Today I’ll be sharing valuable information from real-life customers and from what we’ve seen when businesses launch on Amazon. I’ll also break down some possible unknowns to help you prepare to go live with your Amazon listing.
Hesitancy in getting started with Amazon
You probably said, “Hey, if I sell on Amazon, will it cannibalize sales on my website?” The answer is that an investment in either channel drives overall revenue growth.
Let’s say your sales are 100% Shopify, and you’re doing $1M a year. You then launch on Amazon, and after a year, your sales are split 70% Shopify and 30% Amazon. It may look like you’re losing 30% of your sales to Amazon, but your total revenue has increased to $1.5M. In short, yes, it will take some of your customers, but your overall customer base will also grow.
Many buyer journeys look like this: They see your ad on Instagram and ignore it. Later, they click through to your website from another ad. They then sit on your site but forget to buy the item. But that evening, they’re buying toilet paper on Amazon, and they see another ad and think, “Oh, let me get it now.” We see this repeatedly, confirming what most people know: that the customer shopping experience is omnichannel. It’s essential to keep this purchase convenience and omnichannel approach in mind when considering Amazon.
Setting up with Amazon
Let’s create a fictitious store that sells Cat Gardens, a grow-your-own cat grass product. It comes with a cute little pot, sound branding, etc. You’re selling them on Shopify, and you’re doing great, making $2M a year.
You’ve looked at Amazon and are thinking, “Okay, well, should I be selling on there?” Everybody is telling you that there are a lot of customers there and you’re interested but what do you do now?
Selling on Amazon is more complex than most people would think. The reason why it’s easier is that Amazon has streamlined the process of creating an account, getting your product in stock, and listing it.
But it is more challenging because there will be many hurdles you don’t expect throughout the process. But don’t stress, I’ll give you some steps to follow, so you know what to expect.
1. Opening a Seller Central account
Opening a Seller Central account is a very straightforward step. You open your account, validate your identity, and provide your banking information so they can deposit your sales proceeds. You’ll also set up credit card information so they can bill you for any advertising.
2. Creating Amazon listing
Once you’ve set up your account, you’ll start creating a listing. Listings are the product page that everybody sees when searching on Amazon. If you search for ”Gardens for Cat,” a bunch of listings will appear in the search. Listings are what you’re going to create so that your products appear in the search results.
Amazon has a very templated process for settings these up with simple formatting such as bullet points, titles, and images. It’s not as flexible as Shopify, but you can port most of your Shopify content into Amazon to streamline your processes.
3. Use killer product images
Amazon shoppers start with the images and make their click-through based on them. Better product images significantly drive higher conversions. Most people have no attention span or time to read pages of info or long bullet-point lists.
They just want to look at the images and say, hey, does this solve my need? So I always encourage everybody to start with their pictures; if you’re going to invest in one thing, do that.
4. Get your inventory in stock
So you’ve copied over your Shopify content, juiced up your images a little bit, your Amazon listing looks good, and you’re ready to go.
Your next step is to get your inventory in stock. With Amazon, you ship them a larger supply quantity; they then take it to their main fulfillment center and distribute it across all the fulfillment centers in the US. You allow them to utilize the network to offer quick or even same-day delivery.
Same-day delivery is a tremendous value proposition for the end-user. It means your customers can get that super fast shipping that will drastically increase your conversion rates.
5. Use advertising
The next thing you want to focus on is advertising. You can get gritty with it and use Google and Facebook ads and SMS, but you probably want to hire somebody to help you if you’re going to scale considerably.
But in the short term, there’s a lot you can do with automated Amazon campaigns that will drive good results. The platform offers automated campaigns, and they’re good – the Amazon algorithm is pretty intelligent. Compared to other channels, these ads are still pretty affordable. I’m always encouraging people when they launch an Amazon to get their advertising going and take advantage of it while they’re still cheap.
6. Expand your catalog
So you’ve launched, you’re running ads and boosting sales. The subsequent growth phase is expanding your product catalog, launching more listings, and creating an Amazon storefront.
Similar to your Shopify site, this is a dedicated page for your business and products. Here, your prospective customers will only see your products compared to your other products, reducing the likelihood of them choosing to purchase from another business.
Having an Amazon storefront means your “Cat Garden” won’t be compared to ten similar other products. It walks people into your funnel, drives more revenue, and increases average order value because you expose customers to complementary products.
Any questions?
I hope this helped you understand and unlock the potential of Amazon; if you have questions or want to discuss, feel free to reach out to me at josh@goespark.com. If you want to learn more and follow my advice, follow me on Linkedin.
