How to Sell Successfully on Amazon

Most retailers use multiple channels to sell their product, simultaneously selling across social media, their online store and potentially a brick and mortar store. These days, however, more and more retailers are adding Amazon as an additional sales channel. By the end of 2018, Amazon’s U.S. ecommerce sales are projected to account for 50% of the U.S. ecommerce market — and sales are expected to reach $258.2 billion. Amazon is a great place to add to your ecommerce efforts. But if you’ve never used Amazon — or if you’ve tried, but it seems like you're constantly falling behind the competition — it can seem intimidating. Here are the top four things you can do to sell successfully on Amazon.

Your Amazon selling strategy

Optimize for SEO

Once your products are listed on Amazon, you need to make sure they’re easy to find. Including SEO keywords can give your product a better chance of ranking on the first page of search results. Optimize your product’s listing title for SEO - BigCommerce recommends including details such as brand, product line, material, product type, color, size, and quantity. Using the most relevant keyword first will earn you more visibility. You should also use relevant keywords in your product bullets and your product description. Again, the higher you can rank in search results, the more people you'll drive to your products.

Encourage reviews

Social proof refers to the influence the actions of others have on our own actions. For instance, says Neil Patel, imagine you’re walking down the street and see an empty restaurant side-by-side with a restaurant that has a line out the door. Which one will you choose for lunch? Probably the second one — because if so many people are there, it must be delicious. That’s why, as a business owner, reviews are worth their weight in gold for you - the more you have, the better. According to KISSmetrics, two thirds of shoppers are more likely to buy a product if it has ratings and reviews. Positive reviews can sway a buyer’s decision in the right direction. And Amazon favors highly-rated reviews in its product rankings, too. Don’t be afraid to ask customers to leave reviews. After someone makes a purchase, send them an email thanking them and encourage them to leave a review with their honest thoughts about the product.

Create compelling product listings

Product listings are important, but many business owners do them wrong. Don’t simply type the bare minimum (or stuff them with unnatural keywords) — instead, describe what features make your product so great, what makes it different from similar products and how people can use your product. Econsultancy recommends utilizing "A+ content" (which includes larger images and longer descriptions) in your Amazon descriptions - according to Amazon, this can raise your sales by three to 10%. You can also try including comparison charts to help potential customers see how your product stacks up.

Track your sales

After you’ve optimized your Amazon strategy and start to see orders come in, it’s important to track your sales and evaluate how well your efforts are working - particularly in comparison to your other sales channels. How many of your total orders are coming from Amazon? What's your conversion rate? How much revenue is Amazon driving for you? And - most importantly - what do you need to do to improve even further? An analytics platform like Glew, which integrates with Amazon as well as your other sales channels, can help you easily access and get insights from this data. Ready to claim your piece of Amazon’s $258.2 billion worth of sales?