Read about how to get into trouble with Amazon and how to get out of trouble with Amazon. These two posts also talk about the impact of product reviews gone wrong. We will address this a bit in our article today.

Do Product Reviews Really Matter?

People shop on Amazon for something they either can’t find in their immediate location, or because they prefer online shopping. Amazon prioritises shopper wants and needs over seller wants and needs, earning it a reputation as a consumer-friendly platform. One important aspect of seller reputation with shoppers and with the Amazon platform is the role of product reviews. (Read our previous posts about how sellers can get into trouble and how to get out of trouble with Amazon.)

Comprehensive and clearly-written product listing pages help shoppers know what to expect when they receive the product. This is especially important on Amazon because shopper interaction with a physical product is not possible. Product reviews allow shoppers to get the consumer perspective of not only the product, but the purchase experience. Having a strong logistics and customer service system in place also helps to reduce the possibilities for customer dissatisfaction.

It is important for sellers to keep an eye on the product reviews. Positive product reviews improve consumer faith in the seller, increasing the reputation of the seller on the Amazon platform. While positive reviews are certainly welcome, negative reviews can also be helpful. Sellers gain valuable insights to issues they may have overlooked in their content.

What Is A Good Product Review?

Especially for an online shopping platform, reviews can provide invaluable information for shoppers about a product from the consumer perspective. The most effective reviews are the ones that provide useful information influencing a decision to buy a product.

A good product review will state exactly what the customer (dis)liked about a product and how they interact with it. Also important in a good review is information on how the product works (for them) compared to the product description. A critical review will explain clearly how the product does not meet the customer’s expectations. So, even a well-written negative product review will allow potential shoppers to make more informed purchase decisions. They give sellers insights into how to improve their product listing pages. Feedback can also be incorporated into future design decisions.

There is an abundance of reviews along the lines of, “Great product!” “Would never buy again!”. Or even, “Did not work when I received it! Sending it back!”. These types of reviews are not so helpful, as they do not specify the “why” behind the comments. They do not help potential shoppers identify good or bad product features that would help them choose a product.

FBA-Related Product Reviews

Negative reviews may occur when a customer has an issue with the shipping, tracking, and delivery of the product. In the case of products that are fulfilled by Amazon (FBA), the seller must flag it immediately with Amazon.

Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA): the product is packaged and shipped by Amazon from the warehouse.

Any FBA-related issues can and must be resolved by Amazon. Amazon does not keep track of these issues, so the seller must communicate immediately with the platform. Amazon has the responsibility to fix the issue and remove the negative product review from the product listing page. Such a fix can be product replacement or reimbursement.

Product Review Tampering

It is important to stress that people cannot leave reviews in lieu of compensation (payment, free product(s)). You can read more about compensated reviews in this article. Product review tampering is strictly against Amazon’s policy and can result in the seller’s account being suspended or even banned. We talk more about this in a previous blog post. In 2023, Amazon blocked more than 250 million suspected fake reviews worldwide.

If a relatively new company or product attains a large number of 5-star ratings within a short period of time, there’s a good chance that the reviews are fake. Another strong indicator is if the company is not traceable off Amazon—such as not having a website or any other online presence.

Competitors can also leave negative reviews about a competing product or pay for compensated negative reviews. These are hard to prove, and sellers must tread lightly. Sometimes, a reviewer will review a wrong product or review a feature that does not exist in the sold product. In these situations, the seller can report this to Amazon for them to check. It is also important to notice what exactly these negative reviews are focusing on. Think if there is a way your product listing information can “respond” to these points. Perhaps you can improve the content of the product descriptions or even develop better A+ material to address reviewer concerns.

Vine Product Reviews

In the previous section we explain that reviewer compensation for product reviews is against Amazon policy. However, Vine product reviews are legal. What are Vine product reviews? The Amazon Vine programme is

“an invitation-only program which selects the most insightful reviewers in the Amazon store to serve as Vine Voices. Vine Voices have the unique opportunity to order items free of charge and share their product experiences with Amazon customers to help them make informed buying decisions.” (About Amazon Vine)

Amazon shoppers that consistently write helpful and insightful reviews are invited by Amazon to participate in the Amazon Vine programme. They receive products for free (or with a discount) in exchange for writing detailed and unbiased product reviews. Such a programme is extremely helpful for new brands or brands with new products/product lines with no reviews. It is especially important that the products are good, because the Vine reviews are honest, unbiased reviews.

Sellers must be registered brands to participate in the Amazon Vine programme. They pay a fee per parent ASIN (see our section on Variations in this article). An important caveat about participating in Amazon Vine is that getting a review—positive or negative—is not guaranteed. Reviewers must choose to try the product in exchange for writing a review. On a positive note, participating in the programme can potentially boost sales by 30%.

Conclusion

As we can see, the subject of product reviews is not a simple one, as there are many questions to keep in mind. What exactly constitutes a useful product review (whether it’s negatively- or positively-skewed)? How can you violate Amazon product review policies? In what way can you follow Amazon product review policies, such as with the Vine programme? Which reviews can Amazon fix/remove? How can you identify fake reviews? How can you deal with them?

Armed with these questions, sellers will be able to figure out how to deal and work with product reviews. This level of proactivity will help maximise chances for success and brand loyalty on the Amazon platform.

Read about using storefronts for your brand, creating a shopper-centric experience on Amazon, and how to get started with Amazon platforms. If you want to know more about Amazon PPC advertising, start with navigating the PPC advertising journey, followed by using promotions in a long term strategy.

