9 mistakes you should avoid to kickstart your Amazon business
Few other areas offer merchants such a large target audience as Amazon. However, where there are many customers, there is also high competition. It is all the more important that you establish yourself with your business and provide an outstanding customer journey. This applies not only in terms of the Buy Box but also regarding the search results; especially on marketplaces like Amazon, the competition is often just a click away from you.
In your efforts to establish yourself, many online sellers make mistakes that are avoidable and can even cost them the Buy Box. What these are and what you can do about them can be found here.
It starts right at the sourcing of the goods! If you rely on products from EU foreign countries (for example, from China), you are liable as the importer.
Therefore, you must also take care of the CE marking, as products without this label are not approved for sale in the EU. If you do not comply with this labeling requirement, it can have serious consequences for you. Not only because consumers cannot rely on you in such cases, but you must also expect legal consequences.
You should also avoid low quality of your goods as much as possible. If they break quickly or even endanger consumers, that customer is unlikely to buy from you again. Your reputation can also suffer as bad reviews leave a poor impression on potential new buyers. Therefore, always check your goods BEFORE they go to the customer and rely on trustworthy suppliers right from the sourcing stage.
2 Not recognizing trends early enough
There is hardly a faster-paced industry than online retail. Posts go viral through social media, and trends spread at an incredible speed.
However, once a trend has emerged, it also fades away quickly.
Remember that you are not the only seller in the Amazon cosmos, especially if you are selling commercial goods. In marketing, this is referred to as the product life cycle. This describes the typical course of demand for a product, which generally follows this pattern:
As you can see, growth after the introduction phase is very steep and often rather short. However, this is exactly the period when you should still jump on the bandwagon. If you enter too late, for example, when the product is already in the late stage of saturation, you risk being left with leftover stock. The difficulty here is that the product is still unknown during the introduction phase. As sales increase, so does the product’s visibility. Trends should be recognized during the period when they are still unknown, as described. Only then can you benefit from the rising growth.
Due to the high competition and fast pace in e-commerce, you need to recognize trends as early as possible and engage customers early on. The short-lived nature of the product life cycle can be seen in the trend of the Fidget Spinner:
Towards the end of April 2017, the boom began, and by early September 2017, it was already over. As you can see, it is essential that you recognize trends early enough.
But how do you find trends before they become trends?
The answer is unfortunately a bit sobering: with strategic searches. Regularly scour the internet for new trends and developments. It is advisable not to focus solely on Germany and Europe. After all, many trends start much further away and flow over to us from the USA or Asia. So think big and keep an eye on the whole world.
You can find inspiration, for example, on the pages of Trends of the Future. There, product trends are regularly published. If you already have an idea of which product will soon become a trend, you can search for it on Google Trends and monitor its development.
3 Poor product descriptions or images
The SEO whisperer has preached it so many times: Optimize your product descriptions!
And yet it cannot be said often enough. Poor descriptions not only leave an unprofessional impression and deter customers, but they also affect the ranking on Amazon.
The magic word here is: KEYWORDS. Yes, the SEO whisperer has been preaching this for a long time. Rightly so.
Based on keywords, the Amazon algorithm matches search queries with products. It compares the keywords that customers enter into the search bar with those that sellers use in their product descriptions. It is clear that you should try to achieve as many matches as possible.
So embark on keyword research. Whether manually or automated with a tool of your choice. Find out what customers are searching for and meaningfully incorporate these keywords into your title, bullet points, and product description.
Text is not everything. Also rely on professional product images. After all, hardly anyone buys an item that has obviously been photographed with a smartphone on a wrinkled bedsheet with coffee stains.
The image is the first thing that catches the eye of potential customers. Here, the keyword is: CTR, or Click-Through Rate (though “click rate” doesn’t sound as cool for the SEO whisperer to use). For the ranking of products, the Amazon algorithm also takes this metric into account. Amazon always wants to provide its customers with the perfect customer journey. If a product is clicked often, it appears to Amazon that many customers like what they see – an indication of a good product.
By the way, here you can find a detailed article on Amazon SEO.
4 Getting lost in the price war
It is clear that the battle for the Buy Box is tough. Many sellers and only one field. This quickly leads to price competition, and sellers try to outmaneuver their competitors in the fight for the small yellow box through tactical price adjustments.
This often happens multiple times a day, and winning the Buy Box frequently costs a significant amount of margin.
Therefore, you should definitely rely on a repricer that goes into the ring for you. The smart tool compares your price with that of your competitors and adjusts yours so that you come out as the winner. Once you are in the Buy Box, the repricer also negotiates the best possible price for you, and your margin increases.
But even if you are not competing for the shopping cart field, you can benefit from automated helpers. We probably don’t need to explain that price and demand are related. Now, you can either manually adjust your price to the current demand or rely on a repricer that takes care of that for you. This way, you can easily set it so that a higher price is set during strong demand and a lower price during weak demand.
No matter which scenario applies to you, with the help of repricers, your price is always up to date and in harmony with the current market situation.
5 Slow shipping
We customers are impatient, and especially since Amazon’s promise of next-day delivery, we want our ordered goods IMMEDIATELY.
One person’s joy is another person’s sorrow. Because such fast shipping processing means stress for many sellers. The order needs to be accepted, the invoice created, the goods retrieved from the warehouse… And then there is also the time that the shipping service provider needs for delivery.
