No matter how long you have been in business with Amazon or just starting out, it ultimately comes down to sales to expand your business. While Amazon may be tough to gain traction due to stiff competition, it bestows you with an excellent opportunity to increase your visibility with its large consumer base.
There are a lot of sellers who find it difficult to increase sales. In most cases, they do not break even or close the first sale. So the question arises of how you will stand in such a competitive environment where everyone is trying to retain the same audience.
The solution is not so complex, but it does require time and effort on the back-end preparation. So, to keep things simple and get right to the point, in this post, we will take you through some effective eCommerce business strategies that can help you increase sales on Amazon and how you can sustain them in the long run.
Table of Contents
The foundation of Amazon- based on the Amazon A9 algorithm
You must have heard about the Amazon flywheel effect? Jeff Bezos coined the phrase, and it refers to how eCommerce business strategies leverage positive feedback loops to drive growth.
The flywheel concept drew inspiration from physics-imagine a massive wheel with massive inertia (resistance to change), which means it takes significant energy to get it moving. Once it’s started, however, its momentum creates its own power and makes it easier to keep going. It becomes self-sustaining. In a nutshell, it revolves around the idea that once you have customers coming in the front door, you can use their purchases to attract more customers.
An Amazon flywheel has several components; consumer delight, free cash flow, high-quality inventory, product selection, and automated fulfillment through technology. They are all interconnected with the A9 algorithm.
Nevertheless, the foundation’s heart lies in the A9 algorithm. It is a complex set of rules that determine which products are shown in the search results and which aren’t. Why is understanding this system important? Because people rarely browse past the first page, your product must appear on the first page to boost sales, visibility, and discoverability. So let’s examine the main aspects that determine the ranking of a product:
- Click-through rate( % of impression).
- Conversion rate (number of visitors turned into buyers).
- Customer feedback.
Now you may be wondering what if your product is way beyond the second or third page. None of these above aspects will work. What will work is to have consistent sales. Continue reading to learn some of the methods that led to improved organic rankings and higher visibility for brands.
Chase the vision, not the money; the money will end up following you
Tony Hsieh
Design an optimized product listing
Amazon product listings are what keep your business afloat. It is these pages that attract traffic and convert sales for your products.
These are its main attributes;
Keyword research: The first thing that comes to customers’ minds while looking for a product is to search. Instead of searching for a specific brand, people use keywords to find relevant products for them. For instance: if someone searches for “ice cream makers,” all the relevant ice cream makers will be displayed in a list under the search bar. So, it becomes essential to index your product with relevant keywords.
Another way is to perform competitor keyword analysis and identify which keywords are performing well for them and which ones you are missing out on, and then, with that, you can devise your keyword strategy. Almost half of the users begin their search with a long-phrase, so always use a combination of long-tail and short-tail search terms.
Title: Since this is what potential customers see first, make sure to include all relevant keywords and phrases here. Create an attention-grabbing title that informs customers at a glance about your product. This builds trust and increases the chances of the product getting clicked. Keep track of how your competitors are making use of the content. For instance, what kinds of keywords are they using in their titles and in other texts; you will then be able to identify where you fall short to remain competitive.
Bullet points: It gives shoppers an overview of your item and helps them decide whether or not it is something they want to purchase. This is why you want to make sure these words are carefully selected and specifically target keywords that will help increase your sales.
Product description: While most sellers make the mistake of getting too technical with descriptions or simply just providing benefits, the right way to provide information is to put yourself in the customers’ mind instead and answer the questions they would have had by displaying all the necessary features in a detailed and accurate way. That way, you can get closer to the sale.
Optimized product images: Images are the most significant trait of any product. They work as a virtual mirror for buyers and help them see, feel, and experience the product before buying it. If you want your products to be successful on Amazon, then give them an attractive image that grabs attention at first sight. In fact, 9 out of 10 customers say that images help them in making buying decisions.
