According to Amazon, between June 2019 and May 2020, Spanish commercial partners (Amazon sellers), mostly SMEs, sold more than 40 million products through the marketplace. This represents an average of 80 products per minute and according to Amazon, more than 50% of total sales on the platform.
In addition, of the more than 9,000 SMEs headquartered in the United States, the in Spain, the 50% is exported worldwide.450 million euros in international sales in 2019. The figures are unquestionable and the growth of the online giant seems to be endless at the moment.
Therefore, more and more businesses, both online and offline, are trying to gain a foothold on the platform to increase their sales and benefit from the millions of potential and loyal customers it has around the world.
But is it all as nice and easy as it looks? If you're reading this post, I'm sure you at least intuit the answer by now. No, it isn't.
Amazon has earned the trust of millions of consumers around the world by subjecting its sellers to stringent requirements and quality standards. Selling on Amazon, involves an exhaustive catalog management, an impeccable logistics service and an impeccable customer service at all times. And it is not cheap, because the platform, apart from charging a commission for each sale, forces sellers to take care of all returns regardless of the reason.
If, even so, you have not lost hope, and you believe that your products can have a good outlet in the marketplace, we provide below a series of tips that will help you to make some important decisions:
Before embarking on the adventure: do your research!
It seems like a no-brainer but it is essential to mention it. Before we start, we must first do a little research to know exactly what we are facing. Are our products already sold on Amazon? Are they in demand? Are there many competitors selling what we are selling? And at what price?
To help us in this task, we can simply get into the market and search or use tools that make it easier. There are many that can be easily downloaded on the Internet.
In our experience, Amazon may be a good idea for you if:
- You have an interesting and untapped market niche.
- You are a manufacturer, so your products are unique and without competition.
- If your business is based on sales rebates and you can be very aggressive in pricing.
Relating to listings or product sheets:
If your products already exist within the platform, in principle you will not have to do anything except "hook" to that listing (product listing) that already exists. The good news is that someone has already done that work for you, but in this case there are several things you have to keep in mind:
- Verify that the listing in question is of good quality: that the title and description of the product are good, the photographs are good quality, etc. If not, the only thing you can generate are returns.
- The more sellers are attached to a listing, which are grouped according to the EAN code, the more direct competition for the Buy Box of that product. A little further on we will give you some advice on this particular subject.
- Important: a listing cannot be edited once published. If there is some kind of serious error in it, the only way to change it is to request it directly to Amazon, but I can already tell you that it is not easy or fast.
If you are not convinced by what has already been created, or it does not exist, I am afraid you will have no choice but to create the product sheets yourself and from scratch. If your product already exists, to differentiate yourself you will have to "invent" a new EAN code.
Describing a product correctly is laborious, but it is worth investing the necessary time in this step. A quality listing will rank much better organically. and will save you returns and negative comments from customers. And remember, once created and published, you will not be able to edit it directly to modify it.
Register your brand
If your brand is already registered in the country where you want to sell, do not hesitate. You don't need to be a manufacturer to do so and it has many advantages:
- Amazon puts the emphasis on the products, but not on the sellers. With your registered trademark, listings created by you will help you to to promote the brand image of your company.
- You will have access to A+ contenta much more complete and visual way of describing your products that ranks much better organically than normal listings.
- Allows you to create your own multi-page store and free of charge on Amazon. With this you will get even more visibility for your brand and/or company.
- Amazon will proactively protect your products from potential counterfeiters, and will also provide you with a complaints office for these types of infringements.
- In case you want to make paid advertising within the platform (Amazon Ads) having the trademark allows you to make certain types of campaigns such as Brand or Display.
Tips to increase your % of Buy Box Wins
If you are hooked on listings already created by other sellers (or if they are hooked on yours), you will inevitably have to compete with them in the battle for the coveted Buy Box. According to Amazon, 80% of sales are closed by the seller who has won this position.
So what can we do to make our % of BBs won as high as possible?
- Price: the more important, the better final price we have, more possibilities.
- Logisticswith prime shipments in 24 hours, free or urgent shipments we will have more possibilities than if we deliver in a longer period of time.
- Ratings: the more trust generate, the more chances we have of winning it.
- Stock: running out of stock of a product on a regular basis reduces our chances of winning.
- Customer responsiveness: try to respond to customer inquiries in less than 24 hours.
Choose the logistics method that best suits your needs
Amazon gives priority in ranking search results to those companies that choose to use its logistics service (FBA). But obviously this also comes at a cost. It is important to study all the options well to see what we are most interested in.
Regardless of this, products with "free shipping" and delivery times within 24 hrs. are more likely to come out on top.
Also note that you can work with different logistics options at the same time. That is, you can have several catalogs created in your account and work with each one with a different logistics option.
Final "survival" tips
Mistakes on Amazon are costly and expensive. Product blocking, account suspensions and withholding or suspension of payments is what awaits us if we consciously or unconsciously make certain types of mistakes. To avoid this, keep in mind that:
- The customers to whom you send products are NOT your customers. They are from Amazon, and if they catch you trying to "loyalty" or capture any of them, they will close your account immediately and with no reopening date.
- Make sure that the products you sell are in good condition. allowed by Amazon's policies.
- If you have an extensive catalog, start small. Start with top selling items that you control well and as you become familiar with the interface, procedures and logistics, you will increase your product catalog.
So much for our list of tips to be successful sellers on Amazon. We hope you found it useful and if you put some of them into practice, let us know your experience!
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