It is therefore essential to have a strong partner by your side. Prefer to rely on a more expensive but professional shipping service provider rather than saving in the wrong place. Those who buy cheaply pay twice. In the worst case, because the customer no longer wants to accept the goods due to the long delivery time and can receive it faster from your competitors.
Another way to optimize your shipping is through FBA. Amazon is known for its (almost) perfect shipping processing, and you can rely on that. You send your goods to Amazon, where they are stored. When a customer orders one of your items, it is brought from a self-driving shelf to a packing employee and packed. From there, the journey directly begins to the customer. Due to the mass of products in Amazon’s logistics centers, the online giant can rely on the latest technology and process shipping faster than any seller.
6 Poor returns management
Returns are as likely in online retail as “Amen” is in church. The dress that looks great on the model thanks to Photoshop doesn’t look so stunning on your own body. The mug didn’t survive shipping well and arrives in several pieces. All of this would have been noticed in brick-and-mortar retail before the purchase or would have been self-inflicted.
Customers trust you when they buy your goods, especially when the goods are paid for in advance. This trust is already shaken by a reason for a return. However, with good returns management, you can rectify that.
But that’s not all: Amazon considers several metrics when it comes to determining the winner of the shopping cart field. If your customers are not satisfied with your returns management, it negatively affects your chances of winning the Buy Box.
Make returns as easy as possible and don’t hesitate to accept them – perhaps even be a little lenient. Customers will thank you with good reviews and recommendations. And your business will benefit when you conquer the Buy Box.
Or you can make it even easier for yourself and hand over this unwanted task to Amazon as well. The FBA service includes not only shipping and storage but also covers returns management (Yay!).
7 Poor or even unfriendly customer support
Well, whether you can still call it support when it’s poor or unfriendly is debatable. Whether it’s questions about products or issues with orders, customers turn to you and seek a competent, friendly contact person.
Especially when you are contacted due to a complaint, you should not add more fuel to the fire by being unfriendly. Certainly, this is not always easy. Who wants to remain friendly when being approached rudely? But you will be surprised how much a friendly, understanding approach can achieve. Often, it even has a calming effect.
But you surely know this and are already applying it?
In addition to friendliness, good accessibility is important. We all know the terrible hold music in even worse quality that almost makes you want to hang up right away. When long wait times (and earaches) are added, it’s not exactly a positive experience with customer support.
On the other hand, it is also frustrating when you send an email to support and receive no response for weeks.
But it’s not just about making the customer happy. Your chances of success regarding the Buy Box also depend on it. Once again: At Amazon, the customer comes first. (Okay, so it actually is again about making the customer happy. Indirectly.)
If customer inquiries are not answered within 24 hours – regardless of whether it’s a weekend, holiday, or vacation – your chances of winning the Buy Box decrease.
Those who do not want to expose themselves to all of this can also rely on FBA. This way, customers are directly connected to Amazon’s customer service, and you can relax regarding that.
8 Avoiding FBA refunds
When you read through the last points, FBA seems like a great thing. And it is! But there are also downsides.
In Amazon’s logistics centers, things can get quite turbulent. Goods are shipped, inventory is replenished, returns are accepted… It’s clear that mistakes can happen, and that’s okay. Nobody is perfect – not even Amazon. What is much more important is that these mistakes are recognized. For this, FBA sellers receive reports on all FBA processes. These must always be analyzed and checked for errors. However, this can quickly grow into a mammoth task and become overwhelming for many FBA users. It’s not just the complicated reports themselves. You also have to take the time for it. And who has that spare time in daily business?
Therefore, every FBA user can rely on automation. Lost & Found for Amazon automatically processes all FBA reports and searches for errors that have occurred. These are prepared and made available in a ready-to-copy format. On one hand, this allows you to immediately understand the processes, and on the other hand, it saves you a lot of work. Because the only thing you then have to do is transfer the pre-prepared text into Seller Central and click “submit”.
“SELLERLOGIC Lost & Found is a real no-brainer. And not just in economic terms. The low costs, the tool, the technology behind it, the services provided, and the team behind it, everything contributes to our overall satisfaction,” says Lost & Found customer Alexander Charatzoglou.
9 Not running ads
At first glance, this may sound a bit strange. After all, advertising is more for large corporations, and at least Thomas Müller needs to be hired to explain what we actually need.
But this image does not reflect reality. We are confronted with much more advertising every day than we think. It’s just that it’s not called advertising but ads.
Take a look around Amazon. You won’t have to search long to find a product or even an entire brand marked with unobtrusive gray text saying “sponsored” – easily overlooked and quickly perceived as an organic search result.
Sponsored means that the seller pays to have their product or brand displayed at the top of the search results. If you look a little closer, you’ll notice that the first rows of search results are filled with purchased results. This is a good business for Amazon. In 2019 alone, the e-commerce giant recorded revenues of 10 billion US dollars for the US marketplace. For those who are not impressed by this amount, it should be noted: This is an increase of over 33% compared to the previous year.
Conclusion
There are several things to consider when embarking on the adventure of e-commerce. From pricing to demand to marketing the products. However, those who are aware of potential mistakes can easily avoid them and kickstart their business.
Because all mistakes have one thing in common: they make you less interesting compared to other providers. So show how good you and your offer are by providing a good customer journey, so that potential buyers want to become your customers! We hope we could help you with that!
Image credits in the order of the images: © Gajus – stock.adobe.com / © VectorMine – stock.adobe.com / Screenshot @ GoogleTrends / © Grispb – stock.adobe.com / © Leonid Kravchuk – stock.adobe.com / © Olga – stock.adobe.com
