Why aren't you getting more sales for your private label products on Amazon? We go over five areas where you might be falling short, in this episode of the Amazon seller podcast.
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What we've been up to in our own businesses this week! Andy: So a little bit of what I'm working on in my business is continuing to get the warehouse organized and optimized for storing products. As well as I'm shipping products and pretty excited because we are actually working with 2 sellers. We have one seller that we are storing his product in our space.
If you haven't listened before, recently I acquired a 12,000 square ft. warehouse space along with a friend of mine we partner on. His name is Steve Peterson. We are now storing one seller's products and we have a container coming in from another seller. So we're excited to be able to partner with him to be able to help him out, help him save on Amazon storage fees. He actually has an over-sized product so it makes perfect sense for him to store at our warehouse which is going to be about half the price of what he would pay at Amazon.
This is a new product for him as well so whenever you bring a new product into Amazon it's hard to gauge the sales velocity. So by allowing him to store at our warehouse, he can get an idea what his velocity is going to be. What we're trying to do now is drip feed our inventory in.
So I want about four to six weeks of inventory in at the Amazon warehouse at all times. I don't want any more than that because I want to save on those storage fees especially come Q4. I'm excited about that, we are actually going to an auction this Saturday. We went to the preview 2 days ago. We're trying to purchase more pallet rack shelving. Steve and I always like good deals. If you purchase that stuff now it's very expensive. However, you can often find nice pallet rack shelving at auctions or liquidation places. So we'll be going to that this Saturday and hopefully, we will be a picking up some good equipment at a really good price.
Andy, now that you've had a warehouse for a number of months, do you have any advice or any real positive or any negative things? Now that you've been in the warehouse for a while that you would maybe give advice to someone listening? Andy: Yeah, I mean it takes time anytime you're moving. If you've personally moved from one house to another, you understand the work that's involved in that. It's very similar to the warehouse. Thankfully, I didn't have a lot of inventory that I had to move from one warehouse to another. My partner Steve did and so it was a real chore. He's still working on getting everything organized. He has a tremendous amount of inventory that he had at his other place.
You definitely want to have a team. We've both decided that if we have to move from our current warehouse to another one we will hire a moving team that will help organize and move all the inventory. Because that's probably the most challenging part.
Nathan: Yeah, I mean that's just hard work right? Moving all that stuff it takes time. We've seen some of those pictures of you guys on Facebook. You got your gloves on and you're getting dirty. So if that's something that you enjoy doing then maybe you can do it yourself. But I think having a team do it for you could be helpful.
Awesome, so in my own business, I've been trying to connect with a new manufacturer, I was actually telling Andy about the struggle. I have a product Andy and I are actually trying to work on this together. But we're having a tough time finding the original manufacturer. We're working with some people to help find the original manufacturer for us. We know that they have to be there somewhere because there's a couple of companies on Alibaba who are offering essentially the same product. But we are just having trouble connecting with that direct original manufacturer.
And the reason we want to go to them is we feel like we could potentially, more easily make some changes and improvements to this product.
We often talk that you don't necessarily need to find the original manufacturer. Sometimes a trading company can be ok to work with because they can simplify the process. But in this case, we're just trying to find that.
It's been a struggle the last couple of weeks trying to connect or trying to discover where this person is. We are now working with a sourcing agent to help with it. So that's kind of been one of the bigger focuses on this last week, among just the regular stuff in the business.
How Do I Get More Sales?! This is obviously one of the most important topics that we could talk about. How to get more sales, how to sell well on Amazon and build your brand. This is a question that we see a lot of folks, not just in our own community but in other Facebook groups that are out there. "Why am I not getting sales?"
Today we address these issues, so if you stick to these basic five areas that probably are some of those fundamental ways that you can improve your chances of getting more sales. We really think that it's going to be helpful in your business. A lot of people try to focus on the little things that are going to maybe give a small 1% boost to their business instead of focusing on those major things that are gonna to make up 80% of the success.
Reason No. 1 -You just might not have the keywords that you need to have in the listing. Maybe you can go over this Andy, I know we recently did an episode just talking about keywords and some of the new tools that are out there but maybe just go over why this is so important?
Andy: So we're starting this podcast in this episode with a premise that you have a quality product. That's the absolute main thing that you have to make sure that you take care of. You've gotten your product into Amazon, it is a quality product, it's a functional product if it's a functional type item. If it's a passion product again the same thing, the quality, the make, the art, the craft is excellent. So you've done all those work, you have it in there but for some reason, sales are not coming through.
