Whether Amazon is one of your primary sales channels or you’d like to make it so, there’s still time to grow on this ever-hotter eCommerce platform. While many brands are scrambling for a piece of the pie, the pie is getting bigger. The key to increasing your brand’s sales on Amazon is to stand out from the crowd. The good news is, that’s easier than you might imagine.
Read on for our top 10 tips to boost your brand’s sales through Amazon.
Amazon may have tons of brands competing for the same crowd, but it’s also rife with poorly done listings and mismanaged companies. We’ve all seen product descriptions that are terribly written, inauthentic, or filled with grainy images. Those are huge red flags to many consumers who scammers have burned.
You can instantly stand out by (a) ensuring that your listing looks professional.
and (b) honing your product description and other copy for your ideal customer. Focus on benefits, not features. Tell a story and invite the reader to imagine themselves with your product. On Amazon, shoppers are inundated with choices, so make sure yours is the most compelling one!
Showing up in the right search results is vital to attracting leads — that’s obvious. But on Amazon, the best keywords may not be what you assume. Most people don’t search for “Dell G15 5511”; they search for “laptop for gaming.” Consider your target audience’s driving motivators and pain points, then turn those into key phrases. And remember, they’re often searching by asking Alexa!
Other important keywords or key phrases could refer to your products’ distinctive attributes, e.g. “made in America” or “cruelty-free.”
Spend a good amount of time researching keywords that would make sense for your ideal customers. You may get your best results by targeting long-tail queries that specifically capture the shopper’s interests. For example, “leather-bound undated planner” is more valuable than just a “planner.”
People skim web pages rather than thoroughly read them. So in addition to making your product description easy to read, illustrate your product’s benefits with compelling graphics. For example, a labeled product photo or detail close-up goes nicely with your main images.
To grab readers’ attention below the fold, create a large infographic with key benefits, product diagrams, step-by-step guides, and other helpful information. This helps you stand out from sellers who rely on Amazon’s plain text blocks to talk about their products.
In today’s eCommerce landscape, trust is everything. Many Amazon shoppers have no interaction with sellers; some don’t even know that Amazon is a sales platform for other businesses! So, by showing a presence on your product pages, you can gain their trust.
When shoppers submit a query in the “Customer questions & answers” section, be sure to respond. It could mean the difference in closing a sale. Plus, other people can see your response and that you care about your customers.
The more positive reviews you have, the more enticing your product listings become. When comparing Seller A with 20 reviews and an average of 4.7 stars versus Seller B with 500 reviews and an average of 4.3 stars, most shoppers will choose Seller B. Even though the average star rating is lower, Seller B clearly has more happy customers than Seller A.
In a perfect world, every happy customer would leave a review. In reality, though, most people only leave reviews to rant or rave.
You can ask your buyers to leave a review. As long as you’re not incentivizing them (e.g. offering a free product in exchange for 5 stars), it’s acceptable to do so — and even encouraged. Place a thank-you card or printed insert into your packages with a QR code linking to your product page.
On Amazon, pricing is typically a race to the bottom. Shoppers will often select the option with the lowest price, no matter how great your copy and images are. However, you don’t want to price your products super cheaply. That’s a red flag for many consumers. Also, you could be leaving money on the table!
Of course, you don’t want to set your prices too high, either. To strike the right balance, consider investing in an automated repricing tool.
It’s worth noting that many Amazon customers will pay more for a product that will arrive sooner. So, if your products are Prime-eligible or otherwise able to arrive within a week, you could push the price above what your slower competitors are charging.
Prime Day is always a great opportunity for sellers to offer irresistible deals. However, you can run a sale anytime! Lightning Deal and 7-Day Deal campaigns are expensive but can be great ways to drive sales velocity for your high-tier products.
Don’t forget Amazon coupons, which shoppers can “clip” before adding your product to their cart. These incentivize people to convert and give you a competitive edge.
Pay-per-click campaigns put your listings in front of more buyers. However, they’re not a guarantee. That’s not a bad thing: many brands pay for sponsored listings but don’t bother optimizing them. If you take a strategic approach to PPC and target the right keywords (see Tip #3), you’ll get more clicks and conversions.
This might be the most vital yet overlooked aspect of selling on Amazon. However wonderful your product listing is or how compelling your ads are, you can’t make sales if you can’t stay in stock or fulfill orders quickly.
It can be difficult to know how much inventory you need and when to order it. Ordering too much too soon means extra storage fees and no room for better-selling products. Ordering too little too late means canceling or refunding orders, or paying exorbitant shipping fees. Both situations eat into your profits and could leave you with poor rankings and reviews.
Use an inventory management tool to forecast sales, align shipping times, and adjust your stock levels for current demand. This will save you many headaches and ensure that you can capture more sales on Amazon.
There you have it — 10 helpful tips for boosting sales on Amazon! We hope you found this list helpful.
Phelps UNITED is here to provide expert guidance on your Amazon selling strategy and brand advertising tips, visit our website to learn more