8 Steps For Amazon Success

5 Minute Read

Selling products through Amazon is a fantastic way to make money and build a legitimate business as well as an online presence for your brand.

As you well know, Amazon is the authority for eCommerce these days and its presence is only getting stronger and stronger. Mr.Bezos' baby made no less than $485.902B in revenue in the twelve months ending June 30, 2022, and has over 121 million willing and able regular spenders (AKA. Amazon Prime Subscription Members) in the US alone. With all this money being made, who can blame you for wanting a piece of the pie?

You'll be pleased to know that the barrier to potential Amazon selling superstardom is low and achievable for most. Whether you're a modest one-man-band looking to get in on the action for the first time, or a large multinational looking to claim the lucrative Amazon real estate up for grabs, selling on Amazon is made easy by their very own Fullfilment-by-Amazon program.

So how can you get involved? Below are outlined the 8 Steps For Amazon Success. First of all, you'll have to find yourself a winning product.

PRODUCT RESEARCH

Plain and simple, the foundation on which you build your successful Amazon business is the product you decide to sell. With literally millions of products in the current catalog, narrowing down which one can seem a daunting task, but by using premium tools like Helium 10 or JungleScout, the process is made much simpler. These ingenious pieces of software traverse the extensive catalog for you and allow you to set specific parameters (think revenue, competition level etc.) to find products that can serve your exact business needs. Once you've chosen your product (which could take anywhere between 1-6 weeks), you can use Amazon's very own FBA Revenue Calculator to determine exactly how much profit you'll make per unit after Amazon takes their cut. Understanding exactly how much Amazon will take from each sale is imperative as storage, fulfillment, referral and closing fees ultimately have a big impact on your bottom line.

OPTIMIZED PRODUCT LISTING

So you've found your winning product, now it's time to get it in front of as many buyers as possible! This is done by fully optimizing your Product Title, Bullet Points and Description with keywords that hold the perfect blend of relevancy and search volume. A relevant keyword is one that accurately matches the description of your product, while search volume references exactly how many sellers actually search a given term. By strategically placing keywords that boast both high relevancy and search volume, you're giving your listing the best chance of showing up in your customers' search results!

PRODUCT PHOTOS

Awesome Product Photos are a major component of any successful listing. Your customer is more than likely to look at your images first before scrolling down to your expertly crafted description, so it's crucial that you follow Amazon's guidelines: 

- Your 'Hero' (first) image must show your product clearly on a clear white background

- Your product must take up 85% of the main image

- To be zoomable (a clear sign of a well made listing) your images must be at least 1000px x 500px

AMAZON FBA

Fulfillment By Amazon allows sellers to send their products directly to Amazon's warehouse and have storage, packaging, shipping to customers (Prime Delivery is offered to all FBA sellers), customer service and returns fully taken care of. Not to mention access to Amazon's millions upon millions of fidgety-finger-tipped buyers! Amazon also openly prefers FBA sellers by giving them priority of the Buy Box (the all-important 'Add to Cart' button), ultimately allowing sellers like you to quickly scale their businesses in a more streamlined way.

Amazon Small and Light is another game-changing program within FBA. If your product is deemed 'small' and 'light', Amazon offers reduced fulfillment costs which you can use to bump up your profit margins or save a pretty penny in your customer's pocket!

PRODUCT REVIEWS

Social proof is the key to success on Amazon. The more positive reviews your product has, the more likely it is to convert a customer's click, simple as that! Programs Vine allow Brand Registered sellers to gain reviews early into their product launch phase, helping your products gain the be-all-and-end-all credibility. Vine involves a 'giveaway for review' trade-off, where Amazon will send your product to a host of verified reviewers who in return will post an honest review.

PAY PER CLICK

Amazon is increasingly becoming a 'pay-to-play' marketplace so it's of paramount importance that you optimize your product's 'pay-per-click' campaigns! PPC advertising is a type of marketing where you 'pay' for each customer 'click' onto your listing. It's a way to cut the line of organic ranking and present your product at the top of the search results, where potentially thousands of shoppers who are ready to buy will lay their eyes on it! PPC can have a massive impact on your products profitability, but when carried out correctly, it can skyrocket your sales velocity!

BRAND REGISTRY

When the time comes to take your private label brand to the next level, Amazon Brand Registry can take you there. You'll need a registered trademark brand to start (which Amazon can also help you along with thanks to their IP Accelerator program), but when you do, a whole host of useful tools and advantages become available to you such as A+ Content, enhanced advertising opportunity, a website-feel Brand Store, access to better analytics to help you make more informed decisions and protection from listing 'hijackers'.

INTERPRET DATA

Keeping a pulse on your FBA business can guide you to make decisions on your next steps. Statistics like conversion rate, keyword rankings, impressions and of course revenue, can clearly show whether your product is over or underperforming. With this info, you can determine how much stock you need to purchase from your supplier to avoid running out, what areas of your business can be optimized further to boost even more sales, when it's time to expand your product range etc.

Building an eCommerce business from scratch can be an extremely rewarding process with the potential to set you free from the rat race. By following the steps above with Amazon, it's made accessible to you.