At the end of the day, you still have to be a salesperson for a product even if it's on Amazon. So what we're going talk about right now are 5 things that you need to make sure you take care of to get your products in. We often talk about sometimes people have great products but if no one knows about them it doesn't do anybody any good and vice versa.
Sometimes people sell products that are poor quality but they have really great marketing. And they sell like gangbusters because everyone knows about them. So what we want to do is help you get your product that is excellent, with great quality into the hands of the customers. And the very first thing is you have to have the keywords in the listing.
Amazon is a Keyword game.
It's all about the search and it's about the clicks. So you need to make sure in your title, in your bullet points, in your description, in your back-end, you've loaded that with relevant keywords. And please don't miss the part of relevancy. Do not spam your listing with keywords that are not relevant to your product. Because customers will click on it and it's not gonna convert. Which means Amazon is going to slide it further down in search. So just make sure that those relevant keywords are really in heavily. And your title bullet points, descriptions and then in the back end.
Nathan: Yeah, and I think not enough people are looking for more of those relevant keywords. We did do an episode just a couple back where we talked about keywords and I think specifically mentioned Viral Launch's new keyword tool that we've really been enjoying actually. We've been using it a lot because when our inner circle members send us evaluation guides, one of the first things that we now do is we ask them what their main keyword is. We started asking them how many exact searches do they get. There are a couple tools that you can use for this, but the Viral Launch tool makes it easy. And we will look and we'll say "hey this keyword has less than 50 searches, exact searches a month or something that's probably not your exact search term right? Because there's just not enough search volume coming from Amazon that would make that keyword worth it to target.
Now, it might be a long-tail keyword that you can add in there just to capture some of the sales. But it's not going to be the main keyword that you're basing your decision on. So using that tool, if you type in a keyword and that Viral Launch keyword tool, it'll give you related keywords often. Also their search volume and using that, you can get a lot of relevant keywords that are related to your main one. Even if it doesn't make sense to have it on the front. You have those 250 bytes on the back end, in the search term field that you can add that in.
So make sure you're doing that. Go to amazingfreedom.com/keywords and get that tool for a discount that we have through Amazing Freedom. Keywords are super important. Again I'm just gonna refer you back to past episodes, make sure you go back. Because keywords are one the most important topics that you can learn about that isn't always inherently easy to understand.
Reason No. 2 -Your listing is not optimized. Andy, can you talk about some of the ways that we can make sure our listing is optimized correctly and why it makes a big difference?
Andy: Sure, so actually at the most recent Amazing Freedom Mastermind retreat, we had one of the members volunteer their listing. And Liran stood upfront and worked on his listing for 45 minutes. The first thing is there's a little bit of art and science to optimizing your listing. It is not something that you can just write out quickly, you need to give due diligence in researching keywords. Researching what your typical customer is looking for. Again, you have to take that into consideration - who your target customer is. Then you start with a few things:
Images - If you've listened to our podcast for a while, you know we emphasize images as the number one thing that sells your product. So that main image, you know? You have to make sure that it pops. You have to make sure that it is professional. Because when Amazon customers are looking through the catalog, they will scroll right by if your Amazon image looks like it was taken with your iPhone while it was laying on your bed. And there are listings like that on Amazon. Don't make your listing like that. Make sure your images are excellent.
The Title, Bullet Points and Description - There are certain ways to write the copy for these crucial components. You want to write benefits as you go through those bullet points. Then in the description, there are certain things that you want to write to appeal to that target customer that you are really going after. You can look for basically any product on Amazon, it won't take you very long to find listings that are not done well.
We encourage you to take time, do the work and make sure that your listing is a professional-looking listing. Amazon wants their listings to look professional. Not to knock eBay at all, eBay is getting better. But you can go on eBay and their listings are a little bit of a lower quality. And Amazon doesn't want listings of lower quality like that. They want a high converting, very optimized listing.
Nathan: And we have said in the past that you don't want to lie in your sales copy and say something that's untrue. But there are definitely different ways that you can write your sales copy in a way that is truthful and also sound much better. You can say something and make it sound boring or you can say in a way that sounds really appealing to the customer.
Mention those benefits so that the customer is even really thinking what the features of that product are. Or thinking how it's gonna make their life easier. Why they're gonna wanna use it or what's the benefit it's going to bring to them. Definitely important to get those ideas in there. And we talk about it so much because we see it all the time. People under utilizing creating good listings.
