With Amazon dominating the online market place for product sales, more and more brands are beginning to jump on board, selling their products on the most searched product platform behind Google.
Amazon try to make setting up an account as easy as possible, with plenty of guides and a dedicated forum to help you However, there are a few things you need to know which aren’t always obvious.
After a fantastic training course by Prabhat from Online Seller UK, we found out some insider tips which we are happy to share with you.
Accounts
There are four different accounts available on Amazon, however, only two can be chosen by you as a customer. Amazon must invite you to the other two. The two available can both be found on Seller Central, and are ‘Fulfilment by Amazon’ (FBA) or ‘Self-Fulfilment’. Our tips are described below:
- The first tip is to ensure your product is suitable for FBA, as this gives you a massive advantage when trying to sell a new product. Amazon favours FBA products and ensures all products are delivered reliably.
- By selling on FBA you can get your product on Amazon Prime, increasing sales.
How To Sell On Amazon
Once you have set your account up you need to:
- Perform keyword research for your products
- Fill all of the product keyword boxes (utilise the full character limit using keyword stuffing techniques)
- Fill and use basic html to write the product description (bold, bullets, underlines and tables are all allowed)
- Upload as many product images as possible
- Ensure all product details are complete and the product numbers are correct
- Start selling
- Set up Amazon advertising campaigns
- Optimise the campaign
How To Win The Amazon Buy Box
This may seem obvious, but to give your product the best chance of selling you need to try to win the Buy Box (insert image). When there are the same products sold by different sellers, the Buy Box only appears on the product page that Amazon thinks is the best.
These are a few things that Amazon look at when picking who wins the Buy Box:
- Product price
- Fulfilment method (FBA is preferred)
- Feedback rating
- Refunds
- Historical sales
Your products, however strong they may be, aren’t guaranteed to win the Buy Box. As you can see, there are a number of factors which are taken into account. To help you to win the Buy Box you should:
- Encourage product reviews
- Use sponsored products to increase sales
- Sell the product cheap at the start to get sales and reviews
- Follow up buyers with an email to encourage reviews
The more sales and positive reviews you get, the more likely you are to win the all-important Buy Box.
Improving Your Amazon Advertising Campaigns
Amazon allows sellers to promote (sponsor) their products to increase sales. Here are a few tips showing you how to get the most out of your sponsored products:
- Set an automated bidding campaign up to run for 3-4 weeks (set the maximum cost per click as 30p)
- Use the collected data to then create manual campaigns using the terms that have converted in the 3-4 week trial
- Use tools such as Sellics and Sonar to aid with campaign management
- Utilise the manual campaign settings to bid up to 50% more in order to appear at the top of the search results
What Tools Can You Use To Aid With Amazon Selling?
As with any online venture, there are hundreds of tools out there to aid you. From keyword tools to ranking tools, all of them are there to help you improve the performance of your Amazon campaigns and increase product sales. Here are just a few which we think are worth looking at:
- Jungle Scout – product comparison tool
- keywordtool.io – keyword research
- Price Pirates – price comparison tool
- AMZ Tracker – paid combine tool that covers keyword tracking, competitor sales and more
At the start, we mentioned four different accounts. The other two are vendor accounts and these are for brands and products that Amazon wish to sell. Amazon will approach you as the brand to set up a commission scheme and will sell the products for you.
So if you are looking to sell your products with minimal financial investment, then Amazon is a fantastic opportunity. If you have a new product or just want to increase sales of an existing product we would advise trying Amazon. But please ensure you follow the tips above or get in contact with us for advice or management services.