To succeed in e-commerce, you must be competitive in everything you do.
Want to increase your sales and become a real force in your market or niche? Study what high-volume sellers are doing and apply it to your own business practices.
Here’s a close-up look at what successful sellers do on and off Amazon, and how you can make it work for you and your business.
Tips for Staying Competitive on Amazon
To say that Amazon is a competitive marketplace would be an understatement. In order to be successful when selling on Amazon, you need to make sure your products are visible to people who might actually want to buy them, and that your listing information is compelling enough to entice them to make a purchase.
Optimize Your Listings: Optimizing your Amazon listings is the most effective thing you can do to improve your Best Seller Rank (BSR) and increase the chances of your products appearing in search results.
Start with your headline. It should contain keywords to improve search engine optimization (SEO). Amazon gives you 500 characters for your title, and while that may seem like a lot, it’s important to choose your words wisely.
After all, your title still needs to make sense and clearly explain to any potential buyer exactly what your product is. Don't just load it with keywords. It might help search results, but it can be off-putting to potential buyers. Remember, keywords from the title can be used in your product description without spaces.
Invest in advertising: A large number of sellers will undoubtedly take advantage of Amazon sponsored ads. These ads ensure that your products are visible on pages that potential buyers are already browsing. In short, sponsored ads allow you to purchase space at the top of Amazon search results and category listings.
A service offered on a pay-per-click (PPC) system where you pay only when someone clicks on your ad. If that click converts into a sale, it will help you improve your BSR and increase your brand’s visibility throughout the funnel.
Use A+ Content or Enhanced Brand Content: A+ Content and Enhanced Brand Content (EBC) give you a greater chance of showing your products to the people who are viewing your listing.
Both options provide more space to describe your product and post additional images, giving potential buyers a deeper understanding of your product.
This additional content gives customers a deeper understanding of not only the products you sell, but also your brand, increasing the likelihood of a purchase.
Choosing A+ or EBC depends on your store type. EBC is designed for third-party sellers and is available through Seller Central, while A+ is for first-party sellers or those using Seller Central.
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Tips for staying competitive throughout eCommerce
To be a truly successful high-volume seller, you also need to be able to move your products off of Amazon. It may be a dominant market, but there are other options that can greatly increase your sales and boost profits.
Create your own store: Creating your own e-commerce store gives you the freedom to market your products the way you want. When you sell exclusively through an online marketplace like Amazon, you must abide by their rules or risk suspension, or worse, an outright ban from the site.
With your own store, you can create the customer experience of your choice. Everything from page layout to themes and color schemes is completely within your control.
Not to mention, you have control over your price point: you can set your price without having to worry about someone coming in and taking away a potential customer by selling you short. You can offer sales and discounts when it works for you and your business model, rather than responding to other sellers. Owning your own store gives you greater ability to establish and control your own profit margins.
Not an expert in web development and design? No problem! There are several tools that can help you build an online store. Shopify, to name just one, lets you set up a store right on their platform. There are many other great options out there. Explore and find the one that suits you best.
Use of social media: Social media plays an undeniably important role in most people’s lives. If you’re not planning on marketing your business and products on social media, you’re missing out on a golden opportunity to drive traffic to your store.
These platforms can be used in a variety of ways, all of which can offer amazing returns. You can create ads or posts that link directly to your e-commerce store or your Amazon product listings, taking potential customers straight to the point of purchase.
Social media also provides you with the opportunity to build brand awareness and trust. People are more likely to buy products from companies they have a relationship with. By staying active online and engaging with your followers, you are developing those relationships.
When operating on so many channels, it can be difficult to keep track of customer information and what efforts you are making and where, but it’s important to try. Social media followers and their responses to your posts provide you with the social proof you need to convert into a sale from someone who might otherwise be sitting on the fence.
Sell on another marketplace: Increasing the number of places you sell your products will only increase your sales. Amazon is huge. That’s why it’s an obvious place to list your products.
But no matter how much the market continues to grow, it's still just one part of the broader e-commerce space. With so much competition, it also makes sense to try to make the space less crowded.
Similar to Amazon, eBay sells almost anything and has a wide customer base. If you sell handmade items, Etsy might be the place for you, while Newegg might be the place for electronics. For every niche product, there is a niche market, so you need to do your research and list your product wherever it makes sense.
As you build your presence on other channels, make sure all your listings are distinct. The purpose of this is twofold. First, when you write custom listings for each market, you can speak directly to the customers who shop in that space. Using language that is inappropriate for your audience can alienate potential buyers and make them less likely to purchase your product.
Second, writing the same thing in all of your listings can hurt your results in Google searches. The first result returned by Google will be the most popular page. In the vast majority of cases, the first popular product will be the one you list on Amazon. Some customers will happily visit your Amazon listing to learn more or purchase your product, but not all will.
If you use different languages in each listing, you increase the chances of returning multiple results on the first page, which makes it more likely that the person who initiated the search will eventually click on a link that takes them to one of your sales funnels.
To become a competitive high-volume seller, you need to properly use the tools available to you on and off Amazon. By following the tips listed above, you can increase your brand visibility and standing to not only keep pace with the larger sellers, but also to leap ahead of your direct competition.
