If your business is wondering how to increase Amazon sales without dropping prices, you’re not alone. The good news is that selling on Amazon does not need to be a race to the bottom on price.
Optimizon’s Amazon experts have revealed the easiest ways to supercharge your businesses’ Amazon sales, without eroding your margins. These recommendations are based on expert insights and data analysis from helping all of our clients sell higher volumes on Amazon.
Sell more on Amazon without dropping your prices
Amazon is the world’s largest online marketplace by a considerable distance, and it’s still growing fast. For online retailers, it really makes sense to make the most of Amazon’s vast consumer base. However, many businesses still perceive selling higher volumes on Amazon as a race to the bottom on price.
Whilst selling on Amazon can certainly be price sensitive, your business can avoid being drawn into an all-out price war, whilst vastly increasing sales, by following a little expert advice.
We asked our account specialists at Optimizon to reveal their top tips for how to increase Amazon sales without dropping prices.
With this advice, your business can improve margins and sell higher volumes by ensuring your Amazon account is fully optimised on a number of fronts. The best part is, you don’t even need to be a certified Amazon partner – these optimisation techniques are available to any business.
Most effective ways to increase Amazon sales without decreasing prices
Here are the top five ways to increase Amazon sales without decreasing prices:
- Optimise Amazon product descriptions to improve your conversion rate.
- Optimise products for Amazon search to make them more visible.
- Improve your Amazon product images to increase sales.
- Improve delivery times to sell more on Amazon.
- Increase your Amazon reviews to give buyers confidence.
Help your business reach its full potential and increase Amazon sales without dropping prices
By making the most of the tips, tools and techniques at your disposal, your business can increase amazon sales without increasing prices.
In this article, we unfold these top tips into more detail so that your business can address these points.
Once your business has fully addressed these factors, there are more advanced, laser focussed methods to get your teeth into (which we discuss in other blog posts). However, without addressing the most crucial factors, which will have by far the largest impact on your sales, anything else will be ineffective.
Help your business reach its full potential and increase Amazon sales without dropping prices by following the following advice.
1: Optimise Amazon product descriptions
Here’s a familiar scenario: Your products are being shown to potential customers, but they don’t go on to make a purchase.
This is an extremely common issue facing Amazon sellers. It will also be ultimately detrimental to your business, due to the way Amazon’s algorithms work. That consumer behaviour makes Amazon assume your product isn’t relevant, so it gets shown less often.
Often the business assumes they are being beaten on price – but the chances are it’s not the case at all.
A+ Content on Amazon
Optimizon’s copywriting and language experts see vast uplifts in sales from optimising product descriptions. Mark Davis, Creative Manager at Optimizon reveals:
‘On average, we see that creating A+ content increases our customer sales by up to 10%. Bare in mind the majority of our customers are experienced multinational Amazon sellers. Even they don’t always get it right, missing out on huge amounts of revenue. New or poorly managed accounts could see even greater gains.’
‘Often, the descriptions are simply not compelling enough to get people to take action.’
‘Our data shows that improvements to product descriptions have one of the largest impacts on sales.’
Amazon Content Tips
Mel Henson – Head of Creative – advises that product descriptions should:
‘Keep the product title short. Check Amazon’s guidelines – most categories are now limited to 150 characters including spaces. This is quite different from a few years ago when people could cram their titles.’
‘Focus on selling the product’s benefits, not its features. People are more interested in how your product solves a problem, or what it can do for them. So bring the benefits to the top and get your potential customer excited.’
‘Use snappy and concise bullet points to highlight the product’s benefits. This improves readability and makes the text easier to digest. You should avoid long paragraphs and large blocks of text.’
‘Keep the description short and to the point. You don’t need to persuade someone to consider the product, as they are no longer in the consideration phase of the buying journey. They are at, or close to the purchase phase, so they want to know why they should buy your product rather than another brand’s. Remember, people’s attention span is short, and getting shorter especially when reading on mobile.
‘Finally, use important keywords in your title (without going over the top). This gives your products a better chance of turning up in relevant searches. Without including the best keywords, it’s likely Amazon’s A9 algorithm won’t find you.’ [We talk about this in more detail below]
In summary, the key is to have concise, snappy product descriptions and titles. Highlight your product’s benefits to get customers excited about the purchase.
2: Optimise products for Amazon search
Once you’ve taken care of your product listing, your next focus should be setting up your products to show at the top of a shopper’s search results. If you aren’t showing up when a shopper searches for your product, it doesn’t matter what your price is. Increasing your visibility will improve your sales.
Optimising your product listings for Amazon’s search engine is essential for increasing your sales on Amazon. Whilst optimising your listings can be complex, the first factor the Amazon search algorithm looks at is the keywords in the shopper’s search query – so make sure this is covered.
If your product listing doesn’t even contain the correct keywords within the search query, it’s likely it won’t appear in the search results at all.
Amazon Keyword Optimization
Keyword optimization is fundamental when it comes to Amazon SEO.
Optimizon’s Head of Creative, Mel Henson tells us:
‘Amazon sellers quite often take an unscientific approach to keywords. Perhaps just listing the first few that pop into their minds when creating the listing. However, doing your research and spending the time on getting the keywords right is a worthwhile exercise.’
‘There are keyword tools available to help your business map out a more effective keyword structure. You can also use Amazon PPC to gather data on which keywords could help your product listings convert.’
‘All you need to do is optimize your products for those keywords.’