Big Trouble in Little Amazon: Introduction

As seen in our previous blog post, it is surprisingly easy to get into trouble with Amazon. Amazon prioritises customers over shoppers, so if customers are not happy, Amazon is not happy, either. We organised some potential issues into three categories: customer misinformation, logistics errors, and prohibited activities. Examples of customer misinformation is if the content on the product listing pages is inaccurate. This includes images that do not accurately show product features or a product description that is missing some crucial information (about a power plug type, for example). If a customer does not receive what they ordered, or if there are issues with shipping, these count as examples of logistics errors. Prohibited activities are, as you can expect, activities that break a law or Amazon policy. Examples of these include selling counterfeit items or violations of intellectual property.

Amazon suspends seller accounts because of issues in the first two categories. It is possible to reverse with some fast action on the part of the seller. Amazon deactivates accounts if they see evidence that sellers are doing prohibited activities. Sellers with deactivated accounts are usually banned from selling on Amazon again. The action of deactivating an account is usually irreversible.

The first piece of advice: take preventive measures to not get into trouble in the first place.

The second piece of advice: read, re-read, and stay up to date on Amazon selling policies.

Amazon updates their selling policies on a regular basis and emails the updates to sellers. Do not skip these emails! Taking the time to read them can possibly save your brand’s selling reputation on Amazon.

Your Amazon Seller Account Is Suspended

Some causes of account suspension can be:

• Poor performance metrics
• Violation of Amazon policy
• Poor customer communication
• Listing infringement issues
• Suspicious account activity

As mentioned in the previous article, account suspension can lead to logistics nightmares, especially for sellers that participate in Amazon’s FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon) programme. Sellers with suspended accounts still have limited access to their seller account but are unable to fulfil orders because they lose seller privileges. After 60 days of account inactivity (caused by not being able to fulfil orders), Amazon can and will destroy inventory stored in their warehouses.

If Amazon suspends your seller account, you will receive an email with the reason(s) and instructions for appealing the decision. If Amazon deactivates your account, you will receive an email regarding your account balance and how to retrieve the funds. The appeals process for a deactivated account is much more restricted, if any option exists at all.

Take Action To Unsuspend Your Amazon Seller Account

Now. Suppose you do get into trouble and your account gets suspended. Let’s see what we can do to unsuspend your Amazon seller account.

Stop and Reflect

Read the email carefully. Understand the issue. If the email does not provide a clear reason for suspension, immediately contact customer support or get the help of a professional (someone who specialises in Amazon seller issues).

Thoroughly check your product information: the listings, products and reviews. You can also find this information in the customer metrics section of Seller Central. What can you update/change to: 1) solve the issue with your suspended account; and 2) prevent this issue from occurring again.

Plan of Action (POA)

Create a plan to resolve the issue. Write it out, step by step, in full detail. Gather data and write out the explanation of how this data supports your plan of action to resolve the issue.

Suspension Appeal Letter

Once you have created your POA, write out the suspension appeal letter to Amazon. Your letter should be respectful, but clearly outline how you are resolving the issue and ask that your account suspension be reviewed and reactivated. The rough outline of your appeal should be as follows:

• Have a respectful yet firm introduction;
• Clearly identify the issues leading to account suspension (refer to Amazon’s suspension email);
• Explain your POA, and what actions you have taken since being suspended;
• Clearly state how you will prevent this from happening again; and
• Close your letter on a pleasant and friendly note.

Do not make the issue about yourself or your business unless Amazon asks for that information. Stick to the facts and how you are/will address them. If Amazon did not bring up an issue, do not address it.

Submit your Appeal Request

In Seller Central, go to the “Performance” dropdown menu and select “Performance Notifications” to ensure that you receive updates on the appeal process. Go back to the email you received from Amazon notifying you of your account suspension. Click on the “Appeal” button and then “Appeal Decision”.

In the provided form, type in your appeal letter, which includes the POA. Provide contact information for Amazon to contact you with the next steps. Once you click on “Submit Appeal”, your application goes to the Amazon Seller Performance team for review. Call Amazon’s support staff to notify them that you are appealing the decision and have them confirm that they received and are processing your request. Have patience while your issue is resolved. Usually it will take up to 48 hours for them to respond to you via email.

While it is important to act quickly, it is also extremely important to review everything carefully before submitting your appeal request because you will most likely only have one chance to appeal.

Conclusion

As a seller on Amazon, it is important to pay close attention to not only customer metrics, but logistics issues and Amazon policies. Issues in all three areas mentioned can lead to account suspension if not taken care of. If Amazon suspends your account, they clearly outline the reasons, with which you can develop an action plan to resolve the issue and to prevent it from happening again. The sooner you resolve the issue, the sooner they approve the appeal to unsuspend your Amazon seller account and you can start selling again.

Need advice on the best Amazon strategy for your brand? Want more information about our tailored services? Contact us today!

Photo by sarah b on Unsplash

To learn more about increasing ranking on Amazon, read SEO on Amazon. Our post on Amazon Platforms outline the differences between FBA and FBM. For a guide on successfully introducing new products to the Amazon marketplace, please read our post on Competitor Analysis.

Getting in Trouble with Amazon: Introduction

Selling on Amazon can be a very lucrative venture for sellers. Success over the long term requires a combination of having a strong product, a structured marketing strategy, and efficient logistics. All of that effort, however, can be disrupted by Amazon if sellers, intentionally or not, neglect established rules and policies.

When it comes to priorities, Amazon prioritises the shoppers first and foremost over the sellers. If a seller account is shown to violate certain rules, Amazon can either suspend or deactivate a seller account. If issues are not resolved, seller accounts are banned from opening the account again. New account requests can also be denied.

