Tips on growing your Amazon Business – part three

By Sharon Fussell, June 2, 2016

As you’ll know, my last few articles have been packed with practical tips on how to improve your business, sales and – most importantly – increase income.

This week I’ve a further three tips for you…

INFORMED DESCRIPTIONS HELP INFORMED PURCHASES

Amazon allow you to add product descriptions to listings from your seller page, which is useful to increase visibility for products that do not at present have a description.

This is important because when buyers want to buy a product they want as much information as they can to make an informed choice on their purchase.

You need to ensure that buyers will be happy with their purchase, after all – you do not want returns coming your way as this can be a costly practice.

Strong, informative product descriptions help create product visibility through titles and search terms – and it is considered to be the digital equivalent of ushering buyers through your shop door. You want buyers to see your product among other options!

As said before, a clear title is very important – but although that might persuade buyers to click through, they still haven’t committed to the purchase.

Thus an informed product description can make the difference between conversion and an abandoned shopping basket.

Amazon state:

‘Write product descriptions that are clear, honest and descriptive. Use a consistent tone across all product listings and include alternative formatting methods, such as bullet points, to make product specs easily digestible. Accurate, clear representations – especially for products with variations in colour, size or texture – facilitate trust and also prevent returns/post-purchase issues by ensuring the shopper knows the exact details of the product before they buy.’

STRIVE FOR GOOD FEEDBACK

When selling online you need your customer to trust you. How can they do this if they do not interact with you? The only real way is to ensure you have good feedback ratings.

Positive customer feedback strengthens seller credibility, without a doubt. Feedback instils a sense of security in new customers, helping to reassure any potential buyers that may feel distrustful of purchasing from new sellers. Thus positive third-party opinions dissolve buyer scepticism.

Unfortunately there is no magic to gleaning positive feedback, it can only be built and garnered over time. The key is consistency.

Buyers who feel that their entire shopping journey is a positive one will most likely want to buy from those same Amazon sellers again.

Amazon email your customers after 30 days asking them to rate their buying experience. However there are various ways to encourage feedback that will increase your ratings.

For example, were you aware feedback can be solicited from buyers via Amazon by sending them a message via the Content Buyer link in Manage Orders?

Another option is to include a message on the packing slip, requesting that the customer rate the experience.

Sometimes mistakes happen or a buyer is not happy with their buying experience and therefore they may leave a negative comment.

If you do receive negative feedback, you may find that buyers will actually rescind that negative feedback if a resolution is achieved.

Ask the buyer to remove the comment or ask them if they are happy for Amazon to remove adverse comments. Amazon customer service is usually happy to remove feedback if buyers give permission.

IS THE PRICE RIGHT?

Remember that there are thousands of sellers that list on Amazon and they often have identical products with similar titles and descriptions.

In most cases the price has to be right to attract the shopper.

Its usually good practice to actively monitor listings where your prices fall among competing listings and adjust prices appropriately.

You should make refresh pricing a regular, ongoing practice.

Of course, gaining competitive price advantage takes insight, strategy and is very time consuming.

You may want to consider Amazon’s ChannelAdvisor Repricer that adjust prices automatically, helping you ensure top selling products are always competitive and thereby increasing the likelihood of winning the Buy Box.

But what is this ‘Buy Box’? And how will it benefit you?

Basically, the Buy Box is the box on a product detail page where a customer starts the purchase process by adding an item or items to their shopping basket.

It enables buyers that click on the Box to avoid trawling through other listings.

It isn’t available for books but can be used for most other products, such as DVDs.

It is possible to compete to be in the Buy Box and it usually very effective at making sales over and above your competitors.

Thus one of the key features of the Amazon.co.uk platform is that the same product can be sold by several sellers. If several sellers offer the same product in “new” condition, they may be eligible to compete for the Buy Box for that product.

In order to compete for the Buy Box and be eligible to sell from it, you have to meet a set of criteria such as lowest price and good feedback ratings.

I hope all my tips are useful to you – you may wish to print off the last three eletters and read through the tips again at a later date to help remind you.

I’m going to be taking a break for four weeks – I am off to sunny France for the whole of June! We have been lucky enough to obtain some tickets to watch Wales in the Euro 2016 football games… it should be a great experience, win, lose or draw!