Success on Amazon takes hard work. Amazon offers tools to help sellers. Many tools, such as Brand Registry, are underutilized.
Consumers love Amazon. There are almost 300 transactions per second on that platform. However, merely listing products on Amazon doesn’t automatically equate to success. A seller must focus on the quality and content of the listings and continually improve them. This will help grow the popularity of your products and climb the rankings.
Amazon offers many underutilized tools for building a brand and enhancing product pages. Most brands and sellers don’t use these tools. Not only do the tools increase your rankings on Amazon, but they also bring authenticity to your products and establish your brand’s name and identity.
Why Sell on Amazon?
Selling on Amazon has many perks. For one, it is low cost. You don’t need to open a store or build and maintain a website. It is relatively simple to get started and list your products. The customers are already there!
Driving traffic to a new ecommerce site and gaining the trust of visitors is difficult and costly. Amazon already has the trust of its clientele. Selling products on this platform will increase brand visibility and awareness — if you approach it with that intention.
Success will be difficult if your sole motivation is to make as much money as fast as possible. Instead, success on Amazon requires work, effort, and time. Don’t believe the get-rich-quick peddlers. If they were as successful as they claim, they wouldn’t be selling you their secrets.
A Real Business
Some sellers think that they can set up a lackluster product page, get fake reviews, use tricks to improve rankings, and make a lot of money quickly. It doesn’t work. It never takes long for Amazon to discover these schemes and shut the sellers down.
Reviews are among the biggest sources of deception. There is an entire industry focused on getting reviews for your products quickly. Amazon has taken steps to legitimize the review process — from allowing only verified purchase reviews to tracking IP addresses to shutting down accounts of suspect reviewers.
It never takes long for Amazon to discover these schemes and shut the sellers down.
Additionally, Amazon has removed reviews that its artificial-intelligence programs have flagged as fake. This includes reviews that were posted two years ago. I have seen products go from a 4.5 rating with over 600 reviews to a 3.7 rating with under 300 reviews overnight.
Boost Rankings
A recent Wall Street Journal article, “How Sellers Trick Amazon to Boost Sales,” describes an entire industry of “click farms” that attempt to improve rankings. This is the process of entering a term in the Amazon search bar and then clicking on the link of a product to boost its ranking. But sellers that pay for this service are throwing their money away. The practice does not work. Amazon’s algorithm picked up this activity over a year ago. Moreover, this tactic worked only as long as the activity continues.
The best way to increase your ranking is to understand high-value keywords and integrate them into your product listing and product ads. As you sell more product, its ranking improves, which enables the product to sells more.
Brand Registry
The Wall Street Journal article also references the hijacking of an ASIN — Amazon Standard Identification Number — by a competitor or counterfeiter. Amazon’s Brand Registry is an underutilized tool that addresses this problem.
Every legitimate brand seller should use the Brand Registry. It protects against disreputable sellers who attempt to hijack your listings or sell counterfeit replicas of your products.
Every legitimate brand seller should use the Brand Registry.
Moreover, the Brand Registry allows sellers to build enhanced content, such as additional images and information where the usual description would be. The enhancements are designed to highlight a brand’s personality and uniqueness. Enhancements can include frequently asked questions, for example. The more information you offer to consumers, the more likely they will support your business, purchase your items, and tell others.
The Long Term
Are you looking to make fast money or are you looking to grow your business? If your goal is to develop a sustainable business, approach Amazon with the intention of building brand identity in a saturated marketplace. To do that, you have to stand out. By communicating your unique brand voice and using the tools that Amazon provides, you can, in my experience, grow a business on the Amazon marketplace and beyond.
I addressed long-term business building in “How to convert Amazon buyers to your customers (without breaking the rules).” To summarize, make sure your company name is on every product that you sell. If Amazon buyers like your company and its products, they will find your website.