Amazon is one of the world’s most renowned marketplaces and is trusted by both buyers and sellers. This makes it a great place to reach out to your customer base due to the pre-established trust the platform brings.
However, with those benefits come challenges, such as high levels of competition. Amazon currently has 5 million marketplace sellers on the site, meaning it can be difficult to stand out from the crowd and establish your business.
So what can you do to get your products noticed and increase your sales on Amazon?
15 Ways to Improve Sales on Amazon
1. Title Optimization
Optimizing your title is one of the first steps you should take when looking to increase your sales on Amazon. An optimized title can help to increase the number of people that come across your listing and, therefore, can also increase your sales.
The first thing you do when optimizing your title is to ensure it includes all the relevant keywords that will drive those with relevant search queries to your listing. Once you have the relevant customers, you also have to ensure you have the important elements in your title, in the right order. For example, in the case of bags, people often want to know the size, colour and gender it is for. By including all this in your title, you keep customers interested.
Source: Amazon.ca
2. Use Repricing Tools
With large levels of competition, pricing is always going to be a significant factor on Amazon. If a competitor offers a better rate for the same product, you may struggle to make sales. Fair pricing also plays an all-important role in attaining the Buy Box.
One way you can ensure your pricing always remains competitive is by using a repricing tool. These tools help you to monitor competitor pricing and automatically adjust your own product’s price based on set rules you can dictate. Should your main competitor then try to undercut you, your price will readjust to be competitive.
There’s a variety of repricing and price monitoring tools on the market, so take your time and shop around for the one that’s the best value for your business.
3. Keyword Research
Keywords in titles and descriptions are the main drivers of traffic to your listings, as they match with related search queries on and off Amazon. By conducting in-depth keyword research, you can help attract the right customers to your product listings.
There are a wide variety of keyword research tools on the market, all of which can assist in finding the right words to bring in your ideal audience. The more detailed tools tend to have a slightly higher price, but there are also free options if you’re on a tight budget.
4. Image Optimization
Optimized images will help to attract the customer’s attention when viewing masses of listings on Amazon. The best performing images on the platform tend to have a high resolution. They are also very clear with regards to what they are selling, with no unnecessary clutter.
You should also ensure you meet all of Amazon’s image requirements. Otherwise, you risk your product listings being removed.
5. Encourage Customer Reviews
Customer reviews are a great way to show potential buyers that your product and brand are trustworthy and do what they say they do. Reviews from other customers are impartial and therefore provide a better customer experience, social proofing of your product to others, making it easier for them to judge the true quality of your items.
Getting customer reviews on Amazon is particularly important, as most buyers will check reviews thoroughly before completing a purchase. And the more good reviews you receive, the better your item seems. However, getting reviews on Amazon is not a given. You have to actively encourage reviews yourself. You can do this through the ‘request a review’ button or include a review request in your packaging when you ship your item/s.
If you want to increase the number of reviews you receive, consider giving customers an incentive, such as a future discount for your brand.
6. Create Skimmable Descriptions
Skimmable descriptions make your product listings much more effective for a couple of reasons. Firstly, they make your description more accessible across platforms. A mobile user would find it just as easy to read as a desktop user.
Secondly, it also makes your description easier to consume for customers. This is because they no longer have to search large paragraphs of text for the information they want to find. Instead, they can simply look at easy-to-read bullet points, getting the information they want much faster.
7. Clearly Highlight Your Returns and Refund Policy
Customers often get to the point in the purchasing process where they are unsure whether to buy or not to buy. If a return and refund policy isn’t highlighted, they will usually opt for the safe option and not buy your product. However, if you clearly highlight your refunds and returns policy, customers will feel assured enough to complete the process, resulting in more sales.
Amazon already offers its own assurances to buyers that they can return their purchases if they are unhappy. But Amazon’s processes can be sluggish, therefore there is an opportunity here to put yourself ahead of competitors who rely entirely on Amazon for their refund and returns processes.
8. Manage Large Inventory With a Data Feed Service
Making the correct tweaks to your Amazon product listings can help draw additional customers and increase your sales. However, this can become a long and challenging process if you have a large catalogue of products.