Account suspension, for example, can lead to logistics nightmares. For sellers with inventory in Amazon warehouses, they risk their inventory being destroyed after 60 days of account inactivity. Account inactivity occurs when orders are unfillable. In the case of suspected fraud or abuse, Amazon will hold the funds in the accounts of suspended sellers. So, it is especially important to immediately resolve issues as they happen, or better yet, prevent them from happening. If the issues are not resolved or Amazon denies the appeal, the Seller account will be banned from selling on Amazon. In the case of denied seller applications, it usually indicates missing information or not meeting Amazon’s requirements as a seller.

In most cases, the above measures can be reversed if sellers put in the effort to resolve the problems. This post outlines the most common issues and how they can be fixed. The issues have been categorised as: customer misinformation, logistics errors, and prohibited activities.

Getting in Trouble with Amazon: Customer Misinformation

Inaccurate Content Information

In our blog post about creating a shopper-centric experience on Amazon, we stressed the importance of well-written product listing pages. This is particularly important since shoppers are unable to physically interact with the product they are shopping for on Amazon. All of the content and images must provide enough information for the shopper to make a well-informed decision.

An example of content misinformation could be the accidental omission of information about the power voltage of an electronic device. Inaccurate images may perhaps not show the dimensions of the product or how it can be handled by the consumer. The result of the inaccurate information provided to the shoppers is a high return dissatisfaction rate. The more products returned to Amazon, the more likely Amazon would start the procedure to penalise a seller account.

Misleading Reviews

Sometimes product lines will contain many variations (such as different colours or sizes). Product reviews for one variation will show up in all product listing pages for all products within the variation family. (Read more about variations in this article.) This can become an issue if products within one family have different features. With unclear or vague information in the basic content, customers reading the reviews may accidentally purchase the wrong product.

Competitors have been known to leave bad reviews for a competing product on Amazon, and sellers have been known to combine products of differing qualities under one variation family. These two serve only as examples of issues regarding reviews that lead to customer misinformation. The main issue lies in the fact that customers must be very discerning regarding the product they buy. Dealing with reviews as a seller can be particularly problematic. The sooner the reviews are addressed, the better, because they affect ranking and the seller’s reputation with Amazon.

Subpar Customer Service

Amazon is all about the shoppers, providing a quality shopping experience. Amazon will take measures to penalise a seller if shoppers continue to be unsatisfied with service. This can include dissatisfaction with the quality of communication with a seller, of the product or the shopping experience overall. It is crucial that Sellers pay attention to shopper communications—both indirect via reviews and direct via contact with the Seller—and react as quickly as possible.

Recap: Preventing customer misinformation

The key to preventing trouble with Amazon over these issues is to ensure that all content (text and images) are clear and contain all of the relevant information. If something is mentioned in a review, it must be reflected somewhere in the content. If the issue is regarding communication between the shopper and seller, take steps to improve the quality of customer service. With all of these improvements, the quality of your brand and your seller reputation on Amazon will be improved.

Getting in Trouble with Amazon: Logistics Issues

Logistics issues can wreak havoc with a seller’s performance metrics. It is important to watch the performance metrics, ensuring that any logistics issues are dealt with in a timely manner.

High Order Defect Rate (ODR)

A seller’s Order Defect Rate (ODR) increases when a shopper receives a defective product and reports it to Amazon. Amazon will penalise the Seller when the ODR goes above 1% of all orders.

High Pre-Fulfilment Cancel Rate (PFCR)

Pre-fulfilment cancelations occur when the seller has to cancel an order due to stock or other issues. Amazon will penalise the seller when such a rate goes over 2.5% of all orders. Note: If the level of supply is lower than the demand, unfulfilled orders lead to an increase in the PFCR.

High Late Shipment Rate (LSR)

Late shipment occurs when products are shipped/delivered beyond the time frame the seller indicates when the shopper places the order. Inaccurate tracking information can also impact the LSR. When the LSR goes over 4%, Amazon will take measures to penalise the seller. Note: Sometimes there can be issues with FBA delivery. In this case, it is absolutely critical that sellers contact Amazon immediately, as Amazon will need to resolve these issues. Amazon will handle the costs of replacement and delivery and can retract negative reviews related to FBA issues.

Recap: Preventing logistics issues

To prevent trouble with Amazon over these issues, it’s crucial to keep a watchful eye on the account metrics. Done on a weekly basis, these checks can help ensure that any issues are addressed as soon as they occur. This helps sellers not only improve their reputation with Amazon, but also their reputation with shoppers as quality sellers.

Getting in Trouble with Amazon: Platform Violations

Amazon is strict about penalising seller accounts that have violated Amazon platform policies. Some examples of these violations, other than any criminal activity, include having multiple seller accounts and unlicensed dropshipping.

Multiple Seller Accounts

Amazon does not allow a seller to have multiple seller accounts unless there is a legitimate business justification. This can be if a business owns multiple brands and must maintain separate businesses for each. Another case would be if you are a manufacturer and produce products for two distinct, non-competing companies. The reasoning behind this rule is to prevent sellers from having multiple accounts to sell competing products and control pricing.

Unlicensed Dropshipping

Dropshipping is a business practice in which a business does not physically have the product they are selling. When a product is sold on Amazon (or any other ecommerce platform), the seller will notify a third party, who will then handle the shipping of the product directly to the consumer. Sellers reduce overhead costs by outsourcing the procurement, storage and shipping of products to a third party (e.g., a supplier). Amazon requires dropshippers to prove they are the Seller of Record (SoR), meaning that they own the products they sell.

