any other of your platforms and distributors. They have their own rules, their own customer behaviour patterns and their own risks.
Whilst there are similarities with other marketplaces, you should not rely on your knowledge of those other channels to help you achieve ecommerce success on Amazon.
Work with experts and seek guidance from other retailers selling on the platform.
The world’s biggest ecommerce marketplace
Amazon is the world’s biggest ecommerce marketplace and a huge opportunity for retailers. Some retailers find selling on Amazon challenging, whilst others use Amazon as a second retail channel to rival their owned store.
However, you need to understand the dos and donts of selling on Amazon so you can best achieve ecommerce success.
If you’re looking to grow sales and win market share on the platform through Amazon marketing and are looking to work with Amazon experts, then get in touch.