Once your core strategic decisions have been taken, then we find that the real difference between businesses that grow quickly on Amazon vs those that struggle is all centred on relentless execution.
In this blog post, we’ll signpost the areas where execution is a more significant key to success than strategy choices, and how to execute well.
Listing New Products
Given the size of the form you need to fill in for new products it’s no surprise that this is the source of many persistent errors that are brought to us to fix. Some examples of things that can go wrong (and can be incredibly difficult to fix) are:
- matching to the wrong suggested ASIN match – which in the worst case can cause a product to be permanently unsaleable
- not providing nutritional information for food products, which can lead to product suppression
- package level errors – describing the single when you intend to sell as a case, or vice versa. This can lead to incorrect pricing and product details that are incredibly difficult to untangle
- Pricing errors – for Vendors, it’s easy to drop a price, but MUCH more difficult to increase one. This is another error that can lead to the permanent loss of a product listing
To avoid these issues with new products, it’s important to gather the information required for the listing carefully and methodically. At MinsterFB we also undertake a 2-person check of the key information before submitting a New Item Setup (NIS) form. This helps us to be sure that all the crucial details are correct. Our team are also relentless in working to correct persistent issues caused by incorrect setup that cause longer term problems.
Optimising Listings for Search
Amazon uses its Item Data Quality (IDQ) and A9 systems to prioritise which products to serve for any given search. A relentless focus on execution here will yield dividends! Make sure that you know what the most important keywords are for your listings. Then place them in your product title, product descriptions and bullet points with care, whilst following Amazon’s IDQ requirements. Ensure that all attributes are complete, and that your products have at least 4-6 images, each demonstrating something about the product. Images that show usage, product features etc are ‘read’ by Amazon’s AI features and the results will impact the position in search that your product can achieve. At MinsterFB we have produced a Style Guide to help our clients understand all the things we need in order to be able to optimise their listings successfully.
Optimising Listings for Conversion
Once you’ve brought someone to your product detail page you will want to provide messaging that will help with conversion. Make sure that all your key selling points are clearly articulated in secondary images and backed up in bullet points. Answer questions that come up often in reviews and customer questions. Utilise any videos you may have to demonstrate usage. Make appropriate product comparisons in your A+ content, provide brand messaging in the Brand Story. Provide any necessary detail such as product safety data or battery information to avoid product suppressions. Carefully thinking through each word and image choice will improve your Amazon execution and yield results for your sales line.
Next, test everything. A/B test everything you can (one at a time) and implement the best results. Continue an improvement regime until there’s nothing left to test. It can take a long time to build the perfect listing, but it’s worth the effort.
Maintaining Listings
You might assume that once your listings are perfect, they still stay that way. Unfortunately this isn’t the case. This is another area where your execution on Amazon makes all the difference.
There are many reasons for listings to change. Most often this will be because Amazon operates like a market. If someone else has some of your stock they are able to sell it on Amazon. If the format matches what you are selling they can take over the ‘Featured Offer’ or ‘Buy Box’. This may make changes to your listing that don’t revert when you are back in control. However there are many other reasons for changes to listings. One of our favourites was when Amazon decided to remove punctuation from titles. It was probably in response to some inappropriate over-use of punctuation such as exclamation marks. The end result was that 1.5kg products became 15kg products overnight, and we had to rush to change it all back before any complaints came in.
It can be a big job to make sure that your listings are still looking the way they should be. Some software solutions will highlight changes to listings, and at MinsterFB we have our own in-house system that flags incorrect listing elements. Our team then reset each incorrect element each and every time. Some listings are difficult to change and we have to raise cases so that Amazon make adjustments at their end. However, we always know what the perfect listing should be and are working all day every day to get there.
Staying in Stock
The most straightforward step you can take to improve your business’s growth trajectory on Amazon is to stay in stock. The Amazon sales system is often described as a a flywheel. Each out-of-stock event causes an immediate halt to the flywheel. Once back in stock, you will need to apply effort and energy in the form of advertising or promotions to achieve the previous sales levels.
Staying in stock is all about execution, from careful forecasts and secure production planning to contingencies. Amazon’s inbound supply processes need to be executed flawlessly and you’ll need a trusted partner (or your own logistics) to deliver your products to the Fulfilment Centres correctly. MinsterFB are able to provide training and support to your internal teams including end-to-end operations reviews. These help our clients to ensure that everyone understands the impact of each part of the process and optimise at every stage.
Supply Avoiding Chargebacks and Infractions
Amazon’s drive for efficiency has resulted in their highly sophisticated logistics operation. To ensure their processes run efficiently, they insist that Vendors comply with a host of rules that govern the acceptance of the Purchase Orders, picking & packing of stock, labelling of cartons and pallets, sending Advanced Shipment Data, booking a delivery and actually delivering the stock. (This area of Amazon execution is not quite the same for Sellers, who have more latitude in the way that stock is delivered in.)
