Successfully selling on Amazon: These 10 commandments every seller should know!
Online retail is a tough business. And success with Amazon FBA on the Marketplace is particularly competitive. Those who want to set up their sales stand right at the entrance instead of camping somewhere in the last corner must invest effort. It is not enough to offer their products in any way and hope that enough buyers will accidentally stumble upon the offer and find it good. Those who proceed this way will neither land on page 1 of the search results nor win the Buy Box – and thus have almost no chance of generating revenue.
Instead, Amazon has certain guidelines that determine the fate of individual items or even an entire seller. The good news: The crucial success factors can be regulated by sellers themselves, thereby influencing how their revenue develops on Amazon – both positively and negatively. Whether one can directly intercept the online shopper or leads a lonely existence at the back must not be left to chance. However, there can be no talk of miracles – selling products successfully on Amazon does not happen overnight, contrary to popular belief. Good optimization takes time and relies on constant observation and adjustment. What sellers need to pay attention to will be explored in more detail in this blog post.
10 commandments for marketplace sellers
1. Ranking optimization or Buy Box? Make your choice!
The goal of every Amazon seller should be to either optimize the ranking of an item or win the Buy Box in order to sell successfully on Amazon. Doing both at the same time is only sensible in rare cases. Instead, sellers must make a choice, and this decision largely depends on the type of product, as the following table shows:
| RANKING OPTIMIZATION | WINNING THE BUY BOX |
|---|---|
| Own products that are not offered by anyone else. Here, the seller has control over the product title and description, the images, and the other content, and can optimize them accordingly for specific keywords. | Third-party products that are also offered by others. For third-party products, the seller has only limited influence on the product presentation, which is why the Buy Box should be the means of choice, as most buyers opt for the seller that Amazon presents in the Buy Box. |
2. Focus on high-quality content!
Quickly take a photo of the item with your phone – a bit blurry, but that’s fine. Then just scribble the product description in a hurry – spelling mistakes, well, everyone makes those sometimes, right?
This is probably true, but sloppiness does not contribute to selling successfully on Amazon. The product description, seller information, or any other content that the customer sees should always be of the highest quality possible. This appears professional and builds trust with the seller. The product data sheet should, for example, provide only product-relevant content and describe the goods in detail, but still specifically and – very importantly – truthfully. Otherwise, more customers will return items than necessary, even if they are high-quality goods. Links to one’s own webshop or advertising for other products also do not belong in the description.
Unless it is a pure white item, a light background is still the first choice, as it best highlights the object itself. A sufficiently high resolution also ensures that the customer can still see details when zoomed in.
3. Think about SEO optimization!
If ranking optimization is the means of choice, sellers should not lose sight of SEO optimization, which is essential for selling successfully on Amazon. Which keywords are meaningful to include in the description for which product must be determined by sellers. For this purpose, it is advisable to conduct research on the respective item using tools like the Keyword Planner from Google Analytics or other free tools such as keywordtool.io.
Another good option is the auto-suggest suggestions provided by the Amazon search. For “dog leash,” for example, these include “flexi” or “leather.” This way, sellers can get a good impression of what potential customers are actually searching for. Incorporating synonyms is also a good idea.
Keywords should also be included in the bullet points. However, a peculiarity of marketplace SEO compared to the Google variant is that keyword density has no significance for success on Amazon. Intentionally using certain words multiple times is therefore not sensible. However, the most important ones should always be included in the title. In the bullet points, it is advisable to include additional important keywords and features of the product without losing sight of the readability and usefulness of the content or the target audience.
4. Avoid keyword dropping!
However, it would be the wrong approach to engage in outright keyword dropping. The product description should always be easy to read and sound natural, describing the product as accurately as possible. Too many keywords, perhaps even without any connection, are more likely to scare off customers than to contribute to selling successfully on Amazon. It can be more helpful to keep the different customer types in mind while writing.
Because unreadability, missing information, or unnecessary descriptions would significantly reduce the customer’s dwell time. This is important for selling successfully on Amazon, as the algorithm assesses the relevance of the offer to the search query based, among other things, on dwell time. In the worst case, the algorithm may not display the item for that search query at all, and the seller misses out on sales because, for example, they were careless with the product description or title.
5. Provide perfect customer service!
What distinguishes a bad customer experience from a good one? Sometimes it’s just the customer service! Even if the presentation is perfect and the product wins every award – something can always go wrong. What matters is the customer’s experience, how problems are handled. If this is positive, even a bad experience can turn into a good one. If the customer comes back afterward, sellers have definitely been able to sell successfully on Amazon.
Customer inquiries should be responded to promptly – ideally still today – and everything should be done to resolve the issue. This is sometimes simple, as it may only require a piece of information (“Is your dog leash suitable for small dogs?”), but it can also be difficult (“The leash was already broken! What a lousy business!”). In addition to a friendly and courteous response, it is now important to help as straightforwardly as possible, for example, with a quick refund or the free shipping of a replacement product. Online sellers can certainly orient themselves to the unbureaucratic standards of the shipping company, as successful Amazon sellers have understood that buyers are accustomed to the high customer orientation of the eCommerce giant. Money-back guarantees and similar offers also build trust. The key word here is definitely goodwill.
6. Maintain your reviews!
Bad reviews of products or sellers are never a good showcase in the online world, and especially not if one wants to sell successfully on Amazon. Customers are shown the average score as well as the individual reviews from buyers, which naturally influences the next potential customer in their purchasing decision. But not only that – the Amazon algorithm also registers the reviews and pulls the emergency brake if there are too many negative judgments about a seller: Then winning a Buy Box for this seller is no longer an option, which could lead to significant revenue losses.
This leads to several conclusions:
Only flawless items are sent to the customer. This is also an important point, as the return and defect rates in turn influence the chances of winning the Buy Box.
7. Provide flawless shipping – or FBA!
Few factors influence customer satisfaction as fundamentally as the shipping conditions. Especially for Marketplace sellers, it is extremely important to meet the high standards of the eCommerce giant. Because those who order in the Amazon environment have corresponding expectations. Offering customers same-day delivery, preferred dates, or package tracking can therefore make the difference in whether sellers can sell successfully on Amazon. Late deliveries are also a no-go – if this happens frequently, it directly affects ranking and the Buy Box.
Many sellers therefore use Fulfillment by Amazon, or FBA for short. This allows the shipping giant to take care of the entire fulfillment process, from storage to returns. For those who want to save themselves the stress and logistical effort, FBA is one of the best options for selling successfully on the Amazon marketplace. This is because their own goods are automatically found in the Prime category – which now has a significant influence on the purchasing decisions of online shoppers. However, since the service is certainly not free, sellers should carefully consider beforehand whether FBA is worthwhile for the entire range or if only the top sellers can be handled through it.
8. Create ads with Amazon PPC!
As an Amazon seller, it is always about increasing and maintaining one’s visibility in the search. SEO optimization and the Buy Box play a crucial role in this. Additionally, there is also the option to place advertisements in the search results. With “Pay per Click,” sellers pay for each click generated by the respective ad. The advantage of Amazon PPC is that this tool typically allows for a faster improvement in visibility than pure SEO optimization.
At the same time, there is also an interrelationship between SEO and PPC. While the former is a prerequisite for a good click-through rate of the PPC campaign, the latter improves the organic ranking. To sell successfully on Amazon, both measures should therefore be combined.
9. Also think about marketing outside of Amazon!
Amazon may be a world of its own – but Amazon users are found everywhere. The shipping giant holds almost 70 percent market share in German eCommerce and thus has an impressive reach. Those who shop online are highly likely to shop on Amazon as well. Potential customers are therefore not only waiting for sellers in the Amazon search but also generally in the depths of the World Wide Web.
Those who want to sell successfully on Amazon should therefore engage in early marketing and expand their own brand outside of Amazon as well. Having a dedicated website, a newsletter, and a well-maintained social media presence are invaluable. Clever sellers can also rely on these sales channels to generate positive reviews and promote the launch of new products.
It doesn’t have to be every social media channel at once – it’s better to focus on one platform and do it well than to maintain all platforms half-heartedly. Appropriate tools like Hootsuite can help with this. The more personality and emotion a brand has, the more likely it is to achieve good customer loyalty.
In addition, social media, Google ads, and links on one’s own website can increase the conversion rate. Those who are successfully directed to the Amazon offers from there are more likely to purchase from that specific seller.
10. Keep an eye on competitors and adjust your prices!
Knowing and monitoring the market and competitors in its product category is a must for any seller who wants to sell successfully on Amazon. Nothing is more frustrating than overlooking a trend that would have perfectly suited one’s own brand. Moreover, the price is one of the most important factors when it comes to ranking, Buy Box, and closing sales. A price deviation of just a few percentage points upwards can already make it extremely unlikely for a buyer to find an item. However, a price that is too low is also not necessarily crowned with success on Amazon, as the corporation would also lose revenue, which is why the algorithm punishes this as well. Keeping an eye on the prices of others is therefore crucial.
Manual price adjustment may still be manageable for a few items in the portfolio – however, with larger assortments, this task quickly becomes an impossibility. Therefore, sellers should automate this process and use appropriate repricers. This analyzes the market at every moment and automatically adjusts the prices. An appropriate lower limit also ensures economic profitability.
Conclusion: Success on Amazon is more than just SEO!
Setting up one’s assortment on Amazon, doing some SEO optimization, and then hoping for a lot of traffic – that definitely does not work! Selling successfully on Amazon as an online retailer is work, as the shipping giant consistently focuses on the user’s shopping experience and demands the same customer orientation from its Marketplace sellers, whether in shipping, service, or goodwill policies.
Poor seller performance is punished by the algorithm faster with bad rankings than most providers would like. However, those who adhere to the rules of the game, improve their SEO optimization, and engage in marketing outside of the Amazon cosmos can benefit from the structures of the shipping giant and be successful and profitable in the long term.
Image credits in the order of the images: © oatawa – stock.adobe.com / © tumsasedgars – stock.adobe.com / © Andrey Popov – stock.adobe.com
