This guest article comes to us courtesy of our friends at AMZ Advisers.
The rapid evolution of the digital era has led to the rise of companies striving to provide the best customer/user experience possible. Excellent service, content, and engagement translate into higher sales. Companies must place a higher priority on each step of the customer journey when buying their products.
The fact that customer reviews are in the public eye means customers can (and do) make well-thought-out decisions before buying a product. These reviews also help other companies improve their selling strategies.
Over time, e-commerce platforms, like the giant Amazon, have gained notoriety in the marketplace, offering a great variety of customer-friendly features to improve the shopping experience. Learn more about how to use these features to increase your sales and which Amazon Seller Central features can help you get more customers.
Amazon Seller Central: A Way to Grow Your Business
Amazon Seller Central is a platform that helps people sell their products from the ground up. In 2018, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) made more than $90,000 in the U.S. alone.
One of the many benefits linked to selling your products on Amazon is that you don’t need to create your own website to gain credibility. Amazon is already backing you up.
Note that all new Amazon Selling subscriptions include access to sell in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Fees, product categories, and requirements may vary between the three countries.
Maximizing Sales with Amazon Seller Central Features
Your customers should be your number one priority, whether you sell online or through a brick-and-mortar store.
One of the main challenges of selling online is standing out from the crowd. Competitors can quickly enter the market and almost immediately impact your sales. Creating a great shopping experience and providing helpful customer service is the way to help you differentiate yourself.
Customer experience and satisfaction play an essential role in your selling strategy. Luckily, Amazon is aware of this and offers a variety of options to improve the customer shopping experience and get you more sales.
These features will help you get the most out of the Amazon Seller Central platform:
1. Seller Central Coupons
Since the creation of the first coupon, in 1887, millions of physical and digital coupons have been used all over the world, boosting the sales of companies and engaging millions of consumers.
The way Seller Central Coupons work is simple, they are visible in Amazon search results, and even have their own landing page. All of this comes at a price, however. You will be charged $0.60 every time one of your customers clicks on a money-off or a percentage-off coupon. It’s important to make sure your sales offset that cost so you’re not losing money on your coupons.
This feature allows you to:
- Limit the audience of your coupons to by buyers
- Set a budget
- Schedule an expiration date
- Keep track of the coupon usage in real-time
- Link up to 50 different products to the same promotion
Monitor your results closely, but don’t be afraid of using this strategy to engage your high-value customers.
2. Amazon’s EBC (Enhanced Brand Content)
Amazon sellers are always looking for ways to make their products stand out.
People won’t often take the time to read large blocks of text; especially in the fast-paced world of e-commerce, where shoppers are constantly bombarded with tons of ads. This is where EBC comes into play.
The Enhanced Brand Content feature, also known as Amazon A+ Content, is available to Professional Sellers (brand owners). This tool allows you to present your product in a concise and appealing format, which can result in higher conversion rates and increased traffic.
Read More: Get more out of Amazon Seller Central with Amazon Brand Analytics. We break it all down here.
Some other benefits of adding EBC to your page:
- It’s free
- Amazon offers templates to customize your page
- It can reduce product returns and negative reviews due to the clarity in which the information is presented
- You can upload videos on the product detail page
- You can edit your content in case it doesn’t get approved
The way you present your product images plays an important role in your selling strategy.
Make sure to keep your product images consistent by:
- Choosing the correct lightning
- Providing all necessary angles
- Using high-resolution photos and alt text
- Compressing the images to improve load time
- Providing at least one close-up image
You likely know the saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” In this case, a picture could be worth a thousand dollars.
Early Reviewer Program
Amazon rewards customers for leaving reviews on products through its Early Reviewer Program. This initiative was designed to help new sellers gain credibility, which will eventually turn into higher sales.
These are some of the requirements you need to meet to qualify for the program:
- Be brand registered
- Pay a $60 fee per product (it will be charged until your first review is successfully obtained)
- Have very few reviews
- Products listed must have a price of at least $15.00
- None of your relatives can leave reviews for your products
In a nutshell, this is how it works:
- Randomly, Amazon contacts customers that don’t have a poor reputation for leaving consistently negative reviews
- Reviewers share their real experience, and Amazon rewards them with a gift card
- Sellers are not allowed to contact their reviewers, nor can they receive more than five reviews per product
Read more: Once established, get more reviews consistently (and automatically) by proactively reaching out to customers. Here’s how.
Whether you decide to use this program or not, the best way to get positive reviews is by offering the best service. And handle the not-so-positive reviews with promptness, patience, and respect.
Create Your Own Promotions
Promos are a great way to get feedback from customers, and Amazon gives you the opportunity to create your own. Some of the promos available at Seller Central are Percent-Off, Free Shipping, and Buy One, Get One.
However, bear in mind that giving away promotions too often or for too long can hurt your brand. For this reason, try using other strategies like EBC, Automated Pricing, or Amazon Lightning Deals, which are limited-time offers that will increase the traffic to your page by raising awareness around your product.
Show your customers that your brand can be competitive not solely on price.
Pricing Management/Automated Pricing
This feature, included in the Professional selling plan, uses algorithms to automatically adjust prices based on inputs you set. This add-on is easy to use, and it has an intuitive interface that displays a list of the items to be repriced. Adjusting your price, or creating a pricing rule, helps you compete for the Buy Box (the white box on the right side of the product details page where customers can click “Buy Now”). Make sure your prices are competitive and in-line with other similar products listed on the platform to position your brand and increase your sales.
One aspect of your business that Amazon Seller Central doesn’t make simple is shipping, and that’s what ShippingEasy is here for. Get started for free, add your Amazon store(s), and take advantage of crucial tools like Amazon Feedback Requests and Inventory Management. It’s all free for 30 days, so click below to test it out!
Guest Author: Duline Theogene is a content marketer and SEO copywriter at AMZ Advisers, with several years’ experience in digital marketing and e-commerce. Duline and the AMZ Advisers team have been able to achieve incredible growth on the Amazon platform for their clients by optimizing and managing their accounts and creating in-depth content marketing strategies.
Rob Zaleski
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