Who doesn’t love Amazon seller hacks? We certainly can’t get enough of them! We know, we focus more on the boring bookkeeping side of business. But that doesn’t mean we can’t care about making your lives easier with a few tips! In this post, we want to share the best hacks that we’ve found. We think these gems can reliably boost the efficiency and productivity of your e-Commerce business.
Leveraging the Honeymoon Period
Amazon gives sellers a period of time when Amazon ignores your sales history for new products. This is what sellers call the honeymoon period. Amazon did not intentionally implement this window of time. The algorithm is actually responsible for creating this gap after a seller launches a product. The period lasts from 15 to 30 days, and is a golden opportunity. Because Amazon isn’t going to factor in your sales history from this period, you can take advantage.
As you work to promote the new listing, increase sales, and get reviews, you will make a lot of changes. You need to find the right combinations of keywords in the title, description, and backend. You will be uploading and changing up images to see what attracts more attention. If you work hard during this period to continuously optimize the listing rank higher, you will reap the benefits.
Your sales history after the honeymoon period is what Amazon will record and use to rank you. This spells the difference between a successful and unsuccessful product launch. Remember, you only get one chance to make a good first impression! And on Amazon, this may be the only chance you get for that product.
Honeymoon Period Product Optimization Strategies
You can skip up the rankings faster for a new product if you know proper product optimization strategies. Implementing these SEO tactics the right way during this period is also important to get the biggest impact. First, prepare your marketing plan for how you intend to generate traffic to your listing. Plan for how you will get sales and reviews, too. Second, make sure you don’t create your listing until the last moment possible. This is because your honeymoon window starts as soon as your inventory get to Amazon’s warehouse. In other words, your product is ready for sale, so Amazon should start tracking sales.
Third, you should start selling as merchant fulfilled on the same day you ship inventory to FBA. This is how you can sell while waiting for FBA to kick in. If you can capture Amazon Seller Fulfilled Prime sales, too, all the better. If you don’t have your own warehouse or a 3PL, you may not be able to do this. A lot of sellers ship straight from China to Amazon, for example, so FBA is their only option. However, if your product is in a category where you don’t need Amazon barcodes, you still can. Just use UPC barcodes, but make sure they’re legitimate.
Bonus Optimization Tips
You need to have all the text and images and backend keywords ready to copy and paste into the listing. This ensures that the listing is perfectly optimized beforehand. This way, when the Amazon warehouses receive your inventory and your listing goes live, it’s ready for the algorithm. Prepare the most attractive product images you can. They need to be striking to capture the most potential buyers possible. When you can get a lot of people to click on your listing, that’s progress.
If you need to pay a professional to take product photos, do it. If you can afford to run PPC ads to get an immediate boost after your product launches, do it. Don’t skimp on keyword research, either. If you need to hire a professional SEO, do it. Only the properly trained and experienced optimizers can find the keywords you need for your product. They must be relevant with good search volumes and, at the same time, not have too much competition.
Harnessing the Power of Category Listings Reports
The category listing report in Seller Central is an amazing tool for backend listing optimization. It’s an inventory report giving Amazon sellers a complete look at all their ASINs listed on the Amazon marketplace. This way, a seller can see what listing elements are present or missing. They can also see if any listings contain non-compliant information. This is super important, especially when other sellers have access to edit the listings.
This review is not one of the newer Amazon seller hacks, but many sellers still miss it. Not only is the category listing report very helpful, but it’s also really easy to scan. After spotting areas that need to be updated, you can even use it to create flat files. This makes uploading all those changes smooth, fast, and easy. If you sell hundreds of ASINs, you know how helpful that will be! Just split the catalog into batches of 20-50 or so in case of errors. If the flat file upload process is new to you, we highly recommend doing test runs. Once you successfully update your listings, you can download the fresh category listing report to keep as a backup of your listing file.
Using Amazon Brand Story
Amazon Brand Story can be powerful in helping sellers present their brand to customers. The story gives customers a deeper understanding of the brand. Moreover, the story can help sellers to create more cross-selling opportunities for other products. (Note that if you want to enhance individual product detail pages, Amazon A+ Content is the way to go. Amazon designed this tool specifically for that purpose.)
Your brand is how customers get to know you. The first impression your business gives will have a huge impact on your potential for success. They will remember the way your brand made them feel. This is important for their decision to come back and buy your products.
Your Brand Story Can Improve Conversion Rates
Before you list products, you probably research what’s sellable. As you develop your brand images, you need to go deeper than that. You will develop an ideal customer, and need to develop your catalog based on them. You will therefore need to start choosing products that will appeal to them. If you keep trying to sell any old thing that looks like a good bet, you won’t be able to satisfy any specific group. This will keep you stuck in a hit or miss cycle because you can’t target properly. A good brand develops customer loyalty. That starts with a target market that grows into a customer base. This means that your products fit into their lives.
