In 2020, Amazon saw 200 thousand new Amazon sellers, an increase of 45%. With these new sellers, Amazon controls over 50% of the entire online eCommerce marketplace. The majority of that marketplace dominance comes from third-party sellers. Amazon is a necessary marketplace to utilize as an online seller because of the share of the overall online retail market that it comprises – and this makes for a great deal of competition.
Like most sellers, you might have an amazing product you want to share with the world. Otherwise, you might see eCommerce as a rewarding new pursuit for your business. Regardless of your specific situation, you probably want to boost your sales as an online seller using any available resources at your disposal.
This article is built to help you understand how to increase your sales on the highly competitive Amazon marketplace using these ten tips. These guidelines are actionable so that you can get started with today.
Top 10 Tips To Increase Your Amazon Sales
As an introduction, in this article we will help explain the top 10 ways to increase your sales on Amazon, including how to:
- Create an effective product listing
- Apply Amazon SEO best practices
- Expand your product range
- Provide sufficient customer service
- Build brand awareness
- Use social proof
- Create a smart pricing strategy
- Use different marketing channels to promote your product
- Automate some processes with FBA to save time
- Use Amazon ADs
Create an Effective Product Listing
An effective product listing engages your customers to buy. It does this by using all of the available resources to drive sales.
You must look at existing listings to understand how to create compelling product listings. In your case, you’ll want to look at similar products and successful competitors. Below is one example we gathered for you.
Start by looking at each part of the listing. What you’ll find across every successful listing is these factors:
- The use of professional product photographs. This includes one primary photo with a white background and several additional images showing the product in use and its details.
- A detailed title that names the product exactly and additional descriptors to inform users how the product might be helpful (or, in this case, how you might gift the product).
- A list of bullets emphasizing the most important product features and how the product might solve problems the shopper might have.
- A detailed product description emphasizing your bullets or providing additional details the user needs.
A complete listing answers all the questions a customer might have, eliminating any doubts about buying it. You can also look at customer reviews of similar products for more inspiration.
Apply Amazon SEO Best Practices
SEO, or search engine optimization, ensures your listing ranks high on a search engine. Amazon’s search bar holds this search engine, and it relies on something known as the A10 algorithm.
When focusing on SEO, you need to be sure your listings contain keywords customers search for when trying to find your product. For inspiration, you can first type the most general title of your product (for example, plastic knife) and look at what the search bar autocompletes into to see potential keywords.
You can also use Amazon’s built-in PPC system to find keywords. The amount you pay for these keywords (or your pay-per-click rate) dictates how competitive they will be. Alternatively, you can use third-party keyword research tools, like those available from AMZScout.
When finding these keywords, you’ll want to focus on the best descriptor for your product. This is your primary keyword, and it should go in your title. Secondary keywords might describe a product or its features but aren’t as important as your primary keywords. These secondary keywords can be found throughout the bullet points and product descriptions.
Regardless of what keywords you find, you’ll want to be sure they aren’t forced in there. Ensure your keywords look naturally written, or Amazon might limit your ranking potential.
Expand Your Product Range
Finding products to sell is a continuous process. For new or veteran sellers alike, this process is something you’ll want to revisit regularly. It helps you find new products and revenue streams.
To simplify your product research, you’ll want to consider third-party tools like AMZScout’s Product Database. Here are some steps you can follow to get started with this tool:
- Open the AMZScout Product Database (it’s a web app, so no installation is necessary)
- Start a free trial with AMZScout (this helps you understand how to use the tool)
- Use the search filters to define your criteria (For example, you might want to filter by price, category, or sales)
- Check the new or trending product boxes to find rapidly selling items.
- Click “Find Products” to generate your results.
Using these filters, consider your options and how you might sell these products. For example, a higher-weight product might increase your shipping costs and cut your bottom line. You’ll also find more critical data regarding the price, fees, estimated sales, and potential revenue. Use this information to pursue products with higher potential.
Provide Sufficient Customer Service
A significant factor that impacts your potential success is your seller authority. You must provide excellent customer service at all levels to get a higher seller authority.
Customer service isn’t only about addressing concerns as they come up. Instead, it’s about being ready before they become a problem.
Here are some tips you can use to improve your customer service:
- Thank the customer by including customized cards with each new purchase.
- Check the build quality of any products you ship out by being picky with your manufacturer. If you don’t know how to find the best manufacturers, you can seek help from a sourcing agent like sourcing nova.
- If customers reach out to you personally, address any problems they have directly and by taking ownership.
- Include clear instructions with your product so that customers know the exact steps to use it. This avoids confusion and potential returns.
- Use Amazon FBA to automate your customer service, returns, and fast shipment process.
Build Brand Awareness
Brand awareness is a unique problem for Amazon sellers who are also brand owners. However, brand owners have a unique advantage over other sellers: a direct path to increase customer loyalty.
Loyalty comes through the brand awareness cycle, which we can represent through the five-step brand awareness pyramid by David Aaker. Below are the five stages to be aware of and some tips for moving the customer through them:
- Unaware of brand. The customer doesn’t know your brand at all. You’ll need to make them aware through advertising and creating helpful content related to the problem your brand solves.
- Brand recognition. The customer recognizes your brand but might not recall its exact name. You can affirm this recognition by ensuring your brand logo is interesting, easy to remember, and easy to understand.