If Amazon sees that the seller is not the SoR, dropshipping can be determined to be unlicensed. Amazon also insists that the products be shipped with the seller’s labeling. It is not permitted for the product to be shipped with a different company’s label on the packaging. This makes it look as if it was shipped from another retailer, and not the seller.

Other Violations

Violating intellectual property. Such as using another brand name or copyrighted material without permission. One such example is using trademarked names in marketing material, such as “Velcro” (and “Lycra”, among others). The brand owning the trademarks will file a trademark infringement claim against anyone who violates it.

Selling counterfeit items. Such as items that are “replicas” of an item that is registered under Amazon’s Brand Registry program by another seller.

Product review manipulation. Such as providing incentives for people to leave a positive product review (in exchange for a free product, for example). On the other hand, competitors may leave negative product reviews for a competing product to drive the rankings down. This is harder to prove, however, and requires more finesse to solve.

Recap: Preventing issues with platform violations

First and foremost, pay close attention to Amazon’s Policies and Guidelines. These are updated regularly and sellers will receive emails with the updates. Take the time to review them to ensure you are still complying with their requirements. Make sure you review intellectual property policy. If you are registered with Amazon Brand Registry, read up on how to protect your brand. You will be better prepared in the case that action is taken against you (by either Amazon or a competitor).

Conclusion

In many cases, issues with Amazon may be common sense—do not launder money or commit fraud, for example. Some of the issues with Amazon, however, are more subtle. In these cases, it is very important to be as educated on Amazon’s platform policies as possible.

It is also important to pay attention to the account metrics at least on a weekly basis. This is to ensure that such metrics as ODR, PFCR and LSR do not increase. Watching account metrics and product reviews will also give sellers an indication where problem areas may be. In these cases, it is possible to catch the problems before they escalate. Take quick action, whether it be changing content descriptions or getting in touch with Amazon directly.

Following these tips and keeping yourself educated will help you stay out of trouble with Amazon.

Read more about the Benefits of Selling on Amazon and Expanding to Amazon Europe Markets. Read our 3 part article series based on this post on LinkedIn: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Competitor Analysis Level 1: Critical Analysis of Basic Product Information

The Product Design Brief

The very first step in a competitor analysis is to look at the product design brief. Why was this product made? In some cases, it was made to compete (and beat) a rival product line. Price will be one of the selling factors with these products. In other cases, the product is a completely original design. With these products, it will be important to hype up the content to catch the eye of browsing shoppers.

Don’t have access to the product’s design brief or value proposition? Look at the public information on the company website and the product sheets for the product. Your aim is to identify key features and benefits of the product. How does it differ from those of competitors? How does it fill a gap in the market?

Make notes about what stands out about the product, its selling features, potential keywords and Amazon product categories. These initial impressions are important. They will also be the impressions of browsing shoppers when they come across this product on the Amazon marketplace. As you move through these steps, it will become clear how to improve the content to best showcase the product.

Critical Analysis of Competing Product Pages

Using your list of keywords and categories from the previous step, look on Amazon for products similar to your product. Check the basic product listing page—the product title, images, and bullet points (read more in this post).

Really analyse how they produced their content—what kind of language did they use? How did they set up their bullet points? What kinds of images did they use? How effective are these images for displaying the key features of the product? Make notes of good points and bad points. Perhaps the bullet points are much too short and do not sufficiently highlight the product’s features. Perhaps the images do not show, for example, how the user can interact with the product.

These notes will give you a much better idea of what to include (or not) on your product’s listing page. This will become the first step in developing your own set of best practices for designing a strong listing page. These best practices will vary from marketplace to marketplace due to language and cultural differences.

Recap

The first step in a competitor analysis is to understand your own product from the brand’s perspective. This is followed by a critical analysis of the basic product listing pages of competing products. These first steps in the competitor analysis will help you determine how to set up your product’s product listing page.

Competitor Analysis Level 2: Customer Feedback

Reviews of Competing Products

Looking at the same products you found in the previous section, read the reviews. Make notes of what was positive about the product(s) and what shoppers found lacking. Why were they returning the products? Are these gaps/lacks filled by your product? Ensure that your content reflects this.

Anticipating Customer Complaints

The reviews of other products will give you a sense of what shoppers are looking for. Customer complaints will help you understand what made them unhappy with the product and/or with the purchase. Perhaps they complain about sizing discrepancies. In other cases, they may have issues with the instruction manual. You will want to prevent negative reviews about your new product by providing accurate content in both text and images. By being as clear as possible in your content, shoppers know exactly what they are buying.

Determining the Style of Writing

Know the marketing language in your marketplace. How do your target shoppers want to be talked to? It is more common in the US market to use personal appeal and an adjective style of advertising language. The UK and EU markets place less emphasis on this style of marketing communications. In the UK and EU markets, shoppers want to know the product features and how the product works.

For brands with multiple markets, the language of the content should avoid idioms and sarcasm, which are culture- and language-specific. These do not translate well in other language and cultural marketplaces, requiring a lot of rewriting of content across markets.

Recap

Beyond the basic product listing page, it’s now important to do a critical analysis of the reviews of competing products. What do shoppers like or not like about their products, their brand, or even customer service provided by the brand? How does your product fill a gap or lack in the market? Ensure that your content reflects this. Anticipate customer complaints by writing clear content, so your shoppers know what they are buying. Know the language and culture of your marketplace, how do your shoppers want to be talked to? Make sure your content reflects this so shoppers will pay attention to your marketing.

