According to Forbes, eighty percent of business ventures fail. For e commerce stores, the risks are immense. If building an e-com store seems like an easy win, chances are you are ignoring or underestimating a tremendous overhead in money and time- first you have to build the store, then put time and effort into driving traffic to it.
Amazon is the Place to Shop
If you are thinking about building your own store, your buying process realistically can’t compete with the seamless conversion process Amazon offers and can even make your customers confused. Customers will also be less likely to trust your new online store. Don’t worry – this doesn’t mean that you are a bad retailer, it just means you have a LOT of work to do. You need to publicly earn your stripes to win loyal customers.
People Trust Amazon
Amazon is a huge entity that has been around for quite a while, meaning new consumers will be more comfortable purchasing from Amazon. In the past few years, Amazon has had very few major changes, and even these changes have been somewhat minor in retrospect and have promoted stability if anything.
Hitch Your Star to Amazon’s Wagon
Amazon is an online behemoth, drawing in more revenue than both Target and Walmart online. Placing your product on Amazon gives you access to eighty four million unique visitors per month with their wallets out. Amazon customers are more affluent, spend more per order on average and want their products yesterday. Unlike eBay consumers, Amazon’s customers aren’t willing to wait to find the best deal. They feel as though their trust in Amazon and its speedy shipping will make up for the effort and time.
Amazon has successfully redefined the customer e-commerce experience. They have melded purchase, pay and ship processes into new seller functions. Its login and pay will appeal to sellers who don’t have well recognized brands or services. The point is, people choose Amazon because of their inherent trust about delivery time, sales and returns. If you don’t have a million negative reviews, most visitors looking at your product are not going to have any friction about buying.
Remember you’re Not Alone
You’re not the only person who knows about Amazon’s treasure trove. Get ready to face serious competition, maybe against ten other sellers, maybe even against Amazon retail. All hope is not lost however. Just as you can optimize your content and website, you can optimize your Amazon listings to increase visibility.
Step One:
Craft a product name that is detailed. Each word in the product name is search-able by itself. If you use detailed product names, your products will appear in as many search results as possible.
Good Example: Silk Chiffon Lady’s Sweater with Black Velvet Patterned Pants
The product name is very detailed, so the product already has a nice amount of search terms before you even add any additional ones.
Hint 1: Add as much information to your product name as you can: product description and brand, material, size color and quantity
Hint 2: The words in your product name are already search-able so you don’t have to use keyword terms that are already contained in the title
Hint 3: Don’t add shipping or seller name in your product title, this just overcrowds your product title with useless information.
Step 2:
Add as many search terms as you can, also known as keywords. Having excellent search terms means more visibility. More visibility equals more sales. You can add up to 250 characters of keywords for each product. Use all of them. Use single words and separate them with commas.
Get into the head of your buyer. Try to see how they would begin to find your item and use these keywords.
Step 3:
Product descriptions should be optimized to the max. Well written descriptions will eliminate friction and help the customer make a decision. Your customers can’t touch the product, so they will be completely influenced by what they see and read.
Step 4:
Get great product images to sell your items, but be sure that they comply with Amazon’s policies. Essentially, you need a perfect picture. People looking at product pages without images will find them useless.
Step 5:
Promote your items on Twitter. Create pages on Facebook and Pinterest. Millions and millions of people use these sites every day. Plus, cross channel promotion boosts your credibility.
The Big Picture:
- • Understand the categories in which you are selling. Explore the depth of selection and consider where your item fits in this category structure.
- • Scope out the competition. Determine the number of competitors you have, how big they are, the selection that they offer and their prices. Also, check out their promotions to plan your compelling and competitive offers.
- • Amazon offers a vast amount of opportunities to sell your product. Take advantage of this low risk opportunity but think like a buyer to get a leg up on the competition.
Really great information here. Definitely useful for helping me gain more traction in Amazon + more visibility and sales.
Great article! You made it really simple to digest by dividing it into steps.
I have been working on Amazon for a few months now. I was struggling with optimizing my listings. Thanks to you, I now have a clear idea of what I should do.
Adding the listing in multiple category where it fits sounds like a legit idea. Thank you for letting us know.
Thank you for organizing this information so well. It really helped me understand it all, and now I’m feeling ready to setup shop on Amazon.
I am trying to become a successful seller on Amazon, and your article gave me some pointers that I feel have genuinely helped my business grow. I’m truly thankful. Wish me luck in my future endeavors on Amazon!
Thanks for the article. If I’m being honest, I do think you could expand upon some of these points more. Would you be willing to write a follow up article that goes more in-depth?