Once you have that ideal customer down, you can create a great brand story. This story shows them you are that perfect partner to fulfill their needs. They look at your images and picture themselves using your products to achieve what they want. They relate and connect to the descriptions you weave into the pages. That’s the recipe for starting on the journey to loyalty. If you’re not using your unique qualities to your advantage, you’re missing out! Set yourself apart from the competition to secure a niche that you can dominate.
Understanding Amazon Store Insights
Amazon sellers know that tracking sales and traffic is important. Amazon Store Insights is perfect for getting a quick look at their store’s creative performance on a daily basis. Sellers on the marketplace also know that analytics is always at the top of any Amazon seller hacks list.
Data is absolutely key because it shows actual metrics that point to campaign performance. With this information, you can make the right changes that make a huge difference. You can drive significantly more traffic to each of your listings. You can also make tweaks to increase conversions quickly without expensive gimmicks.
Amazon Store Insights does more than track organic traffic and tagged sources. It can inform when you run Amazon Headline Search ads to prompt more store page views and increase sales. You can also use valuable Amazon seller feedback from customers to evaluate new offerings. The data can show you what products can make good bundles based on what customers bought together. You can even learn how to make your brand more attractive and improve your customer satisfaction ratings.
Automation and Outsourcing
Our absolute favorite of all the Amazon seller hacks is automation and e-Commerce outsourcing. This is another of the less well known but highly effective tips to boost your business. The founders Nathan Hirsch and Connor Gillivan used this for their own Amazon business. They developed and scaled this very profitable business back when they were in college. They owe a lot of their success for this and other profitable businesses to automation and outsourcing.
To benefit from this hack, you first need to identifying the tasks within your business that you can automate. Then you need to separate the ones you can outsource. Start with a complete list of everything that you do for your business. Include tasks that any partners or outside help have on their plates. Then start tagging these items as appropriate.
Some can be either automated or outsourced. Once you have your list, you can figure out which option makes the most sense. Do some research on the going rates for automation tools versus hiring a virtual assistant to do the work. The key is to focus on what will best improve efficiency. This means you get the most bang for your buck. A few examples of tasks you can automate are order fulfillment, shipping, logistics, and report collation. A few examples of tasks you can outsource are listing optimization, PPC management, customer service, and reviews and feedback management.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I apply Amazon Seller hacks to all types of products?
You can apply all of the hacks we mentioned to all types of products apart from one. This is the one under the honeymoon period when you need Amazon barcodes. It only applies to selling as merchant fulfilled and FBA at the same time. Other hacks may have similar restrictions. Please do your own research before diving in! Launching an Amazon store and a new product is not to be undertaken lightly.
How can I effectively measure the impact of implemented Amazon Seller hacks?
You can use the analytics tools that Amazon provides to measure the impact of any hacks you implement. You can also use other third party tools that can give you data on traffic and conversions.
What are some common mistakes to avoid when using Amazon Seller hacks?
Always make sure that you can tell what hack impacted what. If you are implementing multiple strategies at the same time, you might get confused. You need to know what’s happening exactly so you know what works and what doesn’t.
What Is EcomBalance?
EcomBalance is a monthly bookkeeping service specialized for eCommerce companies selling on Amazon, Shopify, Ebay, Etsy, WooCommerce, & other eCommerce channels.
We take monthly bookkeeping off your plate and deliver you your financial statements by the 15th or 20th of each month.
You’ll have your Profit and Loss Statement, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow Statement ready for analysis each month so you and your business partners can make better business decisions.
Interested in learning more? Schedule a call with our CEO, Nathan Hirsch.
And here’s some free resources:
- Monthly Finance Meeting Agenda
- 9 Steps to Master Your Ecommerce Bookkeeping Checklist
- The Ultimate Guide on Finding an Ecommerce Virtual Bookkeeping Service
- What Is a Profit and Loss Statement?
- How to Read & Interpret a Cash Flow Statement
- How to Read a Balance Sheet & Truly Understand It
Conclusion
The Amazon honeymoon period is an amazing opportunity. And you actually can have it twice! Of course, this means completely relaunching the product. We only recommend completely restarting your product listing under one condition. This is if you failed to get a four or five star review average. On Amazon, three stars is not enough to survive. Unless you want your conversion rates to tank, you might consider relaunching with a better strategy. Then you can aim for 5-star reviews with some valuable data under your belt.