Competitor Analysis Level 3: Keyword Search Volume, Content and Ads

Keyword Search Volume

The use of keywords can make or break your product’s success on Amazon. With your list of keywords taken from the product design brief, use Amazon search to find the top competitors. What competing products are the first, second and third choices for a specific keyword? Once you have collected this information for all of your keywords, you will see the top competitors for your product.

Looking at competing product titles can give you useful keywords you may have missed in your own product’s title. Do the search again. Look at all of the product listing pages for anything useful (see the first section of this article).

You may also use a third-party software to match the most successful ASINs to certain keywords. The combined information from the searches will help you update your own keywords and advertising.

Targeted Ads

With the research results from the keyword search volume analysis, you will have a list of products for targeted ads. For targeted ads, it is important to focus the advertising on product line names and ASINs of top competitors. Examples of product lines can be a line of power supply units for computers, themed clothing, or even beverage types. Targeting brands or categories can cause spending to get out of control, and the ads won’t reach the specific audience that will be most interested in your product.

Review and Revise your Content

In the previous section, we talked about anticipating customer complaints about your product by writing accurate content. Keep an eye on the reviews after your products are on the market. If people leave negative reviews based on missing information, fix that quickly. For example, add (UK Plug) to the product title, if possible. Another way to resolve this is to ensure the content reflects this information, such as the bullet points. If the issue is with the shipping and delivery of an FBA product, follow up with Amazon right away. Amazon is liable for issues related to FBA, and they can remove the negative review.

Reviews can provide useful information for the design team and manufacturer if they make a newer version of the product. Such information might provide important technical and aesthetic insights for the updated design.

Recap

The final layer of competitor analysis discussed in this article focuses on keyword search volume. This information helps fine tune the list of keywords we made in the first step of the analysis. It also helps us see which competitors and competing products will be the most important to focus our attention on. How can you modify your basic product listing content and ads to target competing product lines and individual products themselves? As you start selling your product on Amazon, watch the reviews your shoppers leave on the product listing page. Can you, and should you, modify your content to anticipate these issues?

Conclusion

Doing competitor analysis for products before selling them on Amazon is a crucial part of creating a successful marketing strategy. We talked about the basics, such as looking at the core features of the product, identifying keywords and selling points. Competing product listing pages are insightful for creating best practices for your own product listing pages. Product reviews provide information about what shoppers are looking for and what leads them to dissatisfaction with a product. Doing an analysis of keywords will enhance your product’s visibility on the Amazon marketplace in organic search. Incorporating the keywords in ads will ensure visibility in paid search. All these tips will help enhance your product’s visibility on the marketplace and higher conversions.

Read our 3 part article series based on this post on LinkedIn: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

What is Amazon Prime Day(s)?

Amazon Prime Day is an annual sales event hosted by Amazon exclusively for Prime members. During this event, Prime members have access to thousands of deals on Prime-eligible products. This high traffic event reaches over 150 million active Prime members worldwide, providing sellers/vendors with the potential to bring in large amounts of revenue. Smart advertising campaigns will make your products/brand more visible and attractive to shoppers.

The very first Amazon Prime Day was held on July 15, 2015 on Amazon’s 20^th birthday to celebrate Prime members. It was 24 hours long and included 9 countries—the US, UK, Spain, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, Canada, and Austria. The event was so successful Amazon hosted it again the following year, which surpassed the first year by 60% worldwide. Ten countries participated, with the Belgian Amazon marketplace joining the event.

Every year since then, more marketplaces join the Prime Day event, with the number of sales steadily increasing. In 2023, Amazon hosted Prime Days over a 48-hour period in 20 countries, and made over 10 billion dollars in sales worldwide. It is expected to continue its upward trajectory this year.

First and foremost, if a seller/vendor has participated in Prime Days before, they should revisit the data to see what worked/didn’t work for them in their markets. Based on this, a strategy and an advertising budget should be established. Typically, the advertising budget during Prime days is 10x the normal daily budget. Sellers/vendors will also need to determine which products will be earmarked for different kinds of deals. (Read our previous post about Using Amazon Promotions in a Long Term Marketing Strategy for more information.)

The Basics: An introduction to preparing for Prime Days

Congratulations! You’re participating in Prime Days as a Seller/Vendor, and you’d like to get a sense of how to prepare. Your strategy and setting an advertising budget are most important, and should be established well in advance.

Event Length

Prime Days are now 48 hours long and occur in July. In 2023, Amazon also hosted the Prime Big Deal Days in October, and it is expected to continue in 2024. Due to the vast potential of revenue for sellers/vendors, advance preparation is crucial. This ranges from setting up strategy and budget, handling inventory, establishing prices, to setting up deals.

Many sellers/vendors will start discounts early for the products not on the official Prime Day discount list (suggested by Amazon). This allows them to attract and maintain the attention of shoppers already on the Amazon platform, browsing and deciding what they want to buy during the Prime Days event itself. With attractive enough discounts, these shoppers might start their shopping early.

Deals

(Parts from this section came from our previous post, Using Amazon Promotions in a Long Term Marketing Strategy)

Some of the campaigns require paying a fee to have products appear on Amazon’s deals page. As the second most visited page on the Amazon platform sellers have an opportunity to greatly increase their conversions. To be eligible to have products listed on Amazon’s deals page, professional sellers must meet platform requirements with at least five seller feedback ratings. The products must be new, hold a rating of at least 3.0 stars, and be Prime-eligible in the sales region. The products must also comply with pricing and deal frequency policies and not be restricted, offensive, or inappropriate.

