The Optimal Amazon (FBA) Launch: These Strategies Work Best
In seller circles, an Amazon launch refers to the introduction of a new product on the Amazon marketplace. This topic concerns all sellers at least once: whether an experienced Amazon veteran or a complete beginner, everyone must deal with successfully launching new products on Amazon. Sellers need not only to have a good product but also to be well-prepared and to implement a well-thought-out strategy.
This article aims to help you overcome all the big and small hurdles in product launch. Many launch strategies that have circulated online may have worked a few years ago but are now outdated or even harmful. Instead, learn how to do it right now and give your product a successful start.
Finding New Products and Preparing for the Amazon Launch
The foundation of any good product launch is the product itself: with a poor product, you may achieve short-term success, but as soon as the first negative reviews and returns come in, the apparent success will turn into its opposite. Therefore, you should invest considerable thought and effort into product selection and sourcing.
Get Inspired – Product Selection as the Foundation of Every Amazon Launch
Finding a good and suitable product is not easy for beginners. They often lack the experience and intuition for a profitable product. However, only those who take the plunge, make mistakes, and celebrate successes can build a profitable Amazon business. Not every launch will take off immediately on Amazon, and sometimes a product may not work at all. Be prepared for this – it should not jeopardize your entire existence.
To find inspiration, you can certainly browse relevant platforms like Alibaba, Zentrada, and others. The advantage of this is that you can see directly what purchase prices to expect. Amazon itself can also be a good source for trends and bestsellers. But be careful: just because a product sells frequently does not mean it is sold profitably or will work in your specific case. You should keep an eye on your competition.
The Competition
Take a look around on Amazon. Which products are performing well, and which are not? Find out what your potential competition is doing, what prices they are setting, how many sellers there are, how detailed the product detail pages are, and so on.
A large number of sellers suggests that the targeted niche is highly competitive, and many providers only get a small piece of the pie. Conversely, few listings may indicate that selling is not worthwhile – or that you have stumbled upon a lucrative, yet untapped niche. To assess this, you need to closely examine the listings, the sellers, the products, the purchase prices, the selling prices, and the estimated sales volume. Additionally, pay attention to whether there are many large sellers or also some smaller ones involved.
At Amazon, customers tend to buy where they feel familiar. If a well-known provider could be one of your competitors, you should carefully consider whether you want to enter the market – especially if you are still new. After all, this also means that you are unknown, and what the farmer does not know… You will have to make a significant effort in marketing before you can compete with a big player.
From the Trick Bag: The 999 Method
To get a sense of a product’s sales potential, you can use the 999 method. Unfortunately, the competition will hardly provide you with information about how sales are going. Here’s a fairly simple trick, provided you don’t have an appropriate analysis tool at hand. Click on the product and add it to your shopping cart. Then increase the quantity to be ordered to 999. Typically, you will then be shown that the respective seller only has a certain amount in stock left.
You repeat this process daily over a certain period, for example, for a month, and note the respective stock levels. This way, you can estimate how many orders come in per day.
Unfortunately, this does not always work, as sellers can also set a maximum order quantity, which will then be displayed to you.
Nevertheless, the 999 method can be a helpful approach to get an initial impression of a product’s sales. Here you will find a step-by-step guide in video format:
Prices
By now, you have learned quite a bit about the market situation of the product. Since you are already in the process of spying on your competition, you should also take a look at their prices.
You should use the selling price as a rough guideline around which you have some leeway, but it shouldn’t be too large. If a comparable product costs €15, you cannot offer yours for €30. If your product has added value for the customer that the competitor’s product does not have, you can certainly set the price a bit higher.
If this is not the case and you want to sell the same product as your competitor, you need to set a competitive price. Not only does the algorithm negatively assess prices that are too high or too low, but the final price on Amazon is also an extremely important factor for potential customers. Therefore, it is better to calculate a bit more conservatively than to take too much risk.
Make sure to also engage with the topic of repricing. You may have already noticed during your competitor analysis that prices can change multiple times throughout the day. A dynamic repricer constantly checks the current market situation for you and adjusts your price accordingly. This is important for winning the Buy Box or achieving a good ranking. Ensure that you use a dynamic tool rather than a rule-based repricer, ideally one that is AI-supported. Additionally, you should be able to include not only a minimum and maximum price but also your purchase prices and other costs in the price optimization.
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Fulfillment
When launching a new product on Amazon, you also need to choose a shipping method. This decision will affect your costs, which we will examine in the next section. As a seller on Amazon, you generally have three different options for handling your fulfillment.
Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)
Since the online giant places a high value on the perfect customer experience, it has developed a shipping method that leads to the highest possible customer satisfaction – Fulfillment by Amazon, commonly referred to as FBA. For the end customer, this means free and fast shipping, excellent customer support, easy return processes, and much more. The seller benefits not only from this customer loyalty; FBA products are also labeled with the Prime badge, which many customers filter for during product searches.
The clear advantage of FBA is that you delegate most tasks to the online giant, which is a specialist in customer service. As an Amazon FBA seller, you simply send your goods to an Amazon logistics center. From there, the online giant takes care of all further steps – from storing the products to picking and packing, as well as shipping and handling any returns.
Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM)
Alternatively, you can also take care of fulfillment entirely on your own and handle all processes from A to Z. However, these products will not receive the coveted Prime badge. Additionally, building your own logistics can be extremely costly and difficult to manage, especially for beginners.
Seller Fulfilled Prime
An alternative to the FBA service could be the Seller Fulfilled Prime program, which is only accessible by invitation and requires comprehensive quality assurance. Additionally, Amazon provides the seller with specific guidelines for processing (e.g., requirements for the shipping service provider). Naturally, these products are also labeled with the popular Prime badge, allowing access to the largest buyer group on Amazon, the Prime customers.
Which of the three methods best suits your business depends on many factors, such as the size of your goods.
The Optimal Amazon Launch: Basic Knowledge
In addition to a good product and a well-thought-out pricing strategy, especially beginners should have a certain basic knowledge before embarking on their first Amazon launch.
The Amazon Algorithm
There are many rumors surrounding the algorithm of the e-commerce giant. However, the important information is well-established, and the details are not so interesting for marketplace sellers. The algorithm ensures that customers are only shown products in the top positions of the search results that are relevant to them and their search query. The greatest influence on the relevance rating comes from performance, specifically the click-through rate (CTR) and the conversion rate (CR).
These important metrics are influenced by other factors. The CTR is primarily affected by the product photo, price, rating, and title. The CR, on the other hand, is particularly influenced by the product page, namely the brand and product presentation, including A+ Content, product images, bullet points, and reviews, as well as the shipping method.
In the past, it was possible to quickly rank among the bestsellers with a good Amazon product launch. It’s not that easy today, as the algorithm now also takes long-term performance into account. Nevertheless, sellers can lay the foundation for optimal performance with good preparation of the product listing.
Search Engine Optimization (Amazon SEO)
When planning an Amazon launch, you often have the invaluable advantage of being able to create a completely new product page. You can include your own images, optimized descriptions, and well-crafted bullet points.
You should take advantage of this and design your content in an SEO-compliant manner. For this, you need to know which keywords customers use to search for products like yours. Once you have conducted such research, you can incorporate these search terms into your product title, bullet points, product description, and backend.
Good search engine optimization is not rocket science. Here you can read all the details: Amazon SEO: How to Optimize Your Listing.
Advertising, PPC, Sponsored Ads, and Customer Reviews
A new product on Amazon needs to be promoted. Only then will it be noticed and purchased by potential customers. A great product with flawless SEO won’t do you any good if hardly anyone is aware of it.
It’s not just about traditional advertising like PPC campaigns (Pay Per Click) and Sponsored Ads. A subtle yet very effective method to increase awareness of your product is through customer reviews.
In addition to the Amazon product testing club (Vine), there are numerous Facebook groups where you can offer your product for testing. You provide your product for free or at a discounted price in exchange for reviews.
Another way to reach more interested customers is through discount codes that allow your product to be purchased at a reduced price. This not only increases your sales but also raises awareness of your product. Learn more here.
The Optimal Amazon Launch: The 5-Step Strategy
Not every product is the same. Marketplace sellers should always keep this in mind. The following steps may work for many launch projects on Amazon, but in individual cases, additional measures may still be necessary.
Additionally, it may be necessary to make the first sales without a margin or even at a loss. This is something that especially beginners, who often do not have a large financial cushion, should be aware of. Important: Products should not continue to be sold without profit after the launch phase. To maintain your profitability, a professional profit dashboard is therefore essential.
Step 1: The First Sales
The product detail page is designed with sales psychology in mind, all keywords are included, and professional product photos have been uploaded – perfect. Once the listing is online, the focus shifts to generating the first sales.
It may be tempting to simply enlist family, friends, and acquaintances for this purpose. While this approach is not fundamentally prohibited, it should be approached with caution, as product reviews should not be submitted by relatives or close friends. Amazon’s guidelines prohibit this.