By managing your product catalogue with a data feed service, you avoid that kind of issue. This is because you can make large-scale changes across the board, ensuring that elements of your listings such as titles and descriptions are optimized in a set pattern that draws in buyers.
In addition to that, data feed services also allow you to update your feed more frequently than channels do on their own. This means customers always see the most up-to-date information on all your products.
9. Make the Most of FBA
E-commerce is a 24-hour job. FBA (fulfillment by Amazon) ensures that you never get behind with your orders. This is because Amazon will store and deliver all your products for you, taking on all the work for a small fee. Not only does this ensure you are always supplied and ready to meet demand, but it also ensures that your products are available on Prime delivery. Prime eligible products have a higher conversion rate than standard products, due to customers preferring the option of fast delivery. In short, FBA is less work for you, and can lead to more orders!
10. Aim for the Buy Box
The Buy Box is the box situated to the right of an Amazon product page. Attaining the Buy Box can significantly improve your sales on Amazon. This is because most customers will never look at the other seller’s tab, and will just select whichever brand holds the Buy Box at the time and buy from there.
However, managing to get your product into the Buy Box, and holding that position can be quite the challenge. Nobody knows exactly how Amazon’s algorithm for choosing the Buy Box product works, but it is known to consider factors such as:
- Whether the product is sold using FBA or not
- Shipping costs and times
- Stocks
- Order defect rate
- Tracking
- Late shipping and delivery rates
- Feedback
- Time to respond to customers
- Sales volume and inventory
- Cancellation rates and refund rates
Source: Amazon.ca
11. Utilize Amazon Sponsored Products
Amazon Sponsored Products are another useful way to increase your Amazon sales. This on-platform advertisement shows your product at the top of relevant searches on the platform, with the label ‘sponsored’ above it. Although the label allows potential customers to know the listing is being promoted, many will still consider your listing before others just because of its visibility. Sponsored listings are shown before non-sponsored products, giving you a competitive advantage.
Just remember to balance out the costs of sponsoring your product, with the benefits of its visibility. If after sponsoring your product you notice that it does not improve sales on the listing, it may not be a good use of your budget.
12. Use PPC Campaigns
PPC campaigns are an effective way to draw potential customers in and improve your Amazon sales. You can run PPC campaigns on Amazon itself or you can aim to divert traffic from search engines like Google.
Regardless of where you run your campaign, the idea is to draw the right customers to your product listing. Therefore, your keywords need to be perfect, your CTA should be persuasive, and your titles and descriptions should be accurate and relevant to the search query.
13. Make Use of Amazon’s Branding Tools
Selling on Amazon gives you access to a world-renowned brand and all its customers. However, it also means that most brands merge into one on the platform. That is where Amazon’s branding tools come in.
Tools such as Amazon storefronts, and brand dashboard allow you to personalize your brand page that little bit more. This can help you stand out from the crowd, and make more sales on what is a crowded and competitive website.
14. Focus on Products That Sell Well, With Less Competition
Amazon is a platform with a lot of merchants which means, for the most part, you will have a lot of competition. However, some products have more competition than others. The trick is to find products and areas to exploit that sell well, but do not have a lot of competition.
Once you are aware of these areas through your research, you may also find you have existing products on both ends of that scale. Some sell better than others, and some have more competition than others. If you do have existing products that sell well due to minimal competition, it may be wise to focus your efforts on promoting those lines further, as they are the real moneymakers.
15. A/B Test Your Listings
A/B testing your listings is one of the best ways to improve their performance and further your sales on Amazon. To conduct A/B testing, you take two alternative versions of your listings and compare which performs better. This helps you evaluate which variables are effective or ineffective, which can be useful for both current and future campaigns.
Effective A/B testing should be done on a regular basis, even if your product is performing well already. This is because markets can change and fluctuate very quickly, with competitors adapting and environmental factors altering demand and supply.
Final Thoughts
Increasing your Amazon sales may not be an overnight task, but it is a worthwhile one. By following these tips and constantly optimizing your product listings, you will be able to slowly increase your transactions on the site. But remember, don’t stop there. Keep testing and optimizing your listings. By doing so, you will be able to stay one step ahead of your competitors.
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Hi Jacques… that’s a really insightful guide and apt for me right now as I’m looking at some personal projects to undertake. Thanks so much 🙂