Table of top time-sensitive promotional campaigns

More time-sensitive promotional campaigns

(Some of these deals may not be available in some markets)

A Caveat about Lightning Deals

Lightning Deals may sound very promising for the Prime Days period given the high volume of shoppers browsing for deals. However, Lightning Deals might not actually be the best deal to use during Prime Days. According to a survey of American shoppers on Amazon, surveyed shoppers reported that they set specific budgets for Prime Day shopping in 2023. Thus, shoppers will be more focused on deciding how to budget for their wish list. They will be spending less time than usual focusing on any one brand/product.

Inventory – stock early!

Prime Days can provide a good opportunity to offload slow-moving inventory by offering attractive discounts for shoppers. For popular products, however, ensure that you are well-stocked to meet increased demand.

It is important to check the inventory of products in the fulfilment centres, ordering/restocking if necessary. In the case that products need to be produced, your logistics chain will tell you how much advance notice you will need for this step. For domestic transfer of products to fulfilment centres, you can anticipate about 2 weeks shipping time. For sellers/vendors with an international supply chain, anticipate at least 3 months from factory/warehouse to fulfilment centre. Another thing to allow for: leading up to Prime Days, Amazon fulfilment centres will be handling an influx of products. With this in mind, even more advance time should be planned to account for any possible manhour delays.

Price / Discount

As part of your overall marketing strategy, it is important to schedule price adjustments of products ahead of time. If a product still has a lower price from another discount/deal within 30 days of Prime Days, sellers/vendors run the risk of getting a discount price off the discount price. This will reduce the profit margin even further. Products marked for Prime Exclusive Discounts will be discounted based on the lowest price from the previous 30 days. Deal of the Day (DOTD) promotions offer discounts of at least 20% off the normal price over a 90-day period. Therefore, it is important to establish a pricing strategy ahead of time so your profit margin is not severely affected.

Other discounts can be applied to products not earmarked for Prime Exclusive Discounts or DOTD promotions to make them more attractive to buyers. The more products in a catalogue that have a discount, the more likely a shopper will buy more products from a single vendor/seller.

Advertise

As part of your marketing strategy, you should determine which kinds of PPC ad campaigns to use for which products. It is important to target shoppers at all levels of the marketing funnel, and start advertising campaigns ahead of time. Read our post on Navigating the Amazon PPC Advertising Journey for a more comprehensive look at PPC campaigns and how they apply to the marketing funnel.

It should already be standard practice, but bears repeating—review your data and double check the keywords with the keyword report, which is available in Seller/Vendor Central. Ensure that your product listings are updated and optimised with the relevant keywords. Without this optimisation, the products will not show up in product searches.

Recap of the basic tips

Advance preparation is necessary for a successful Prime Days experience for your brand/business. Establish your strategy and budget and ensure sufficient inventory. Set the price adjustments and plan advertising campaigns in advance. Thoroughly preparing for Prime Days will help maximise the potential conversions and success of your brand/business’s performance during the event.

Intermediate: Streamlining your preparation process

You have participated in Prime Days before, you know how it works. You’ve applied the tips from the basics section, let us look at ways to streamline your preparation process.

Spreadsheet

Having a spreadsheet of all the products you’ve applied for deals for is crucial. This document will serve as a checklist of everything that must be checked and double checked ahead of time. These include, for example, content optimisation, the existing and planned PPC ads, inventory levels, and keywords. With this spreadsheet, you can also start researching the competition to see how you can improve content if necessary.

Storefront

If you have not done so already, storefronts are an option for sellers/vendors enrolled in Brand Registry. They are an excellent way to expand the reach of your brand. Storefronts on Amazon showcase your brand’s products and increase brand awareness among shoppers. An Amazon Storefront allows a seller to creatively display products on a home page and organised via subpages. If you haven’t already, set up a subpage on the storefront specially for deals/specials. Labelling the page as “Prime Days” will result in it being rejected by the Seller/Vendor platform. Set this up at least one week early, so browsing shoppers can already check for discounts.

Generally, this page is good practice to have. See our post on Using Amazon Promotions in a Long Term Marketing Strategy for tips on having ongoing deals to attract repeat customers to your brand/business. Use the Sponsored Brands PPC campaigns to draw traffic regularly to your storefront. Maintaining a Deals subpage regularly shows shoppers that they can regularly check this page for updated deals.

Advertising

Start at least one week in advance with your PPC advertising campaigns set up for Prime Days. This is to ensure that the ad campaigns are working and are visible. You will establish a baseline with bids and identify the keywords/ASINs to focus on during the sales event itself. Before the Prime Days event, set the bids low. People will be browsing and more likely to click on ads to check the product listings or storefronts. You want to maintain visibility of your brand and products, but you do not want to run out of budget.

One note about budgets: normally you will spend about 66% of your Prime Days budget on the first day, with the remaining 33% on the second day.

Recap of the intermediate tips

On top of the advice given in the basics section, the tips in this section will help you streamline your process based on your prior experience with Prime Days. Generally, sellers/vendors will want to have information visible to browsing shoppers at least one week in advance. Visible information includes: targeting competitors and their products; setting up a Deals subpage on your storefront; and setting up ads to direct browsing shoppers to your storefronts and product listing pages.

Advanced: Getting ahead of the game

You’ve participated in Prime Days before, but you want to up your game. Now it’s time to get and maintain more control over the sales process.

Advertising Strategy

Typically, Amazon will contact sellers/vendors with a suggested list of products for Prime Day discounts, including the suggested discount price. However, you can approach Amazon first, with your own proposal for Prime Days. In this way, you have more control over which products will receive which deals and which discount price. You will also be able to stay on target with your own long-term marketing strategy for your brand/business.