And of course, we have the amazing freedom magic image service at amazingfreedom.com/magic that can help you with your images. That can get features and benefits and text in models in your images. We also have a listing optimization service at amazingfreedom.com/optimize that can help you with your keyword and your sale copy and get that in a way that's going to help you beat your competition. So those are the first two reasons why you might not be getting the sales at your hoping to get.
Reason No. 3 - You're just not ranking organically in a way that customers are going to discover your product. This might seem to be simple but it's so important because some people don't realize that this is something that you need to be constantly aware of and working on. Andy already mentioned that the only way your product is gonna get sold is if customers can find it. So you need to be ranking organically for those keywords that are so important. Or that have a high search volume so that you can get the sales.
Otherwise, unless you're driving traffic to it another way. Like we're going to talk about in a moment through ads or external traffic, you're not going to be getting a lot of sales. So you need to be increasing your rank.
Andy, maybe you can talk about that just a little bit and we'll go over some more strategies have in the past as well. Andy: Yes, so the SEO joke is that "you can hide a dead body on the second page of whatever keyword that you are trying to rank for". Again that speaks to the fact that Amazon customers generally don't scroll past the first 4 or 5 products whether they're on mobile or on the desktop. So if your product is on the second page, it's pretty much dead. Your sales velocity is not going to be where you want it to be. So how do you rank organically? There are a few ways that you can do that. Amazon pushes you up in search really based on sales velocity through a keyword that Amazon customers are searching for. You know it's really based on sales velocity and keywords.
One of my products that I have been selling for a while and brought some variation to is a good selling product. Based on the other colors that were already currently selling, I knew that it's a fairly competitive niche. So I knew that if I lowered my price, and held it for 4-6 months that because my sales velocity was going to be greater than my competition, eventually I would rank for those colors organically.
Now, that's what I call playing the long game. I was willing to drop my price at a significantly lower price at a loss for 4-6 months. In order to rank through those keywords that the Amazon customers were searching for. And what that allowed me to do is I started you know on page 50 for those keywords. At the end of those 6 months, I was on the first page. Right now I'm actually ranking 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th in those spots for those keywords. Really all I did was I was willing to eat a little bit of my cost for 4-6 months which then produced a sales velocity. And that's how I was able to rank organically.
Now there are other strategies, different tips, and techniques that we teach to our members in our course. But I just gave you one that I think probably relatively few sellers use. Because they're afraid that they're gonna lose money. And you do lose money a little bit on the front end. But if you're willing to play the long game like I was on this product, I'm now making money. Because I'm on the first page in those top 4 places.
Nathan: Yeah, and there are other strategies such as launches, and ways to drive specific traffic to your keywords. And a list of things that Andy we do talk about all the time in our inner circle group. And in our webinars. Price is a big one, though. I'm glad that you mentioned that. Because so many times we have people who bring us evaluation guides. And they say they're going to sell our products at this pretty high price, like the same price, if not higher than the one that's already selling. Well, Amazon is price conscious. They are conscious of the price of listings. And they seem to rank listings with lower prices. So it can make a huge difference. It is something that if you bring in a new product, it can be a really powerful strategy to getting ranked better organically.
Reason No. 4 - PPC or sponsored ads. Andy, this is something I know you've really boosted more over the last year, year and a half in your own business. So maybe you can just talk about why you decided to put an emphasis on PPC.
Andy: So yeah, initially when I was selling, I had products that were really good sellers. I wasn't running any kind of PPC probably like a lot of other Amazon sellers. Amazon already takes 15% referral fee. There are a number other fees that they take Why would I want to give them any more money for mouse clicks?
However, I definitely changed my thinking on this. Some of my best selling products now I run PPC on constantly. Those campaigns obviously are optimized. My ACOS is very low and I'm not sure on this, and some people probably debate on whether what I'm about to say is true or not. But I think that the keywords that I am targeting through my PPC are helping me rank organically for those search terms. Now I've heard other folks say that they don't think that's necessarily the case. So all I can give you is my evidence on the products that I run PPC on. I definitely think it has helped them move up in search of those certain keywords that I'm running PPC on.
Nathan: I think it makes total sense. I mean it makes sense that Amazon would want to reward you essentially for running sponsored ads. So I think even if we don't have any direct numbers or evidence from it, it's just from experience standpoint seems to make sense. So Amazon-sponsored ads, super important, we talked about them often.