- Brand recall. The customer can recall your brand name based on looking at the logo. At this point, you can nurture these customers into advocates by creating loyalty programs that keep them engaged and encourage them to share your brand with new customers.
- Top of the mind. Your product is synonymous and comes to mind first in most situations. A great example is that some customers use Coke to refer to all kinds of general sodas. This is the ultimate goal of your product.
An awareness of these four stages lets you work through them. This way, you can create actionable steps for your customers to follow.
Use Social Proof
Social proof, like customer reviews, is when potential customers see the experience current customers go through. It affirms any claims you’ve made in your advertising, encouraging customers to buy your products.
Nearly 90% of customers trust user reviews like they were personal recommendations. So getting enough positive reviews can be similar to having a trusted neighbor of the potential customer recommend your product.
Amazon’s sole version of social proof is its reviews. You can use Amazon’s “Request A Review” button to ask for reviews. You can also let Amazon ask for these reviews automatically.
To encourage these reviews further, include a review request with your thank you card. Please avoid asking for reviews while providing discounts, as Amazon has strict rules against incentivized reviews.
Ideally, you’ll eventually be able to bring users off the platform. Amazon doesn’t encourage this, but your brand recognition will overpower it. Engaging with customers on social media and creating mailing lists can generate additional forms of social proof to help your brand grow.
Create a Smart Pricing Strategy
A smart pricing strategy is ideal for remaining competitive on Amazon. Because you share the marketplace with third-party sellers, you must be able to compete on price.
If your price is too high, Amazon won’t let you rank on top, regardless of how good your selling history is. Alternatively, abnormally low pricing might lead to razor-thin profit margins.
Amazon has a built-in repricing tool that responds whenever someone overtakes your rank. This way, you can remain the number one seller of the product, increasing your chances of becoming the featured offer.
The featured offer, sometimes known as the buy box, is the seller selected when customers click “buy now.” This means when you share a product listing with other sellers; you are the first seller to be picked. A smart pricing strategy can help you accomplish this.
To set up your repricing strategy, weigh your expenses and potential revenue at different pricing levels. You’ll want to explore worst- and best-case scenarios, so ask yourself the minimum profit margin you can accept as a seller.
If you are an FBA seller, don’t forget to include your FBA fees. Things like weight, size, and product category will all have very different costs to consider.
Use Different Marketing Channels to Promote Your Product
Rarely do sales only come from a single source. Often, product sales come from many sources, and those sources are as diverse as the marketing channels you choose to connect to them.
A marketing channel is the series of steps a customer takes to get to your product. For example, it might start with digital advertising and lead to your product page.
For eCommerce sales, there are four different channels you can choose from. We will list them below:
- Earned. Examples of earned media include reviews or user-made videos of your product. It is content you don’t own, but incredibly important to generate that social proof. Encourage your customers via social media to talk about your product.
- Paid. Paid ads are essential to get your first sales. We have an entire section devoted to this later.
- Owned. Examples of owned media include YouTube videos or blog posts you make regarding your product. Informational videos discussing the problems your product solves are most helpful. This differs from standard advertising, focusing more on helping the customer.
- Traditional. These are less common for eCommerce sales, but you might consider a local market by paying for radio or newspaper ads. You can make money if you identify a potential local sales channel.
While you’ll mainly use the first three, consider all four marketing channels. These channels might include blogs, videos, audio, and all types of content.
Automate Some Processes with FBA to Save Time
FBA, or Fulfillment by Amazon, is when Amazon handles your shipment, storage, and customer service matters. This lets you focus on finding new products or other business growth areas.
FBA is generally what allows solo sellers to remain competitive on Amazon. Without FBA, sellers find themselves putting out small fires on their logistics.
Check out our list of FBA prep services you can find across the United States and in some international locations. Knowing your options lets you make an informed decision and know who to contact in your area.
Automation is crucial for many businesses to grow at scale. Duties that were once handled by entire teams can now be handled by software. Educating yourself on automation is vital as a business owner.
Use Amazon ADs
SEO, brand awareness, and listing optimization are helpful long-term strategies. But you can’t expect to get sales by focusing only on these activities. Instead, you need to pay for exposure through Amazon advertising.
Amazon relies on PPC (pay-per-click) advertising. This means you only pay when someone clicks on your ad, which is a low-cost form of advertising. When you pay for PPC advertising, you pay for the top slot on a target keyword of your choice. So, the keyword research tools we mentioned in our earlier section can help.
PPC also lets you run multiple advertising options simultaneously. This allows you quickly determine whether your advertising is worth it with limited spending.
Are you getting no clicks on your ads? It might be because you haven’t picked the most relevant keywords. Your title might also need tweaking. Are you getting clicks but no purchases? You might need to tweak your product titles or descriptions. You might also have some negative product reviews you need to overcome.
Amazon PPC lets you get your first sales, which helps boost your potential of getting sales through SEO. As your seller authority grows, you can shift your advertising dollars to alternative options.
Final Thoughts on Increasing Your Amazon Sales
You need an actionable set of steps to get things done to boost the number of online shoppers taking action on your listings. The steps above should give you a general idea of what you need to do. So try them out on your listings to see the changing results.
As an Amazon seller, your first products won’t always be the most successful. There is a bit of trial and error that comes with online sales. So don’t give up and keep trying, and you’ll eventually find success.
View More