A9, the Amazon Algorithm

Among an offer of millions of products, not all of them can appear at the top of the search results page. And this is where A9, Amazon's famous algorithm.
Amazon is the largest marketplace that currently exists. Their customer service and speedy delivery, together with a wide range of products at a competitive price, means that more and more users are coming directly to their domains.
With this, the number of retailers who choose to register as sellers to increase their business sales is also growing. As you may already know, half of the products sold on Amazon are from third parties.

What is A9?

A9 is the name given to Amazon's search algorithm. Its function is classify the products you display to users when they perform a search. Based on different criteria, it decides which products deserve to appear better positioned.

What factors does Algorithm A9 take into account?

It goes without saying how important position to start selling. According to a study conducted by CPC Strategy in 2018:

• 35% of Amazon shoppers click on the first product that appears on the search results page.
• The first three items on the results page get 64% of the clicks.
• 70% of Amazon users never make it past the first page of results.
• 81% of the clicks go to brands on the first page of search results.

Whether you plan to start selling on Amazon, or you already do, you should start paying attention to some aspects so that your products appear better positioned organically:

Sales

The more sales a product has, the higher it appears in the search results and for more keywords. The products with the highest sales ranking appear for more than 8 keywords different. Within this factor, different aspects must be taken into account:

• Sales ranking: Amazon ranks products better in the results page when they have a sales.
• Conversion rate: Amazon prioritizes products with a high conversion rate. good conversion rate. It is a factor that directly affects Amazon's accounts, so if it is good for it, it will improve the position of that product.
• The price: Amazon's goal is to help you find the best price. cheapest product, as quickly as possible. Although this factor is important, it has less influence than the previous ones.
• Products with variants: the products that have different options to be chosen by the buyer (size, color...) improve the user's dwell time on the page as they will spend more time looking at the different product variants. In addition, each variant is sold as different products, so the ratings for each of them are combined.

After-sales satisfaction

Increasingly, users or customers are looking at the reviews of the products they are going to buy, not only comparing prices but also the satisfaction of other customers with that product. Therefore, Amazon takes into account:

• Salesperson with feedback negative: Amazon's robot penalizes sellers with a feedback negative by decreasing the frequency of tracking your products.
• Order processing speed: Amazon sells us the speed of shipments, therefore, it will prioritize in the positions those that offer this speed. Therefore, the A9 Algorithm gives more importance to those that are within its logistics program and have Prime service.
• Inventory rate: If a seller runs out of stock frequently and for several days, weeks or months, Amazon identifies this as poor management by the seller and will downgrade the seller's products.
• Perfect order percentage (POP): this percentage includes the efficiency of all the factors involved in the purchasing or ordering process (shipments, returns, deliveries, etc.).
• Percentage of defective order (POD): this percentage includes the opposite of the previous one. It refers to negative aspects that occur in the purchase process (negative opinions, problems in shipping or delivery, returns, etc.).

Categorization

Amazon's algorithm highly values the inclusion of the category to which the product belongs in the product listing. In this way Amazon will be able to sort it better, mainly when users search by filtering products, and will be more likely to be displayed to users.

Fulfillment

This is an optional service offered by Amazon to sellers. This service, also known as FBA, consists in that Amazon stores, picks, packs, ships and provides customer service for products.instead of being done by the vendors themselves.
This service is optimal for A9 to be well liked and to show the products in the first positions of the results page. But what happens if we do not have this service contracted? You can sell on Amazon without being in the FBA program in these ways, although Amazon will not look at the products with the same eyes:

• Within the prime program: Amazon won't penalize you completely, it's pretty good, they will offer fast shipping, and, therefore, you have a chance of coming up in the search results.
• Sold by a third party but stocked and shipped by Amazon: to this one marketplace loves to be the protagonist, if his name does not appear as a seller and instead the name of a third party appears, he will make an effort to show the products, but he will give priority to the previous options.
• Sold and shipped by a third party: if you sell with this option you will have to put a lot of effort into the other factors that A9 takes into account when displaying products.

Keywords

As in Google searches, keywords are very important to position products. Using the right words the product will have much more visibility. Mainly if you use the specific words used by the user to search for your product.

Discounts

The impact of this factor on the positioning ranking is not too great but it helps a lot. Users tend to click much more on products that are displayed with a discounted price. This increases the CTR and Amazon identifies it as a relevant product.

How can we improve SEO on Amazon product pages?

1. Title: long and detailed. It should include, if not all, quite a few terms of your search keywords.
2. Description: the best would be more than 1,000 characters. Include bullets with the main characteristics of the product.
3. Product information: the little box with the product specifications. By filling it in, users can find us when searching with filters.
4. Photos: including quality photos is VERY important. They make the product description more attractive.
5. Reviews: positive reviews and answered questions help a lot in positioning.
6. Discounts: applying discounts to your products encourages users to click on them, increase the CTR and move up in position.

In summary, taking into account all these factors and improving some aspects of your products, you will improve your SEO and move up positions, thus receiving more clicks and as a consequence more sales, which Amazon will identify as relevant products and will continue to give them priority over others.
And, in addition to this, if you need a little or big extra boost, you can always start doing paid advertising on Amazon, and thus promote your products gaining visibility. If you are interested, you can get in touch with contact with us, we will be happy to help you.