We have several episodes talking about sponsored ads. And as an extension to that, let's say headline ads. They're a little bit different, it's not sponsored ads, it's headline ads. It's a different type of ad that you can run. And if you're not running this right now, you really want to. Because it could be a way that you could potentially get more real estate on Amazon. Even if you're not ranking organically, you could be basically having your products get discovered through your Amazon-sponsored ads and your headline ads. We could add product display ads to that if you have access. It could be another way you're getting it.
And Liran often talks, and Andy mentioned that having a low ACOS is beneficial. Liran often talks about even if your ACOS is at a breakeven or even a slight loss, it could still help you overall on your sales. Why? Because o#1, you're taking up my real estate. Which means, and you're outbidding your competition. Which means you're getting those sales and they're not. This helps your overall sales velocity. It's helping you improve and rank. It's helping you get more reviews potentially to the sales. Just through sheer volume. It's just overall going to help you in the long run. So if you're not using sponsored ads or headline ads, and you're not optimizing them, definitely an area that we say is probably an area where most sellers could definitely use improvement.
I personally don't like dealing with sponsored ads, I know I always feel like I could be doing better at it. It's one of the reasons that we created the Amazing Freedom PPC Agency. We've been helping different sellers manage their sponsored ads and headline ads. So if you're interested in that, you can go to amazingfreedom.com/PPC and apply to see if having us manage your ads would be helpful. Which is just one of the things that a lot of sellers just don't want to deal with this, so they end up not doing it.
Then if your competition is, like Andy has mentioned before, he has kinda bullied his competition out with ads. It's made a huge difference in helping him preserve his rank in search. So those are four reasons you're not getting the sales that you want.
Reason No. 5 - Reviews Andy, I think this is the one that you probably get the most passionate about. So, I definitely wanna hear your thoughts on why this is a reason why people are not getting sales. Why don't you talk to us about that?
Andy: Sure, my life has really become all about reviews, I often joke about that with other sellers. You are trying to prevent negative reviews on your product. You try to do everything you can to get positive reviews on your product. I will go back again though that you have to start with a quality product. You will lose on Amazon if you try selling junk. And you'll lose because Amazon customers will call you out with those negative reviews. This will kill the conversion on your listing.
Going back to the product that I shared earlier. How I lowered my price which pushed up the sales velocity. Which increased and put me in a better position organically. One of the reasons I was able to do that is because I had a quality product. I think my product is better quality than any of the others that are on Amazon. So I was able to sell it at a low price, at a higher sales velocity. And when the reviews started to roll in, they were 4 and 5-star reviews. Now had my product been poor quality, those reviews would have been 1 and 2-stars. I would have done a lot of work bringing the product to the Amazon marketplace only to see it fail.
It's like a cycle. So once the sales velocity of that product starts to increase, once those reviews start coming in, that gives customers social proof. Which increases the sales velocity, which then pushes my product up to that premium place in search. But it really comes down to reviews again. Do we know how much play reviews get in Amazon's A9 algorithm? Nobody really knows that but I can tell you this. On the products that I sell the ones that have more reviews. That is 4 and 5-stars than the other competitors in my niche, they do really really well. And at the end of the day, it comes down to reviews.
Now it's hard to get reviews. It becomes harder month over month and year over year. Especially since Amazon made their change, I believe in October 2016. Which means back then you could actually ask and request customers, you could give them a promo code to get a discount rate and you could request a review in exchange for that. Amazon took that away. It's becoming increasingly hard to get reviews and now Amazon customers can opt out of follow-up email and we all know that email, our email boxes can be full and so Amazon customers more often are opting out of those follow-up email.
What this means for you and I as we sell on Amazon, we have to be creative when it comes to getting reviews. If you're in our inner circle, you know that we share some of those techniques and some of those strategies that we personally use on how to get reviews but it takes to creativity and it takes work.
Nathan: If you focus on these 5 topics, if you really try to nail these in your business for your private label products, we think that is going to be hugely helpful to your success. We have an episode I think at least one, if not multiple episodes, on every single one of these topics that we've covered. So if you are newer to the show and you're wondering, if you like more details on these 5 points, you can definitely go back and listen to episodes that cover these topics in more detail.
We want to give you an overview because it's always helpful to be looking at the big picture of what we're always trying to do that brings more products and sell more products on Amazon or in your business in a way that's going to help you grow your brands.
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