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As a seller on Amazon, your main goal is to increase your sales as much as possible. Amazon is a globally recognized platform, making the Amazon marketplace quite competitive. The good news is, there are some tips you can use to ensure you stay ahead of the competition.
The following are some useful Amazon hacks that you can follow to boost your Amazon sales and seller ranking:
Tip 1: Own the Buy Box
The Buy Box practically determines your success as an Amazon seller. It is vital for sellers, especially for those who are just selling products they don’t create nor manufacture.
For example, when a buyer performs an Amazon advanced search using the Amazon product finder for a certain product, he’ll find the same product sold by 15 sellers. However, only 4 of them were able to make it to the list which pops up.
If you belong to the other 11 sellers, then you’re essentially losing out on potential sales. Fortunately, there is a solution, and that is to win the buy box. The question is, how exactly can you do it?
First, let’s understand what are the different buy box metrics and what they mean. They’re basically categorized into three, namely:
- Shipping Performance
The Amazon marketplace is globally recognized; therefore, it’s no longer surprising that they strive to do their best as they have a reputation to protect. That said, they give priority to their shipping performance.
Consequently, Amazon encourages sellers to use the Fulfilled by Amazon feature. Shipping performance is inclusive of different individual metrics such as Perfect Order Percentage and Order defect rate.
Amazon also pays close attention to the frequency at which a seller runs out of stock. Therefore, maintaining a 100% in-stock rate as possible is advisable.
- Pricing
The most essential buy box metric, your product’s pricing will influence the possibility of your product winning the buy box. You must have noticed a number of cheaper options on the listing. However, what you might not have noticed is that cheaper alternatives tend to be more expensive when you factor in the shipping costs.
By default, Amazon lists products according to Price + Shipping, and this can be reflected on the buy box.
- Seller Rating
As a seller, you might want to strive to maintain a 90% rating. You can prove this by checking the score of sellers appearing on the first page. You might be surprised to find a seller with a rating of 90% ranking higher than one with a 100% rating.
This just goes to show that once a seller hits a 90% rating, new ratings don’t have any significant impact on the buy box anymore. Also, I find out that sellers with less than a 90% rating are unlikely to appear on the buy box.
Such services as SageMailer could become your reliable assistant in maintaining the perfect Amazon seller rating without any effort from your side. These are fully automated services that automatically contact your buyers for feedback and help to reduce the likelihood of negative reviews to a minimum.
Ways for Winning the Buy Box
Now that you’ve understood the metrics used for the buy box, the next step is to find out how to win it. There are three simple steps you have to follow (although they might sound easier said than done).
- First, ensure that you are eligible. This means that your product should have a similar ASIN to that of the listing you would like to be featured on. It’s also important to meet all the criteria stated above.
- Second, lower the price of your product. Once you’re eligible, most of it will boil down to your pricing. Simply check the price of your competitor’s product and offer yours at a lower price or a lower shipping fee. However, while it is a good short-term strategy, it won’t be suitable in the long run. Don’t focus too much on the pricing alone, as you’ll soon find yourself waging a price war with your competitors.
- Lastly, use the Amazon FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon). The service will enable you to compete on platforms such as Amazon Prime Listings. Also, Amazon is encouraging all sellers to join the program, so the sooner you join, the more rewarding it will be.
Tip 2: Make Use of Amazon Seller Tools and Apps for Automation
Did you know there are a number of Amazon seller apps and tools you can use to your advantage? Seller tools are among the powerful ways in which you can take advantage of automation on Amazon. That said, let’s explore the three useful means to automate selling on Amazon. They’re as follows:
- Keyword research
Keywords are essential for increasing sales. Potential buyers tend to conduct product research when looking for a product to buy. Therefore, using the right keywords will help your product come up whenever a potential buyer conducts an Amazon seller search for an item. The primary concern for sellers has always been on how to find the right keywords.
While Amazon lacks a built-in keyword tool, there are several tools you can search and use. Two of them are the KTD Amazon Keyword Tool and MerchantWords. The KTD Amazon Keyword Tool is a free tool that provides you with a number of keyword suggestions each time you enter a keyword on the tool. The tool queries Amazon’s search box and looks for long-tailed keyword suggestions which you can use.
On the other hand, the MerchantWords is a system that obtains data from a number of search engines then identifies matching queries on Amazon. After that, it then uses an algorithm to combine the data is obtained and provide you with an estimated traffic number. This, however, is a premium tool.
- Product Re-Pricing
Using the Buy Box hack won’t serve you for long since your competitors will catch up with the trick. However, you can manage to stay ahead of them by using the product re-price tool.