One-fourth of online buyers say they have returned a product because it didn’t look like what they expected, so don’t waste it on dull or low-quality images! Instead, give them high-quality images with multiple viewing options and several consumption shots to build a connection.
You can see the example of optimized images here:
Amazon A+/enhanced content: This type of content gives sellers the ability to tell a compelling and pleasing story about their brand/product using visual and written elements. This is undoubtedly the cutting edge of content marketing-beautifully created templates that allow brands to communicate and build connections with them. Besides its numerous benefits, it can enhance brand reputation, help develop a competitive edge by providing an interactive shopping experience, and improve credibility for brands.
An upward trend in brand visibility has been observed with A+ content. Amazon claims that A+ content can increase sales by 3% to 10% on average.
It is now clear that the secret sauce of Amazon is its A9 algorithm, i.e., organic search ranking ∝ increased conversion rate. So now that we are sure of what we need to do, let’s try to figure out a few ways to get there
Top e-Commerce business strategies
Make use of Amazon FBA
Fulfillment by Amazon is a service that allows sellers to store their products in Amazon warehouses and helps them to fulfill the orders. It enables them to focus on increasing sales instead of stressing about warehousing, packing, and shipping products.
Are you aware of how being Prime eligible can make a massive difference to you? Statista data indicates that Prime members spend approximately $1400 a year while non-members spend $700, almost twice as much.
Since there are specific criteria for being eligible for Prime, you have to ship a certain number of products. This criterion doesn’t apply when you use the FBA model, which handles all the shipping requirements and facilitates Amazon Prime eligibility.
Manage your inventory
Customers always want to see their products in the store. No one likes it when they can’t find their favorite product and just leave without buying anything. The problem of stockouts is a common issue that many businesses face every day, and it’s a real headache because it can lead to low sales, and customers can permanently switch brands, leading to a fall in market share.
The good news is, you don’t have to spend all day checking on inventory levels. In fact, it is a lot easier with our inventory management tools! As part of Paxcom’s Channel Intelligence solution, brands can receive daily and weekly out-of-stock alerts on multiple channels and prevent lost sales while simultaneously gaining access to their competitors’ data.
Omnichannel’s inventory and warehouse management integration allows users to see and manage inventory across multiple locations or to monitor stock levels across multiple warehouses or from a single point. In addition, it can be easily customized and modified to match any client’s needs.
A commitment to competitive pricing
Keeping your pricing competitive can be tricky, but here is a recipe you can follow to achieve that sales rank. Set a price that isn’t lower than the competition all the time. Compared to other similar products, your product may appear to be of inferior quality and less attractive. Instead, the range should remain within the customer’s budget by monitoring the user’s price for that specific item.
- Your product can be priced higher than your competitors’ if it offers additional features and focuses on your USP.
- Find out how your competitors’ prices have changed over time by checking their pricing history. However, don’t rely solely on the current trending price.
- It allows sellers to avoid wasting time experimenting with A/B pricing and to achieve equilibrium in sales.
The average shopper compares prices 92% of the time while shopping. As a result, competitive pricing attracts more customers, improving rankings and sales. In addition, Paxcom’s tracking software provides competitor profiling and promotion reports to help you understand Amazon Marketplace’s operations.
You can read here more about different pricing strategies.
Profit from Amazon Marketing Services/ Advertising
The most efficient way to get your products in front of customers is to advertise. Amazon offers three different kinds of ads, with each ad targeting a wide range of audiences.
Increase your brand’s awareness by running sponsored ads
(a) Sponsored Product Ads
Let you target specific products and keywords, grab attention from customers with particular search intent, target competitor products, and motivate further conversions.
(b) Sponsored Brands Ads
It lets you target broad search terms, gain new customers, and retarget old ones. Sponsored Brands’ reporting includes “new-to-brand” metrics that provide insight into how many first-time customers your brand acquired on Amazon. It features a brand’s logo, a custom headline, and custom creatives, and shows up to three products.