Know Your Competition

Choose your battles. If a competitor has strong products in a specific category, it will be difficult to compete with your own products. You might instead offer a discount on your products in the pre-Prime Day period.

Amp Up Your Sponsored Display Campaigns

With your storefronts and all content up-to-date, use Sponsored Display campaigns to retarget browsing shoppers. By focusing on shoppers who have browsed your products within the last 90-120 days, you keep your brand on their mind as they shop around in advance of Prime Days.

Adjusting Bids

With your Prime Day PPC ad campaigns set up in advance of the event, you will be establishing a baseline of spending on bids. You will also be identifying the target keywords and ASINs that, with controlled spending, will best display the ads for your products. When you target certain ASINs, shoppers visiting those product listing pages will see ads for your products.

Recap of Advanced Tips

Obtaining and maintaining more control over the sales process enables you to stay on target with your overall marketing strategy. This can be done by approaching Amazon before they approach you, with your plan for Prime Days. Knowing and anticipating your competition will also help you fine tune your Prime Days strategy. Regarding PPC ad campaigns, amping up your Sponsored Display campaigns to retarget past shoppers and adjusting bids to aggressively target competitor ASINs will help keep your products/brand in the mind of shoppers ahead of Prime Days.

After the Prime Days

At midnight of day 2, turn those bids down or pause them. It’s normally an extremely slow period on Amazon after Prime Days. In the first three days after the Prime Days event, don’t expect high conversions. Keep those bids low or pause campaigns while you recalibrate the campaigns back to normal.

Conclusion

Amazon Prime Days is the largest annual sales event on the Amazon platform. Sellers/vendors have the opportunity to vastly increase their revenue during this period. It is crucial, however, to plan their participation well, as to enhance their profit margins while remaining appealing to shoppers. Starting with a strategy and a budget, it’s easier to set up a game plan for Prime Days, from inventory management to optimisation of product listings, storefronts and PPC ad campaigns. Optimisation also involves researching and knowing the competition and their products; this helps you stay ahead of the game and maintain visibility to browsing shoppers ahead of the Prime Days event. Armed with these tips you will be more prepared to achieve higher profit margins and conversions.

Need advice on the best Amazon strategy for your brand? Want more information about our tailored services? Contact us today!

Image credits, clockwise from top left: Megan Rexazin Conde from Pixabay, Rupixen from Unsplash, Bastian Riccardi from Unsplash, BC_Y from Pixabay, Marques Thomas from Unsplash

A primer of Amazon storefronts will be followed by deep and deeper dives into how storefronts can be optimised. Optimisation includes improving the shopper experience, making the most of advertising and streamlining the process for different marketplaces.

Read more about how to gain a better understanding of creating a shopper-centric experience on Amazon. Read our 3 part article series based on this post on LinkedIn: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

The Basics of Amazon Storefronts

Storefronts: Why bother with them?

Amazon storefronts are free tools available for professional Sellers enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry. Why even bother with storefronts? The simple answer is, they allow sellers to:

• tell their brand story;
• showcase their products on Amazon;
• expand the brand’s reach;
• grow their customer base; and
• take advantage of free advertising.

Advertising: The benefits of having a storefront

Amazon storefronts are a static location on Amazon that provide free advertising for a brand. When a shopper visits a product listing page, the link to the storefront is visible under the product title. Storefronts give space for a brand to tell their story and provide a catalogue of their products available on Amazon. They also alert shoppers of discounts or new products.

On the backend of things, sellers have access to data that shows traffic to the storefront. The data also sheds light on how the storefront drives sales and page views (Insights tab within the Stores interface). With this data, sellers can make more accurate and efficient marketing strategy decisions.

First Steps: How to set up a storefront

The first step, if you haven’t already done so, is to enroll in Brand Registry. You will need to show that you have an active trademark in the country of your marketplace. Once you are enrolled with Brand Registry, you have access to Amazon’s easy to use Stores builder within Seller Central. The Stores builder provides templates to start from, that allows you to incorporate images, text, video and other content. Be sure to review the creative guidelines for your marketplace, to ensure that you are following the platform’s requirements. These requirements include file size and image dimensions, as well as the use of embedded text in images.

Once submitted, it will take some time for it to be approved by Amazon’s moderators. This can take hours to a number of days. Following the guidelines mentioned above will help avoid problems and potential rejection of your design. When the storefront is live, you will be able to edit and update as needed.

Recap of the Basics of Amazon Storefronts

As a static location on Amazon, storefronts allow sellers to tell a brand story, showcase their products, and grow their customer base. They also provide free advertising and sellers have access to performance metrics for more informed decisions about efficient marketing strategies. Setting up a storefront is easy using the platform’s Stores builder tool. Following the creative guidelines will ensure that your storefront will encounter less issues during the approval process.

Go Beyond the Basics: Organisation, Optimisation, and Advertising

Organisation: Making your products easy to find

An organised storefront makes it easier for shoppers to find what they want. The use of subpages on the storefront allows you to organise the products by categories. Subpages also make it easier for shoppers to browse and find what they want without having to scroll through content.

A subpage dedicated to telling your brand story gives shoppers a better sense of what your brand is all about. This is a good way of gaining loyal shoppers, especially if they can identify and agree with your company’s mission.

Having a subpage for deals gives a permanent place for shoppers to check for deals at any given moment. This increases the likelihood that shoppers will check your storefront on a regular basis.

Optimisation: How often, and how so?

At least once a month, check your storefronts to ensure that products are displayed properly and their links are correct. Widgets automatically post products with special deals or automatically showcase all products in a specific category. However, if a product is out of stock/low in stock, it will not show up on the page.

