When it comes to selling your goods on Amazon, eBay or any of the hundreds of marketplaces available to sellers all over the world, we can always use a helping hand.
But, as nearly 50% of all product searches now start on Amazon, even if you’re catering to every other available marketplace, if you’re not selling on Amazon, you’re missing half of your opportunity to sell.
Luckily, ChannelAdvisor is here to help.
We sat down with our expert on marketplaces – Mahomed Ibrahim – to talk all things Amazon and specifically how sellers can get the most out of the marketplace – whether a ChannelAdvisor customer or not.
Here are Mo’s top tips for selling on Amazon. To listen to the whole conversation, click here and listen to an audio recording of our chat.
· SEO As a seller you need to think about SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) to ensure you’re as visible as you want to be. Utilise key phrases your potential customers are using your listing to ensure your listings show up. Sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised how many fail here.
· Be Granular Categorise to the most granular level. It isn’t enough to list your men’s shoe range under men’s shoes. You need to identify which ones are boots, trainers sandals etc. And ensure you’re easy to find.
· Bullet Use bullet points effectively. Bullet points are visible above the fold when viewing an item on a desktop and visible below the description field on the mobile app. Customers are impatient so the less they need to click or scroll the more of their attention you will have. The goal is to get as much information in the title and bullet points.
· Analyse Competitors Look at what your competitors are doing. The simplest way to do this is search for your item as if you were a customer wanting to buy. Identify what shows up first in the natural search results, what has the “Amazon’s Choice” badge or best seller and compare the listing to yours. Amazon ranks them highly for a reason, find out what it is and emulate.
· Consider A+ Content Amazon A+ content allows first-party sellers on Amazon to add more images, details and to in essence tell more of their brand story. Electronics manufacturer Aanker is a great example of this. Get more information on Amazon A+ content here.
· Remove Irrelevant Feedback With Amazon, you can’t respond individually to feedback as you can with other platforms but you can ensure feedback is relevant. So, if a disgruntled customer leaves a negative seller review for a product or a negative product review for a seller – then Amazon can assist you with the removal of the comment.
· Act On Feedback if your product has negative reviews, find out why and act on it. Amazon reviews are a key driver in purchasing, so poor reviews are hurting your sales. If there’s a consistent point customers are talking about – act on it, show your customers they are being heard.
· Compete On Multiple Fronts Being competitive is a given, but remember you’re not only competing on price – there are other differentiators to keep in mind. I have had so many sellers ask me, I’m the cheapest but I don’t own the buybox – why? Amazon doesn’t only gift the buybox based on the lowest price, it is based off seller feedback, delivery method and more. Amazon also naturally favours FBA. Keep all this in mind when you’re setting up your listing.
Mo’s Expert Tip
If you take only one thing from this article then take this – get off your high horse. You are selling on another’s platform, so follow their rules. Don’t try and game the system, you will be found out and penalised – or worse, kicked off. Follow the rules, use best practice and you’ll see the results.
Interested in speaking with Mo about your e-commerce conundrums? Drop us a line here and one of our e-commerce experts will be in touch.