(c) Sponsored Display Ads
Retarget customers on Amazon, fostering brand awareness as well as conversions. Amazon Sponsored Display Ads fall between Amazon Ads and Amazon DSP-based programmatic advertising. Amazon sponsored display ads are displayed to customers when they browse the product listing page.
Products that appear in organic search results usually have ads running beside them. In addition to advertising, these ads appear ahead of the non-advertised products. Hence, renowned brands and high-ranking products will also bid for these high positions on the results pages.
Currently, Amazon is a highly competitive marketplace, and it will only become more aggressive as time goes on. Therefore, brands need to utilize all the marketing tools they have to boost sales. Don’t let the competition beat you to it!
Get Customer reviews
Reviews form a strong foundation of perception of a brand’s online reputation. Despite the fact that 73% of customers rely on reviews to make a purchase, 34% will leave negative feedback if they have a terrible experience. Comparatively, only 19% of them leave positive reviews after a good experience, according to the Reviewtrackers survey.
In order to sustain growth, you should constantly monitor reviews and measure corrective actions as a brand. Additionally, you can utilize sentiment analysis, which provides data on your product reviews and allows you to compare them with those of your competitors, saving you countless hours that would have been spent manually processing the data.
Win Buy Box
When a buyer lands on the product listing page, they can view the product images on the far left. In the center, you can see all the necessary product information, and then on the far right, comes the buy box.
This widget allows customers to make a quick purchase in just 2 or 3 steps, which means they can adjust the quantity, color, and different variants of the products according to their needs and then add them to the cart.
What’s most interesting about this buy box is that it is entirely different from product listings, and every seller on Amazon fights for this widget because it is the first call to action a customer sees.
So how can you win the Buy Box? First, it is not rocket science to maintain your Amazon account health; it is the metric that measures the overall performance of your account, which means that you have to keep a record of all your shipments, payments, and customer information. You can accomplish this by tracking purchase orders, inventory, sales reports, and more.
And do you know, this can also improve the chances of getting the Best Seller Badge, and we all know that the orange honor works solely based on sales velocity. So, therefore, it’s a win-win solution on all counts.
Run Promotions
It’s a universal truth that everyone loves a good bargain. To increase your sales on Amazon, build a rapport with customers by offering them deals and engaging with them emotionally. There are many ways to run a promotion on Amazon: Lightning Deals, Deals of the Day, Coupons, and festive occasion deals. In my opinion, every brand should leverage it. It not only boosts conversions but increases visibility as well.
Deals that have been set up can be found on Amazon product listing pages, search results pages, and showcase pages. This surely attracts visitors and usually converts them into buyers.
The key is to have an in-depth understanding of your categories and position them within those categories, as well as your competitors’ stance.
Use Product bundling strategy
Bundles combine two or more products for a lower price than their sum. Bundling helps increase revenue by increasing awareness of a product package’s total value and reducing overall shipping costs by offering a number of items in one shipment. It is also a great way to sell your more inactive items.
The strategy entails bundling slower-moving items with fast-moving items to increase sales volume for slower-moving products. As a result, customers can get much more value from a single purchase than from purchasing nothing.
Frequently bought together is the most common example of this. You can create customized bundle packages, limiting your competition from selling on your listing since their products won’t be an exact match.
Media buying: Above the fold and below the fold
Amazon has millions of products listed on its website. However, not all products are visible to every visitor when they visit Amazon’s homepage. Only the products that fall under the “above the fold” region are visible to every visitor. Hence, if you want your product to be seen by each visitor, you need to buy ad space above the fold on Amazon to promote your product. In doing so, you will be able to maximize your advertising spend and reach thousands of potential new customers, increasing conversion rates.
Above the fold is an excellent strategy for getting clicks, whereas below the fold placement is on the Home page and Categories pages (a prime spot to sway readers), resulting in your ad being seen by more people and thus resulting in higher profit.