‘Good keyword tools can tell you what people are searching for on Amazon when they want to buy your product (or your competitor’s product). This means that you can learn from your competitors’ rankings as well as your own.
However, it’s vital to also use common sense. The algorithms used to generate keywords are not perfect and may throw up keywords that are perfectly logical but irrelevant. If your product doesn’t deliver on a keyword then don’t use it, as any consumers it brings to your page organically will be disappointed.
3: Improve your Amazon product images to increase sales
A+ content increases sales by up to 10% and good imagery plays a crucial role.
Once your business addresses product descriptions and keywords, allowing more people to see your products, the difference between people buying them or not can also rest on your images.
All the time, effort and cost your business has invested in building your online shop will be in vain if your products aren’t displayed effectively.
Take the plunge and get product images curated to follow the decision making hierarchy used in the bullets and Amazon sellers typically see a big increase in sales. Adding a few lines of text can also help, especially on mobile, where readers may only look at the images and not the text of the listing.
Make the most of Images on Amazon
Another common mistake sellers regularly make is simply concentrating on the main image, and largely ignoring the additional eight images. These can be a critical marketing tool, so make the most of them.
Optimizon’s Brand Content Specialist, Charlotte Boaler, advises:
‘My top tip is to invest in the best photography you can afford. Customers want to see every angle of the product clearly to ensure they aren’t buying inferior quality. Not only will it set you apart from your competitors, it will leave less room for disappointment (and therefore better reviews [more about this later]).’
‘Ideally, you should also present an image of the product being used. Use the images to tell a story about your product and how it will benefit the buyer.’
Amazon Image Best Practice
Here are some best practices to follow for your Amazon product images:
- The first image must be on a plain white background – this is Amazon rules
- The first image must also show the actual product (not a graphic or illustration) and must not be on a mannequin or pictured in packaging.
- Images should be square and at least 1,000 x 1,000 pixels, so that buyers can zoom in.
- Product video and 3D product images can increase sales.
- Tell a story. Include at least one or two images of the product in use or lifestyle shots.
4: Improve delivery times to sell more on Amazon
Data from Optimizon indicates that one of the top reasons people abandon carts is due to slow delivery times. Thus it is possible to increase Amazon sales without dropping prices simply by speeding up your delivery process.
Amazon has completely altered our expectations when it comes to delivery times. Why wait three, four, five days or more, when another company may be selling the same product and offering Prime or next day delivery.
It goes without saying that delivery speed can be a bigger driver of sales than price. This is the reason millions of customers are willing to pay additional fees for Prime deliveries (meaning the products turn up the very next day).
It’s also worth mentioning that Amazon visitors expect free delivery, so build that into your costs – if you show a separate delivery cost, you can practically guarantee that sales will sink like a stone.
FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon)
The good news is that next day deliveries are not reserved for businesses with advanced logistical business practices. Any company can make the most of FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon). FBA is a system whereby your business can send stock in bulk to Amazon, then Amazon takes care of packing and distribution each individual sale.
Optimizon’s Client Admin Manager, Julia Prior says:
‘The world is speeding up. Internet users don’t put up with slow website speeds anymore. Similarly, online shoppers expect fast delivery. FBA can be an easy way to elevate your sales by getting your products fulfilled at rapid speeds. Amazon is a logistics business, so make the most of it.’
5: Increase your Amazon reviews to give buyers confidence
Good reviews almost always make your product less price sensitive. Experience shows that customers are prepared to pay more for a product with consistently good, authentic-seeming reviews.
It’s not easy to build up a base of five-star reviews, but once your business has achieved this, sales can be expected to exponentially increase.
Amazon Review Building Programmes
The first piece of advice from Optimizon’s Operations Manager, Nicola Graves is:
Do use any of Amazon’s own review-building programmes that you have access to such as the Early Review Programme (ERP) or Vine. If you pack your own products and they are only sold on Amazon you can add a card into the box to ask for reviews.
However, don’t offer any incentives or try to tempt the customer away from shopping on Amazon by offering them a discount on your website for example. Amazon takes a very dim view of that and will suppress your account very quickly.
Steer Clear of Underhand Methods
‘Don’t attempt any underhand methods of getting reviews. Building a genuine base of positive reviews is tough, but worthwhile. Attempting to fake it usually comes back to bite your business in the end.’
Attracting positive reviews can be slow and frustrating, but there are a number of measures you can take to speed up the process. Optimizon’s Senior Account Manager, Dean Hawes adds:
‘Most importantly, you need to provide a great consumer experience. Fast delivery, great product information, clear images, and attentive customer support. Without these fundamentals, in place, you risk attracting poor reviews rather than positive ones.’
‘Once your business has perfected its customer experience, encourage your customers to leave reviews by sending follow-up emails after an Amazon purchase asking for feedback. This is an easy way of reaching out and engaging with people.’
‘You should time the request well; normally within a day of receipt when the consumer generally feels more positive. Your business can also request Amazon reviews via newsletters and social media posts.’
‘Finally, keep learning and improving. Use any negative feedback to make your product or service better. In many cases you can pre-empt negative experiences before they happen by learning from your competitor’s mistakes. Check out their reviews and pay attention to what their business does well and what they fail at.’
If your business has these bases covered and you want to further improve your margins, take a look at our article about how to make Amazon work for your brand.
As always, if there’s an aspect of your Amazon activities that you’d like an expert view on, then the Optimizon team is always happy to have a conversation, so please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