Deals subpages should be checked once a week to ensure that the discounted items are properly displayed and/or updated. It is possible to rearrange the products displayed on the page to control what products the shoppers see first.

Advertising: Capitalising on Sponsored Brand ad campaigns

Efficient Sponsored Brands ads help redirect traffic to the Amazon storefront, funneling customers away from competitors and their products. Ads that use videos usually appear within search result listings and can be very effective at enticing traffic to storefronts.

Sponsored Brands PPC campaigns showcase up to 3 products in one ad, and show up at the top or bottom of the search pages. You may use Sponsored Brands ads to display products by categories, colour, or even as combinations of compatible products.

Recap of Going Beyond the Basics

Taking your storefronts one step further, organisation of products is useful to make your Storefront more navigable for your shoppers. The use of subpages allows shoppers to quickly find what they want based on their shopping needs. Shoppers can keep an eye out on the Deals subpage for deals on products they like. The effective use of creative Sponsored Brands PPC campaigns entice and direct shoppers to the Storefront. Regular optimisation ensures that all links are working properly and that products are displayed properly as well. The use of widgets to automatically show discount products is also a useful feature. The Deals page should be checked on a weekly basis.

How to Bring Your “A” Game to Your Amazon Storefront

Branding: Bring your shoppers to you

To help your shoppers find you, consistency in your branding is crucial. If your brand already existed off of Amazon, you will want to maintain the same branding. This includes the logo, images, fonts, colour scheme, and even the type of language used. By maintaining consistency on and off of Amazon, you verify your identity as a brand to shoppers. Do you have or plan to have multiple markets in different countries? Synchronise the visuals and content in all markets as much as possible to maintain a professional look. Having consistent storefronts across markets will also build customer trust in your brand.

Your images need to be professional and show the important physical features of the product. The images need to provide shoppers with information they need to decide if the product is right for them. The detailed images will help reduce returns and negative feedback (Read more). For images that are used in multiple markets with different languages, avoid using text (such as infographics). Images with text create more work to transfer across markets. Amazon can reject images if the language in the image is not the same as the marketplace language.

Using videos are a great way to show features of a product. Browsing shoppers, however, most likely will not be listening to these videos. A good video will be short and to the point without too much text (if at all), and without sound. These videos are easily transferrable across markets. They can also be used for Sponsored Brand video campaigns—these are typically shown within a search listing page. As always, look at the guidelines for images and videos in your marketplaces to avoid rejection by the Amazon platform.

Analytics: Understanding your shoppers

The average shopper has an attention span of about 8-12 seconds. The setup of your brand’s storefront on Amazon needs to be easy to navigate, especially on mobile devices. The more scrolling required to find products, the more likely you will lose the attention of your browsing shoppers. You will also lose shoppers the more they have to click to find a product they are interested in. The easier it is for a shopper to find your product and add it to the shopping cart, the higher the conversion rate.

Analysing the online shopping cart abandonment rate will help identify possible issues that cause your shoppers to abandon their purchases. This knowledge can also be applied to campaigns targeted to browsing shoppers.

To have a better understanding of your shoppers, your analytics will help you make necessary changes to your storefronts. Demographic information about your shoppers can be found on Seller Central (Brand Analytics > Consumer Behavior Analytics > Demographics Report). With this information, you’ll know more about the age brackets of your shoppers.

Brand Loyalty: Creating and maintaining a relationship with your shoppers

As we’ve seen so far, the easier it is for your shoppers to navigate your storefront, the higher the conversions. This highlights our next point: creating a shopper-centric experience for your (potential) shoppers will bring them back to you. (Read our article about creating a shopper-centric experience)

The storefronts also allow you to tell your brand story. Telling a good, compelling story will draw shoppers to you. Shoppers that identify with your brand’s story will more likely seek out your brand when shopping for a specific product. Loyal shoppers are also more likely to follow your brand and recommend it to others. This is one of the reasons why it is crucial that branding be consistent across markets. Regardless of where people are, they need to be able to quickly identify your brand by the visuals.

Once people buy your products, customer service becomes the next step in the brand loyalty journey. The more pleasant a purchasing experience, the more likely you will gain a loyal customer. Even if a product is returned, a good connection with customer service will increase the likelihood the shopper will return. Your loyal customers will also be more likely to recommend your brand to their networks.

Recap of Bringing your “A” Game

Taking a step further with Amazon storefronts, we looked at using storefronts to attract customers and build their loyalty. Creating a shopper-centric experience accounts for attention spans and keeps storefronts easy to navigate. Branding helps maintain visual identity across markets and across platforms, increasing customer trust in your brand. Analytics can help better understand your customers, what attracts them and what turns them away from your products. Having a successful customer service experience throughout the process also cements your shopper’s experience and builds customer loyalty.

Conclusion

Amazon storefronts are a powerful tool for your brand’s success on the Amazon platform. They provide a place where shoppers can learn about a brand’s story and see their products. Amazon’s platform provides an easy process for setting up storefronts. Once set up, it’s important to create a shopper-centric experience through easy-to-navigate subpages and clear images, videos and content. Deals subpages give shoppers a static space they can return to when looking for deals on products they like. The easier the shopping experience, including interactions with customer service, the more likely the shopper will return to your brand.

Using analytics available on Amazon Seller/Vendor Central, brands can better understand how their shoppers are interacting with storefronts. Regular optimisation of the storefronts based on this feedback will further improve the shopping experience. Knowing that their preferences and opinions matter to brands, shoppers will be more likely to return to the brand.