Failure of Vendors to comply with any of processes will result in Amazon applying a chargeback, essentially a fine. Even the product itself can attract chargebacks, for being too large or requiring additional packaging to ensure it survives the journey through the Fulfilment Centre and to the end customer.
With over fifteen years experience working with Amazon we have a deep understanding of their requirements and can guide your different teams on how to service Amazon without incurring significant charges.
Getting Paid What you’re Owed
It sounds simple, but Amazon’s ledger systems can be difficult to understand. Credits and debits flow over time, so it’s important to look over the longer term in order to be fully clear on the payments and the costs involved.
For Vendors, it’s important to review your shortage claims on a regular basis. Shortages are when the amount that you delivered and the amount received by Amazon are different. Usually the receipts are lower. If there are any to dispute, it’s much better for your cash flow to dispute them in a timely manner. To do this you will need proofs of delivery. You will also need to check that the money charged by Amazon for your various agreements (returns, marketing etc) is accurate.
For Sellers, do keep an eye on your storage and other fees and make sure that they are based on the correct dimensions etc. You will also want to make sure that your inventory matches your expectations based on sales, returns and deliveries.
Part of our service is to check Vendor coop deductions and chargebacks, interrogate Seller fees and raise disputes as required. We provide training for internal teams on challenging shortage claims and also on the whole supply process (as above) that incorporates best practice for avoiding fines and fees.
Optimising AMAZON Advertising
One of the joys of selling via Amazon is the accessibility of the Sponsored Ads ad console. It’s a straightforward system where you can bid on relevant keywords to serve ads for your brand. These ads increase your visibility to potential shoppers. However, as soon as you begin, it becomes plain that there are myriad choices and options which might improve or damage your performance. Should you increase bids on high traffic, but high cost keywords? How much should you upweight bids for top of search? Where should you land your Sponsored Brand ad traffic? Which creative executions work best? In an ideal world you need to test everything for each product range. And that’s only if everything is static, which of course it isn’t.
Amazon Sponsored Ad bidding functions as an auction. The price you pay for an ad served on a given keyword on a given day depends on what everyone else is bidding at the same time. You need to review your own bids regularly to take account of fluctuations in competitor bidding. These affect how often the ads serve and how much they cost, which is what makes advertising optimisations a core part of your Amazon execution.
There are many advertising optimisation tools on the market. At MinsterFB we invest in the most relevant tools to help ensure that our clients’ ads are fully optimised at all times. In particular we use them to track and adapt to market changes. We don’t charge any commission on your ad spend. We cover the costs of these services from within the fees you pay for our full service. There are no hidden additional charges.
Additional Ad expertise at MinsterFB
In addition, our expert team work across many brands and product categories and have plenty of experience. They are aware of what metrics we would expect for a client depending on their category and their maturity. This means they can spot unexpected performance and optimise accordingly. They are fully hands-on with ad optimisation, experiment often and share best practices from team member to team member. We don’t use any black box optimisation tools so that we are always fully able to explain changes in performance.
We also deploy the more sophisticated DSP and AMC platforms which aren’t available to Vendors or Sellers directly. These are only available via selected Amazon Ads Partners (or directly from Amazon with a £100k+ entry price point). Having access to these more advanced systems provides more opportunities to develop your Amazon advertising as your business grows and develops.
Promotional Execution
A well executed promotion on Amazon can step change your sales performance. However, there are many things to get right. First is the choice of deal. From coupons to best deals to lightning deals, there are many options dependent on timing, account size and discount level. Bigger discounts will yield the bigger impact, and are required for marquee events such as Prime Day and Black Friday, but depending on your profitability, these may not be the right choice for your business. Coupons can be highly effective, even with relatively low levels of discount. It’s important to experiment with discount levels and also your levels of ad support for the promotion as well as the time of year.
The Importance of Execution on Amazon
Whilst strategic choices are important, day to day execution on Amazon is crucial in getting the flywheel to spin faster and your sales to grow. We’ve identified 9 key areas where execution is crucially important and should be an area of focus for your Amazon team. They are:
- New product listings
- Optimising listings for search
- Optimising listings for conversion
- Maintaining listings
- Staying in stock
- Supplying without chargebacks and infractions
- Getting paid what you’re owed
- Optimising Amazon ad spend
- Promotional execution
A keen focus on building skills and processes in these areas is are vitally important. If you intend to execute these via an agency, check out their systems and processes for delivering against these vital focus areas before you make your final selection.