Step 2: The First Reviews
Product reviews are extremely valuable for the algorithm. However, they are subject to certain restrictions to prevent purchased or other fake reviews. This includes the fact that sellers must not provide any compensation in exchange for a review, and family members, friends, etc., should refrain from leaving reviews, even if they have purchased and paid for the product through Amazon. Otherwise, the seller risks account suspension.
Instead, there are several legal ways to generate reviews. A good option for starters is Amazon Vine. In this program, products are provided for free and are reviewed anonymously but honestly by testers. Sellers can easily set up participation in Seller Central under the “Advertising” section.
We have summarized additional legal ways to collect reviews here: 6 Ultimate Tips on How to Generate More Reviews on Amazon.
Step 3: The First Advertising (Amazon PPC)
Once the first few reviews have been submitted, the exciting phase of the Amazon launch begins. Now it’s about getting the ball rolling and achieving more sales, more reviews, and thus more sales again. PPC ads should definitely be utilized, as they can help even a brand-new listing appear at the top of the search results. Whether an order is generated organically or through advertising is secondary – for the algorithm, a sale is always a signal to push that particular product. As the ranking improves, more sales occur, which in turn enhances the ranking, and so on.
However, make sure that the promoted product page is optimized. With Amazon PPC (“Pay per Click”), billing occurs per click on an advertisement. A poor product listing does not generate sales, and if no sales are generated, it is wasted money to advertise on such a page.
The same applies to the PPC campaigns themselves. After some time, they should be reviewed again, evaluated for effectiveness, and optimized if necessary. However, give your campaigns some time initially so that the algorithm can learn.
Step 4: The First External Traffic
Up to this point, the focus has been solely on Amazon. Many strategies for a successful Amazon launch end here. However, the internet is vast, and even though most online shoppers have an Amazon account, it is invaluable to reach customers outside of Amazon as well.
On one hand, this is possible with Amazon DSP. However, this form of advertising can also be quite expensive. Another option is to use ads in the Meta universe, primarily on Facebook and Instagram, or Google and YouTube, as well as TikTok Ads. Collaborating with influencers can also be worthwhile depending on the type of product.
Which platform and target audience are promising can vary greatly from case to case. Therefore, if you do not have your own expertise in performance marketing but want to test this potential at least once, you should seek support for it.
Step 5: The First Price Optimization
Once you notice that you have successfully gotten the ball rolling and the product is regularly moving over the digital sales counter, you can begin to dynamically adjust your product price. If you may have sold in the initial phase of the Amazon launch with very little or no margin, you should change that at this point. After all, in the long run, you want to operate profitably while remaining competitive.
Professional price optimization on Amazon is no longer possible without a repricing tool. In some product categories, prices change every second. No one can keep up with that, especially as the product range grows.
A repricer, on the other hand, optimizes the product price 24/7 according to the current market and competitive situation and offers many advantages for Amazon sellers. Not only does a repricer work independently in the background, but it also ensures that sellers sell at the highest price achievable under the current conditions. However, there are a few criteria that should be considered when selecting the tool:
The SELLERLOGIC Repricer for Amazon is a professional tool for price optimization that meets all these criteria and more. Secure your free 14-day trial today and maximize your sales through the AI-powered repricing of the German market leader.
Conclusion
Launching new products on Amazon not only requires good preparation and planning, but also a considerable amount of expertise and knowledge. Don’t worry if your very first Amazon launch doesn’t go perfectly – most beginners experience the same. Practice makes perfect. However, be aware that you should have financial reserves to potentially start over if needed.
Place great importance on an optimized product page and professional product images before launching on Amazon. Your SEO should also be completed. Then, start generating the first sales and reviews before moving on to directing advertising and external traffic to your listing. After that, proceed to dynamically optimize your prices.
Frequently Asked Questions
An Amazon launch or Amazon Product Launch refers to the planned introduction of a new product on the Amazon marketplace. A high-quality product should be chosen for this purpose. In the first step, sales and reviews are generated, and subsequently, advertising is placed for the product listing.
1. Go live with an optimized listing. 2. Generate initial sales. 3. Participate in the Amazon Vine program to receive reviews. 4. Run advertising, both on and possibly outside of Amazon. 5. Dynamically optimize prices.
Image credits in the order of the images: © Nina Lawrenson / peopleimages.com – stock.adobe.com / © kiatipol – stock.adobe.com / © inthasone – stock.adobe.com / © sam richter – stock.adobe.com
