Amazon is the largest American online sales marketplace and is growing in popularity every year. Today, the online shopping giant covers over 49% of the online retail market and 5% of the entire US retail market. It has been compared to a huge shopping center filled with thousands of virtual stores with products of various categories. Why is this platform so attractive to merchants? Because Amazon offers an easy and affordable way to sell products without additional website development costs. Thanks to a well-developed infrastructure, a number of important elements of trade billing and logistics are handled by the company itself.
However, it should be borne in mind that there are about 6 million sellers on Amazon, and in order to achieve noticeable commercial success, it is necessary for the product to have a high rating.
Conversion rate as a factor of competitiveness
Amazon is the 5th most visited site today and is, in fact, a huge search engine. According to statistics, 44% of buyers start searching for a product directly on Amazon, bypassing Google. Many are attracted by the very convenient “one-click checkout” function implemented on the marketplace. The buyer enters the name of the product in the search box and a second later receives a list of thousands of similar products. Some of them are displayed in the first lines of the search results, while others are displayed on dozens of subsequent pages.
It is clear that the goods in the TOP of this list gain a competitive advantage. If you are a seller on Amazon, then you are directly interested in your listing appearing in the top ten search results, as this makes it possible to sell your products faster, which is the cherished goal of everyone who works in e-commerce.
How the marketplace search engine works
For this, the developers of Amazon have created a special search algorithm called A9. It performs programmatic analysis based on human judgment, performance metrics, and key business metrics, of which one-click revenue is the foremost.
As you know, there are 3 interested parties on Amazon: buyers who come for a product, sellers who want to sell the product, and Amazon, which receives a percentage of each sale. The main goal of the A9 algorithm is to encourage people to make purchases constantly and a lot, since the earnings of Amazon itself directly depend on this. The task of the algorithm is to provide the best search results by instantly linking consumer search queries to the most relevant products in the site’s catalog.
The key factors of product listing, according to which the A9 algorithm displays the product on the first page of search results, are:
- conversion rate;
- relevance of the product to the query in the search bar;
- an indicator of customer satisfaction and retention, determined based on an analysis of the behavior of buyers on the listing, including repeat purchases.
Thus, based on the principle of the A9 algorithm, improving the conversion rate can increase the chances of a product getting into the TOP of search results.
Seven effective ways to improve conversions and increase Product Ranking
Among the factors that directly affect conversion, there are seven most significant:
- Best Seller Rank
- Customer Reviews
- Feedback comments and answers to customer questions
- Photo quality
- Price policy
- The time the buyer spends in the listing of the product
- Listing optimization.
By properly setting these seven positions, you can improve conversion and rise to the TOP of Amazon search results.
1. Rating of sales.
Amazon is one of the most customer-centric platforms out there. If a product is not selling well, then the marketplace algorithm drops it to the very bottom of the search results. All sellers on Amazon should be guided by such a parameter as the BSR (Best Seller Rank). It can be found in the Description section of any listing. The lower it is, the better, ideally the BSR should aim for 1 (like a bestseller). A product with a BSR of 20 sells better than one with a BSR of 200.
This ratio can be improved by increasing sales. Periodic promotions, distribution of discount coupons for regular customers, advertising will help to increase sales. For example, when promoting a new product, it is advisable to launch a special price action with a discount of up to 99%. Despite the negative profit, Amazon sees that the number of daily sales compared to competitors is much higher and promotes the product to the TOP of the search. After that, you can set the desired price and start working “in plus”.
2. Reviews
Any Amazon seller knows that customer reviews are extremely important in improving product ratings. Moreover, today they quite often become one of the methods of competitive struggle. Even the most ideal product is not immune to negative reviews written by competitors or consumers in a bad mood. Also, keep in mind that Amazon periodically removes suspicious (seemingly fake) reviews. Based on this, it is necessary to ensure that the number of positive reviews always outweighs the number of negative ones.
3. Feedback comments and answers to buyers’ questions in the listing
Advanced Amazonians are well aware of the importance of the “Customer questions & answers” block for raising product ratings, so they often hire professional copywriters who comment on customer reviews and answer questions that arise. In this section of the listing, you can reveal in more detail the features of the product, remove a number of fears and mistrust that may arise among buyers, demonstrate your advantages as a seller, and also improve the CEO by including the necessary keywords and phrases in the responses and comments under the reviews.
4. The quality of the photos in the product listing
Visual content is essential. Speaking about the quality of photos, we mean not only the clarity of the images, but also their maximum information content. Try looking at the photo through the eyes of a buyer. You can place a cross-sectional macro shot of a product to show quality seams or material structure. One of the photos should demonstrate an example of the use of the product, the other – the completeness, packaging, etc. It’s a good idea if the images illustrate the main differences between your product and another similar product. In addition, you can learn from competitors: find the same products and evaluate them. It might even be worth hiring a professional photographer to take quality pictures.
5. Pricing policy
According to research by the magazine Entrepreneur, shoppers are not inclined to trust understated prices and big discounts (as you know, “free cheese is only in a mousetrap”). The consumer always evaluates the goods based on the formula “price-quality”, therefore it is necessary to find a golden price mean, which would inspire the confidence of buyers and not frighten off with too large numbers.
The ideal price should be competitive, adequate in the opinion of the buyer (brand, quality, equipment), and also allow you to earn money. To determine the best price, it is worth conducting marketing testing (A / B testing, Split testing), as well as tracking competitors’ prices. Don’t be afraid to cut your price: in the long run, this can bring more customers.
6. The time that the buyer spends in the listing of goods
One way to keep a buyer on the listing page is to have rich, rich content. This option, called Amazon Enhanced Brand Content (EBC), is provided to registered trademark sellers and enables product listing with built-in layouts.
Benefits of a product page with EBC:
- A more presentational look, reminiscent of a branded landing page;
- Inspires confidence in the buyer;
- Reduces the number of quick exits from the product page;
- Reduces the number of negative reviews;
- Pays for advertising costs;
- Better conversion guaranteed.
7. Listing Optimization
Before deciding to buy, a potential buyer wants to know as much as possible about the product. This is confirmed by one of Amazon’s studies: 85% of buyers study the listing in detail before buying. Therefore, the correct filling of all product pages is a very important factor for improving conversion.
Here are some tips for improving your product listing:
- In the description, you need to indicate the information that is necessary for making a purchase decision.
- Write about the advantage of the product and the benefits it will bring to the consumer.
- Be sure to fill in the required fields in the characteristics: purpose, release form, brand, material, weight, size, color and others, as they are used by the Amazon search engine when the buyer applies filters.
- Structure the text of the description to make the information easier for the buyer to comprehend.
- The title of the page must contain the keys, but not be cumbersome.
- Don’t forget to put your keywords in the Serch Terms line.
- End the description with a call to purchase.
- Periodically review the bestseller listings in your category to incorporate this experience into your writing.
For more information on how to improve product ratings on Amazon, visit our Amazon Intelligence training program, a business training program for the world’s largest marketplaces.
