Amazon continues to improve the experience of brands selling on the marketplace. There are a few new tools that are worth noting, for Fulfillment-by-Amazon sellers in Brand Registry. One tool, “Customer Insights,” is seemingly hidden. I will provide the link to access it.
New catalog items
The first change appeared around June 2017. It is a small change to make it easier to add products. The functionality of adding new products has not changed. But a menu addition called “Complete Your Draft” beneath the “New” tab makes it easier to access and bypass the “Inventory” tab.
“Complete Your Drafts” is helpful when adding products.
If you set up an item and Amazon does not approve it, it will show up here, in the Complete Your Draft section. You can then correct the issue and resubmit the item. Or if you start the setup process and need to come back to it later, it will be saved in this section as well.
Better storefronts
The next new tool is the ability to build an enhanced storefront. Amazon has always had storefronts, but few FBA sellers have used storefronts as there were limited ways to make them interesting or engaging.
Amazon now offers to Brand Registry sellers the ability to build an enhanced storefront.
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Now storefronts come with prebuilt templates, as well as the ability to create your own.
Storefronts now come with prebuilt templates, such as “Marquee” and “Highlight.”
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Brands can now customize their storefronts.
Having the ability to add more graphics about a brand, as well as video, improves the brand’s presence on the marketplace. Many of these features were available previously only to Vendor Central sellers. FBA sellers were relegated to a storefront with a basic grid with a logo.
This expanded storefront works with the “expanded brand content” pages that became available to FBA Brand Registry sellers last year. These pages allowed sellers to add more images and text to explain the benefits of their products. It definitely improves sales, in my experience.
Customer insights
Amazon’s new “Customer Insights” option seems to be available only through a non-publicized link, which is in seller accounts. The link is: https://sellercentral.amazon.com/insights/intake/new
Using Customer Insights, brands can gain valuable insights into visitors who have purchased and those who have not.
Using Customer Insights, brands can gain valuable insights into visitors who have purchased and those who have not.
What follows is an overview of this new “Customer Insights” program.
Choose a topic. First, tell Amazon what you are interested in understanding. Topics are: “Purchase behavior,” “Product awareness,” “Product opinion,” or “Create a custom question.”
Tell Amazon what you are interested in understanding. Topics are: “Purchase behavior,” “Product awareness,” “Product opinion,” or “Create a custom question.”
Next, select the visitor type. You can target by “Customers who have purchased your product,” “Customers who have viewed your product,” “Customers who viewed your product but did not purchase,” and “Customers who have purchased a product in the same category.”
Target by “Customers who have purchased your product,” “Customers who have viewed your product,” “Customers who viewed your product but did not purchase,” and “Customers who have purchased a product in the same category.”
What questions do you want to be answered? There are pre-designed questions to target a single ASIN or, alternatively, your entire catalog. Or you can build your own question.
Choose from pre-designed questions or build your own question.
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Next, determine how many responses you want, from 100 to 2,500.
Choose how many responses you want, from 100 to 2,500.
Once you have this information completed, submit it to Amazon. An employee will contact you with the cost of running the program.
My experience
I’ve ran one Customer Insight study on two ASINs that were underperforming. The data continues to come in, but the initial information we received was beneficial. It prompted us to change areas that we had not thought about before. We will see, over the next 60 days or so, if the data leads to more sales. My hunch says it will.
Amazon continues to treat brands differently than resellers. Amazon presumably needs both brands and resellers, but it’s giving brands many advantages.