You’ve worked your way through 2,500 products and uploaded them successfully to the Seller Central. You’ve uploaded your SKU Translator to FBSW. You’ve navigated Amazon to set up your shipping templates and connect your UPS account. Your account is live. You’re ready to reap the benefits.
And now you wait. And wait.
If you’ve gone live with your FBSW account through the Amazon Marketplace, you may have experienced a somewhat-less-than-stellar launch period. Unlike a physical store, where openings are often accompanied by fanfare and groups of potential customers waiting in anticipation, the opening of a store on the Amazon Marketplace is much more like pulling your brand-new car on to a crowded six-lane freeway.
While a slow start can be disheartening, it doesn’t have to be permanent. There are a number of things you can do to help stand apart from the throngs of other dealers on the Marketplace.
Research Your Products
You could spend countless hours experimenting with your entries- adjusting descriptions, prices, keywords, etc.. Or, you could just take advantage of the fact that someone else has already done all the heavy lifting.
Do a search on Amazon for the products you’re selling and look at the top entries. How are they pricing their items? What keywords do they put in their title? How did they word their descriptions? These are all factors that Amazon takes into account when ranking search results. And the folks at the top have obviously figured out what it takes to get there. So follow their lead!
Solicit Reviews
One of the most important factors in a customer’s decision to buy from a merchant on the Marketplace is the reputation of the seller. Will the customer have a pleasant, trouble-free experience when purchasing from that dealer, or will the low price come with high risk?
While you can’t incentivize your customers to leave a review, you can certainly ask / encourage / beg them to do so. And while perhaps no more than five percent of your customers will leave a review, every one that does helps build your reputation on the Marketplace. You can do this yourself (we recommend reaching out about a week after delivery to check in on the status of the order, and to encourage the customer to leave a review), or you can enlist the help of online services such as Feedback Five (https://www.feedbackfive.com/) who work on your behalf to encourage customers to give feedback on their purchases.
Don’t underestimate the importance of this one. You should be reaching out to every single customer who orders from you, asking about their experience, and encouraging them to leave reviews.
Invest in Imagery
While FBSW provides you with images for every product, they’re not the most eye-catching in the world. But nothing says you have to settle for the same basic imagery as other dealers.
Get ahold of the products you want to feature, and spend some time with them- get them professionally photographed and optimized, add your store’s logo to the image, maybe a value promise. While Amazon has guidelines for imagery, there’s plenty of room to create a compelling message that captures your customers’ eye.
Create Custom Offerings
If you worked with the template FBSW provided, you’ve probably got a rather impressive list of nearly 2,500 products in your store. Guess what? So do all the other dealers. It’s difficult to set yourself apart from your competition when you all offer the exact same things.
But you’re not confined to just the options we provide. By bundling individual items together into a single offering, you can make your FBSW store your own and target customers who are looking for more than just the basics.
Additionally, your bundled offering, by virtue of having multiple related keywords, will show up in a wider variety of searches, increasing your exposure to potential buyers.
Start by looking at what your traditional customers order. What kinds of products do they order together? How many do they like to order at once?
Put together a package (we’ve got detailed instructions on tackling this) that gathers all their needs in one easy-to-order place, and they’ll seek you out.
There’s no magic bullet to being successful on the Amazon Marketplace. It’s going to take continuous work and iterative improvement. But with these tips, and some elbow grease, you can move your orders from “ho hum” to “oh wow!”