Many sellers have encountered various situations of declining sales, such as FBA out of stock, Listing deleted (accidentally deleted) and then tried hard to appeal to get it back, account restricted and all store products removed and then tried hard to appeal to get the account back, Listing received bad reviews, "Buyer's Voice" in the performance indicators is high, and so on. In short, all kinds of unpleasantness bring the same result, that is, sales have dropped, or even dropped sharply, sales have been halved, or even left with zero. Faced with this situation, many sellers are helpless. Keeping the original sales method, it gets worse step by step, and adopting some new sales methods, they have no idea for the time being.
Faced with a sharp decline in sales, we must first accept it. After all, since the above-mentioned situations have already occurred, all we can do is to face them. But while accepting and facing it, we also have to know the reasons for the decline in sales, and the core reason is that the weight of the Listing has changed, or, to be more precise, the weight of the Listing has dropped significantly.
Out of stock, listing deleted, store closed, all store products removed, etc., the most direct reason is that the listing display is interrupted, so the weight is reduced. The deeper reason is that the interruption of listing display reflects the instability of the listing, and instability will inevitably be reduced by the system;
If a listing receives negative reviews and has a high negative “Voice of Buyers” index, it is a direct reflection of the poor performance of the listing, which is contrary to Amazon’s goal of providing consumers with high-quality products and services. Therefore, the system (A9 algorithm) will naturally downgrade the listing.
When the weight of the listing decreases, it will inevitably lead to a lower display position, less exposure, less sales, and a lower BSR ranking, thus forming a vicious cycle. Once it declines, it will get worse and worse and continue to decline. The "Matthew Effect" is a good explanation for this - whoever has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance; whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away.
The strong become stronger and the weak become weaker, and this is why sales decline and eventually lead to the demise of a listing. In order to break this worsening situation, some unconventional building methods must be adopted.
Specifically, we can start from the following aspects:
1. After sales decline, try to get as much traffic as possible. As sales volume declines and weight decreases, a decrease in natural traffic is inevitable. In order to obtain more traffic, paid traffic and off-site traffic become the main sources of traffic. It is necessary to enable in-site advertising (if it is already enabled, it is necessary to increase the bid), and enable both automatic and manual advertising. You should strive to intercept traffic from different entrances and refer to each other between advertising plans. If there are products that meet the conditions for flash sales, you might as well report them. The input-output ratio may not be cost-effective temporarily, but if you don’t work hard and are unwilling to invest at this time, you may have nothing to do in the long run. If there are resources outside the site, you might as well select some to participate in, and through active drainage outside the site, contribute to the increase in the weight of the Listing.
2. All kinds of coupons, discount prices, giveaways, etc. are enabled. After sales decline, you need to make a comprehensive "renovation" of your own listing. Of course, coupons can make your listing have an extra logo on the search results page compared to competitors. After the discount price is set, the discount reminder underlined on the price can stimulate consumers' satisfaction of picking up a discount and their determination to place an order quickly. The Giveaway setting can allow products to participate in Amazon's exclusive push channels, which can gain more attention and clicks, and these attention and clicks can be reversely combined with the attractiveness of coupons and discount prices, prompting more customers to place orders.
3. Under the premise of safety, appropriate additional evaluation should be given. There is no doubt that the number of reviews and star ratings have an impact on the weight of the listing and the consumer’s purchasing mentality. If you have a safe channel, you can increase it appropriately according to the sales volume ratio.
4. Sacrifice short-term profits and make the price attractive enough. Price is always a powerful tool to boost sales. If possible, it is recommended to sacrifice short-term profits in stages and use price to leverage sales. The higher the sales volume and the better the conversion rate, the faster the Listing's weight will recover (improve). Of course, this is also the most difficult thing. Too many people know it, but they don’t know how to do it, or they don’t do it thoroughly enough.
5. Further optimization of listing. In order to increase conversion rate and thus improve the weight of your listing, you must ensure that your listing is better than your competitors. Especially the main picture. In addition, if there are suitable long-tail keywords, you can add them appropriately and focus on advertising. Long-tail keywords have low competition but good conversion rates. If used well, you can gain the opportunity to overtake others by surrounding the city from the countryside.
In short, when your sales volume declines and your ranking drops, you must hold on to the view that within the current market size, you must strive to expand your market share. Only by maintaining a large enough market share can you have a chance to survive and develop in the next step. On this point, Lei Jun once gave us a wonderful lesson, "Drive yourself crazy and drive your opponents to death."