The re-pricing tool will automatically reprice your products according to the product’s price history. This will allow you to maintain your spot in the Buy Box. Some of the useful tools you can use include Sellery and RepricerExpress. Sellery allows you to control when you can reprice your products as well as your preferred amount. RepricerExpress, on the other hand, offers the same features as that of Sellery except that it comes at a flat monthly rate.
- Inventory, Shipping, and Listing Management
Lastly, sellers who sell volumes of products and market their products across various platforms will require a tool for managing their sales, particularly their inventory and shipping. Fortunately, there are a few useful tools that will help make the process a lot easier.
One of the most recommended tools you can use, especially if you only sell on Amazon, is InventoryLab. This inventory management tool lets you create listings, monitor your shipments, manage your sales, and even analyze the performance of your business.
Another recommended tool is SellBrite which is advisable for sellers who sell their products on both Amazon and eBay. Although it doesn’t have the financial, accounting, and Amazon seller analytics function of InventoryLab, it focuses heavily on multi-channel inventory as well as tools for managing your listing. This automatically syncs up your inventories for your stores on various platforms so you won’t be displaying duplicate products. It even lets you manage several stores on the same channel.
However, there is no accounting in Sellbrite, but you can use Osome’s solutions for online-accounting.
Tip 3: Offer Vendor Powered Coupons
Regardless of your merchant account type, you can always use the built-in promotion tools that Amazon offers to your advantage. Most shoppers will always use the daily deals offered by Amazon to avail of discounts whenever possible.
These deals can be seen by clicking today’s deals link located on the upper portion right next to Amazon’s logo. This section will almost feel like a department in itself. You’ll find a handful of promotions as you keep on browsing.
However, what you should be keeping your eyes on is the Coupons link which you can find on the upper menu just right below the search bar. Clicking on this link will redirect you to Amazon’s list of Vendor Powered Coupons. There, you can find a number of categories and coupons for just about everything with the exception of digital content.
Depending on the status of your account, you can start creating VPCs for your products. Once you have your own VPCs, here are some tips that will help you maximize their usage:
- Promote them like you would with your product listing. After all, coupon pages have their own sales rank. By promoting them, you’ll be able to attract more traffic to your products via a coupon than the product listing itself. This will also let you compete in a very competitive market.
- Make sure you promote your coupons on third-party deal sites as well. This will provide you with a good amount of traffic with very minimal effort. You can come across a number of websites where you can showcase your offers. Simply search “submit a deal” on Google. Although you might not see immediate results, you’ll start seeing some steady traffic over time.
- Create a more irresistible offer or coupon than your competition. Since Amazon is focused on giving their customers the best deals each time they try to find a seller on Amazon, you just have to show them that your offers are far better than that of your competition. This will help increase the chances of your coupons showing up in the Coupons page.
- Hand out your coupons to friends and family for reviews or even sales metrics. You can do this by creating a VPC then offering a discount that lets you break even. After that, simply give your coupons to friends and family then have them buy the product via Amazon using their account. They’ll be excited to buy such an irresistible offer, and you can get a “Verified Purchase” review in return.
NOTE: If you want to succeed in promoting your deals on third-party deal sites, you have to make an offer that will really stand out. In most cases, this offer will be a lot more enticing than the ones you have on Amazon.
Tip 4: Amazon ASIN Piggybacking
The ASIN piggybacking is no doubt among the most powerful tricks you can use for marketing your products. But before that, let’s talk about how you can find your product’s ASIN.
There are 3 methods you can use: using software, listing details, or web address. The easiest method is to look at the address bar for your product. The Amazon ASIN is the string of characters that come right after “dp/”. Alternatively, you can find it on the details section of a product and is located in the Product Information section near the bottom of the listing.
How to Do ASIN Piggybacking
Now that you’ve known how to identify your product’s ASIN, let’s talk about how you can perform ASIN piggybacking. Here are the steps you need to follow:
- Look for a successful non-unique product then identify its ASIN.
- After that, find out its manufacturer so you can find out how you can resell the product. Research about its overall cost wholesale as well as the amount its shipping will cost you. Also, try to identify if there’s room between that and $0.01 less compared to the current winning price on the Buy Box where you can make a profit.
- If there is, then simply contact the manufacturer so you can start selling as soon as possible.
- However, if you didn’t find any, you might want to work out a deal with the manufacturer. Or, you can just look around for other products to sell.
Final Thoughts
Selling your products on Amazon should not be excessive, whether you are new to the platform or have been selling your products for months or years. After all, this is the largest e-commerce platform and has all the tools you need to maximize your earning potential. However, it will work better if you apply the above Amazon selling tips and make them work to your advantage.
So what are you waiting for? Take advantage of our recommendations and start making money! And don’t forget to try SageMailer’s free 30-day trial to boost your seller’s ranking and get more product reviews.