Maintain shipping speed
The Salescycle study found that 63% of consumers consider delivery speed a deciding factor during shopping, and they’re willing to pay more for expedited shipping. This data supports the idea of how shipping can influence click-through rates.
Free shipping services give the customer a feeling that they are saving money or getting a good deal. It offers your product a distinct appeal in this marketplace.
Maintain ideal and genuine shipping standards for high sales and reduce cart abandonment.
You now know about the top eCommerce strategies, but is it possible to manually track all these aspects? It can be a bit time-consuming. How would you feel if we told you that Amazon has a tool to help you fine-tune your eCommerce business strategy further? Let’s dive in;
How Amazon pi helps you leverage these strategies to its fullest potential
Amazon’s state-of-the-art algorithm platform provides sellers with information about their product searches, search rankings, sales based on geography, search analytics, and alternate purchases, among other factors.
Amazon pi insights can help you leverage data for all your Amazon Marketing services activities and organic data to develop a strategy that works in your favor. Different reports are available, which are bifurcated into 4 parts: Awareness, Consideration, Purchase, and Loyalty.
The Awareness report includes a search performance and product ranking report. The Search Performance report helps you understand your position in the market and how well it is doing. When you click on the report, it further lets you filter it by subcategories, by brand, or by period.
The next portion, which covers search coverage, offers a report on keyword performance and shows you the top-performing search terms in your category. When you download the report, it further branches into total search coverage, top clicked, and displayed ASIN and organic range.
Advertisement share report: This report compares your share of display advertising impressions against other brands in your niche category.
Display advertising works on a CPM basis. The only way to run product display ads is through Amazon’s self-serve platform. With this report, you’ll be able to determine what share of the market you contribute compared to your competitors, so your spending can be adjusted accordingly.
Product glance view report: Amazon calculates product views based on the product views on your product page and then divides/multiplies all the numbers dynamically. For instance, if a product page is viewed 10,000 times, and a constant of 10 is used to calculate the indexed views of each page, then the resultant views will be 1000. As a result, Amazon can create the reports without understanding individual transactions and summarize trends in product views.
This report helps you understand how many views your product is getting and lets you identify whether your conversion rate is high or low. If it is low, you can focus on optimizing your product page.
The price distribution report: It is essential to understand sales distribution at different price points within your category and against your competition. Additionally, it allows you to see whether your pricing strategy is working in your favor or your competitor’s, so you can further adjust your pricing to get those sales figures.
Customer reviews and rating report: Displays the average customer ratings and the number of reviews for your products against those of other brands for your selected category or subcategory. With this report, you will be able to identify which products of yours are receiving negative feedback and what issues they are having, whether they are related to price or quality. This will provide you with the opportunity to address your product and service concerns.
Finally, Amazon Pi Analytics offers all the necessary reporting, from visibility to sales, to focus on those eCommerce strategies that we mentioned earlier. To make your campaigns as successful as possible, benchmark your performance against that of your competitors.
Pro-tip by our experts
You can leverage the data of customer profiles from Pi and start sponsored display audience-based targeting to capture niche audiences.
Key takeaways from this Article
- Understanding the underlying principles of the A9 algorithm will allow you to get a leg up in the market, providing you with an edge over your competitors.
- Improve your organic ranking first by optimizing your product feed page, including title, description, bullet points, A+ content, and images.
- Some of the top eCommerce business strategies that help you utilize Amazon marketing services include: Maintaining Amazon account health (shipping, inventory), using FBA fulfillment, getting customer reviews, running deals and promotions, and winning the Buy Box. All this will ultimately help you increase your sales.
- Utilize Amazon Pi Analytics to its fullest potential to further perfect the strategies mentioned earlier.
- Don’t let your sales stagnate after they’ve improved. Instead, constantly optimize and monitor competitors’ performance as a strategy to maintain online reputation.
- Keep your content and campaigns updated with a new set of keywords.
