Takeaways from Amazon Accelerate 2022

I was happy to have attended Amazon’s premier annual seller conference, Amazon Accelerate, on September 14-15, 2022, in Seattle. It was great to meet and understand the vision of many of the Amazon Executives in person, including Doug Herrington, CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores; Dharmesh Mehta, Vice President, Worldwide Selling Partner Services; and Mary Beth Westmoreland, Vice President, Brand Protection and Selling Partner Support. Understanding the resources being applied to the Amazon Seller Community, including new services, tools, and programs launched in a pilot or soon-to-be-released status, was refreshing. Some great new features and tools to help Brands stand out and tell their story. I love the A+ Premium Content capabilities now available to qualifying Brands, which is a huge opportunity to sell to commercial customers with Amazon Business.

Commercial Products on Amazon

With over 5 million registered customers, Amazon Business is a massive opportunity for Brands to consider commercial and consumer products. I meet regularly with many Brands that feel that Amazon is great for consumer products but not the right target market for their commercial products. TIMES HAVE CHANGED!

• 66% of B2B decision makers now believe digital interactions are more important to customers than traditional sales interactions, which is up 48% before the pandemic.
• Amazon Business simplifies buying for organizations of ANY SIZE!
  • 80 of the Fortune 100
  • 92 of the largest hospitals
  • 90 of the most populous local government
  • 75K+ Tax Exempt Charitable Organizations
  • 28K Faith-Based Organizations
  • Millions of SOHO, Small, Medium, and Large Companies

With a huge relevant selection, innovative tools, and features like Business Prime, more and more business customers are learning and buying their commercial purchases through Amazon.

New Premium A+ Content

Puneet Singh, Senior Manager, Product Management, Brand Experience illustrated the benefits for Brands to leverage Amazon’s new Premium A+ Content feature to help better tell their Brand Story and add more interactive features to bring their products to life with more compelling copy and visuals. With Premium A+ Content, Brands get to add text, images, hotspots, video, comparison charts, a carousel, and Q&A. Your images can be at a high resolution of 1462 x 600 and you have seven modules maximum per detail page up from a five-module maximum with Standard A+ Content. Having compelling and interactive content helps customers understand why they should choose your product. According to Amazon’s studies adding Standard A+ content to your product pages increases sales by 8.5%, but adding Premium A+ Content can show sales growth of close to 21%! Although access to Premium A+ Content is a FREE feature, there are several requirements that you will need to meet before you can leverage this feature.

Major Announcements

During Accelerate, Amazon revealed a couple of new features and programs:

• Amazon Launches Veeqo, Free Shipping Software for Sellers, Including Discounted Shipping Rates. View Press Release HERE
• Amazon Unveils Additional Analytics and Data to Empower Seller Success. View Press Release HERE
• Amazon Introduces Marketing Solutions to Help Sellers Using Buy with Prime Attract Amazon Shoppers and Grow Sales. View Press Release HERE
• Amazon Launches Free Email Marketing Capabilities for Sellers to Reach Their Repeat, Recent, and High-Spend Amazon Customers. View Press Release HERE

Recaps:

 Recap Day 1:

Recap Day 2: