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Help, How Do I Get My Amazon Business To The Next Stage?

By AMZ Tracker last updated on April 8, 2022 0 comments

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If your business has reached a good level of sales, but it’s not growing, then unless you’re happy with what you’ve achieved and want to stay there – for instance, you have enough income to support your lifestyle and you really don’t want to work much harder – you’ll want to do something to get it back on the growth track.

The first and most obvious way to put some oomph into your sales is to launch more products – but not just any products. Leveraging your existing strengths is a sensible way to move forwards.

Resources for finding hot new Amazon trends

By AMZ Tracker last updated on March 28, 2022 0 comments

The internet is full of great resources, and when you’re trying to find hot new trends, that’s the first place you should look. Even if you’ve got a great idea for a new product, it’s worth looking at searches for the product (eg natural swimming pool) or for the issues that it deals with (water shortage, ecoliving, sustainability).

One great source of ideas is Pinterest Predicts, a yearly grab-bag of on-trend ideas based on what’s been ‘pinned’ this year (https://business.pinterest.com/en-gb/pinterest-predicts/). What grabbed me in the latest one?

Moving beyond private label to make a real brand

By AMZ Tracker last updated on March 21, 2022 0 comments

You may well have got started in FBA by looking for a product type, finding a Chinese supplier who could make it at the right price, and having it shipped to Amazon. Whether it was chopsticks, tee shirts, school stationery or LED lamps, the only thing that was really different from the competition was the label – and the price.

It’s still a business model that works if you get the right product niches. But to make a long term brand, rather than just sticking a portfolio of different products together, you need to do a bit more work.

First of all, you need a target customer and you need to know their pain points, or their precise wants. Here are a few examples:

How to turbocharge your sales

By AMZ Tracker last updated on March 14, 2022 0 comments

Sometimes it seems your business is doing well, but it’s not really performing quite the way you want it too. Sales are coming through,but not really growing, or you feel you could be doing a bit better but you’re not sure how to get there.

So if you want to improve your FBA sales, we’ve done some looking around for ways to turbocharge your sales and get your business on to a whole new level.

Better Writing for Better Amazon Sales

By AMZ Tracker last updated on March 7, 2022 0 comments

Studies have shown that better copy writing can deliver much improved conversion rates and higher product sales. We know what works:

• strong emotional content (for consumer goods);

• appeals to authority;

• triggers for emotional buy-in;

• informative content – facts, facts, facts;

• strong differentiation;

• and a call to action at the end.

But none of it will work unless you know who you’re talking to and what they want to know. So the job needs to start with researching your buyers and understanding why they need or want your product. What are their pain points? What problems does your product solve for them? Or what experience does it deliver?

How to optimize your product listings for voice search

By AMZ Tracker last updated on February 28, 2022 0 comments

Voice search is one of the fastest growing categories of search – whether people are using their mobiles, or whether they’re using smart speakers. 20% of all mobile searches, now, are voice search, and that figure is going up all the time.

But voice search has a few differences from the regular internet search. For instance, people are more likely to ask a question (“Alexa, where can I get root beer flavor ice cream?”) than to just type in a keyword or set of keywords (“root beer ice cream”).

That means you may want to use longer tail keywords. For instance, voice queries are more likely to be about “how to optimize my website” than “SEO”. A lot of the questions that people will be asking begin with the following words;

How to improve the photos for your listing

By AMZ Tracker last updated on February 21, 2022 0 comments

Sometimes, after your listing has been live for a while, you see that you didn’t do as good a job as you thought you did. That can be particularly the case with photos. First time round, you got photos that met Amazon’s requirements, and you thought you’d done okay.

But we live and learn. And it’s distinctly possible that you can improve your photos. In fact, they may even be letting your listing down – getting better photos could really improve your conversion rate.

First of all, look at your customer feedback. Do you have reviews saying things like “Looks better than it does in the photos,” or “I was pleasantly surprised by its looks”? That’s a sure sign that you want to take a new set of photos that does a better job of showing your product in a good light (pun intended).

Boosting your average price – a great strategy

By AMZ Tracker last updated on February 16, 2022 0 comments

Selling relatively low-priced products on Amazon is a great way to get started. But if you want to grow, if you keep selling low-priced products, you are going to have to shift huge volumes. And your profitability will probably stay roughly the same.

On the other hand, if you raise the average price you’re selling at for instance by introducing one new higher-priced product, you can increase your profits on a lower volume. Your fees per product will not rise nearly as much as your price, and you’ll have less prepping and shipping to worry about.

First of all, you need to know your ASP – average selling price. It’s there on Seller Central, you don’t have to work it out. It depends on both the price of each product and the mix of products you sell.

Photos that sell your product

By AMZ Tracker last updated on January 29, 2022 0 comments

You may think that you just need a good photo of your product to sell it. But to do a really good job you need more than one type of shot. You need

• the main image

• lifestyle images

• a packaging image

• and infographics.

Amazon lets you have up to 9 photos, and it’s a waste if you don’t use them all. Having so many photos- gives potential customers the feeling they can see your product from all angles, the details, and how it’s going to look in their house or office.

Using interactive content to promote your product

By AMZ Tracker last updated on January 29, 2022 0 comments

Interactive content is irresistible, even in the most basic format, the quiz. For instance, The Guardian newspaper featured a ‘The Hardest Game of Thrones Quiz Ever’ – 80 questions including some real puzzlers, while women’s magazines almost always include quizzes on fashion, love, or health.

Interactive format can keep customers engaged, can help lead generation, and can help qualify those leads, too.

The bad news? If you want to use it, for the moment, you’ll need to use your own blog or website, or social media. Amazon hasn’t quite delivered FBA sellers this functionality yet.

Amazon FBA product listing variations

By AMZ Tracker last updated on January 24, 2022 0 comments

If, say, you produce a red tee-shirt, and a blue one, you have two choices of how to list on Amazon. You could list each as a separate product. Or you could list them as a single product, ‘tee shirt’, which comes in two variations, red and blue.

You could give your customer even more choice if you also add size variations, such as S, M, L, all the way to XXL. This is a variation relationship listing; some people call it a ‘parent-child’ listing.

It’s pretty simple to do. You first need a Parent ASIN. The Parent ASIN isn’t a sellable item – it’s just a catalog entry. Then you need a Child ASIN for each of the variations. And the Child ASINs fit within a variation theme, such as size, color, flavor, pattern. Amazon even offers you a Variation Wizard to make the process easy.

How to sell kids’ products safely and profitably

By AMZ Tracker last updated on January 17, 2022 0 comments

Selling kids’ products on Amazon can be a real money maker. But you need to get it right, otherwise you can come a cropper. You might even have to destroy your inventory if it doesn’t pass certification.

We’ll look at the regulations in a minute, but first let’s look at your marketing. Unlike other products, with children’s products you’re not selling to the end user, you’re selling to an adult – usually a parent or close relative. So your marketing needs to reflect that.

Using the 80/20 rule to improve your business

By AMZ Tracker last updated on January 10, 2022 0 comments

The idea that 80 percent of your results come from just 20 percent of your work is quite amazing. If you get things right, you could end up doing a fifth of the work you are today, and making the same profit!

Of course, to get things right, you need to identify which is the 20 percent of your work that’s producing the results.

Let’s look at your products first. Which are the 20 percent that makes real money? Which are the also-rans? All the data is there on FBA Seller Central.

You might not want to stop offering the other products. For instance, if you sell boots, but you also have bootlaces that match, it may be quite important to your customers that you retain that product line. But you might not want to do any separate marketing for the bootlaces, for instance, or a lot of separate content for the product listings – your aim will be to reuse the videos and text that you use for the boot product pages, as much as possible.

2022’s big dates on Amazon

By AMZ Tracker last updated on January 5, 2022 0 comments

While Amazon is a great sales channel all the time, like any retail business it does better in the holiday season, and some dates can make a huge difference to your sales performance. Running through the year, you’ll notice there are some major events that can affect your sales. (For those outside the US, Thanksgiving and Independence Day won’t apply, while local celebrations like July 14th in France or St Nicholas’ Day in the Netherlands will.)

February has the Super Bowl (13th) and Valentine’s Day (14th), and is Black History Month. But the biggest event is Chinese New Year which falls at the start of February this year. Suppliers may be closed for a week before and after this holiday so be sure to check with them and order well in advance!

March is normally Spring Break, though with the pandemic, that might not happen – but there’s also International Women’s Day on the 8th and St Patrick’s on the 17th.

How to do your annual FBA audit

By AMZ Tracker last updated on December 27, 2021 0 comments

You will probably want to sit down with your Seller Central web page open to do your audit. Some of the questions might need you to do a little research. But don’t just look at the numbers – keep yourself focused on the questions in the list.

First, how well did your products sell? Were there some that surpassed your expectations? Why do you think they did so well? How can you use that going forwards? For instance, if you’ve spotted a great niche for yoga products for men (a lot of yoga stuff is female orientated), then can you launch more products in that line? Are some products faltering?

It’s also a good idea to look at the shape of your product portfolio. If you have one top product that accounts for most of your sales, and a bunch of also-rans, that’s not very healthy. Think about how to get your other products performing properly too.

How to use TikTok to promote your brand

By AMZ Tracker last updated on December 21, 2021 0 comments

TikTok is particularly good for selling to younger buyers, but it’s beginning to get more traction across the generations. What we love about it is that unlike other video platforms, TikTok stimulates interaction with users, for instance with TikTok ‘duels’ and challenges – leveraging your initial investment in video for greater impact.

The best approach to TikTok is to create a vlog, not just a single product video. Think of something fascinating, in a common format, that can be addressed in 15 or 30 seconds and promotes your product. For instance:

Use Amazon Subscribe & Save to increase your sales

By AMZ Tracker last updated on December 13, 2021 0 comments

Amazon’s Subscribe & Save program is a huge opportunity for vendors. First of all, it provides a regular income instead of a one-off sale. That makes your business more predictable.

Secondly, it can build customer loyalty. If a customer has to come to Amazon to look for, say, toilet paper, they might buy yours again – or they might just buy whatever pops up on top of the search results. But if they’ve subscribed for a monthly delivery, then they’re not going to have to think about whether they’re getting low, and they’re not going to have to search to find what they want – your product will arrive automatically.

That means your advertising spend can be entirely targeted on finding new customers – you don’t have to win back the customers you already have.

Starting Amazon FBA on a shoestring

By AMZ Tracker last updated on December 5, 2021 0 comments

You really shouldn’t let a shortage of funds delay your getting started on Amazon. The sooner you start, the better – you’ll begin to generate profits more quickly, and you can then reinvest those.

Most new sellers start with $4,000 or so. But you can still get started for a really small amount – as low as $500 in capital cost upfront if you really bootstrap, but more commonly, around $2,000 for a private label business.

Getting the best out of Pay Per Click

By AMZ Tracker last updated on November 28, 2021 0 comments

Pay Per Click advertising can be quite a substantial investment, so you want to make sure you are getting a good return. Fortunately, Amazon gives you all the tools you need to do this – though you’ll need to invest a bit of time and effort in getting up to speed.

The first thing to do, if you have an existing PPC campaign you want to optimize, is to cut out the waste.

For instance, if you’ve run out of stock, stop the ads (or as the skinflint said when his taxi drove off a cliff, “If you can’t stop the car, at least stop the meter!”) There’s no point advertising something you can’t deliver!

How to answer customers’ questions

By AMZ Tracker last updated on November 22, 2021 0 comments

This sounds like an easy thing to do. It’s not. Answering customer questions can have a big influence on your sales, but you have to do it right.

First of all, don’t use a script or a canned answer. People notice. It makes you look like you can’t be bothered. Answer each question with a fresh answer. Take the question seriously and answer it specifically.