Category Archives: Ecommerce

Combine These 7 Simple Tactics To Successfully Launch New Products On Amazon

To launch a new product successfully on amazon.com, make certain all seven of these simple steps are checked off. This will maximize your visibility and selling potential. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself among the many who believe that Amazon is a brutally hard space to gain sales traction for new products.

I should note that all of these tools must be used. Drop any one and it will take you far too long to achieve any momentum with your product launch. This is especially true if you are a smaller brand, like we are at General Tools.

  • Generate Buzz with Pre-Order Sales – Creating hype over a new product launch will not only help generate customer awareness in advance of the product launch date, but will help boost initial product sales. To do this on Amazon, the item is setup, ASIN is obtained, NIS Pre-Order Submission Template is completed (providing Amazon with a product release date), product page is then live on Amazon. Amazon may not have placed orders for the product yet, but with pre-order sales rolling in, it will prompt Amazon to make certain they have inventory on hand for quick fulfillment of the product.

  • Participate in Vine Reviews – Vine Voices are Amazon’s most trusted reviewers. Positive feedback from trusted reviewers help customers make informed decisions, which in turn generates more sales and creates additional positive reviews. Note: $2,500 per ASIN to access the Vine program. The number of units per promotion are limited to 15.

Image result for amazon vine

  • Born to Run – Amazon program for new products. When new products are set up in Amazon, vendors are allowed to participate in a Born to Run program. Amazon agrees to buy the product as long as the vendor spends on AMS equal to 10% of purchase value.
  • Amazon Advertising – Paid Amazon service allows vendors to be more visible and stand out against their competition while increasing sales potential and providing sales lift.

There are three Campaign types to advertise products on Amazon Advertising:

  1. Sponsored Products* – Promote products to shoppers actively searching with related keywords
  2. Sponsored Brands – Showcase a collection of products
  3. Product Display Ads – Deliver relevant ads targeting shoppers’ interests or related  products/categories* Note – Sponsored Products have always been our best performing campaign type but this is not a set it and forget it ad platform.
  • Add Optimized Title and Bullets/Images/Videos – General follows Amazon best practices when it comes to a highly optimized product page. New products are setup with optimized titles and bullets (5 bullets allowed) that describe the top features of the product along with highly searchable keyword terms. Images we include: a hero product shot, side L/R angle shots and several application shots. If available, we also include a video. Amazon is now asking vendors to add 360 degree photography, a new capability on the platform.Amazon SEO Strategy and Search Term Optimization
  • Twist/Product Variation – Twisting products on Amazon allows customers to compare, choose and click thru to similar products within General’s product line. The variations all appear on one page giving customers the ability to peruse the grouped ‘family’ product line without having to hunt for these products thru Amazon.  Twisted products give customers a better shopping experience, gives lift to the entire product line, boosts sales and increase reviews. Less popular items can ‘piggy back’ off the success of the more popular/best-selling items.Image result for amazon variation products
  • A+ content – Provide customers with richer, more detailed information with A+ Content. A+ Detail Pages have helped to increase customer conversion, retain customer interest, educate shoppers about model variations/features, and promote brand awareness. A+ content is a free Amazon service and offers a very visual display of our products with additional application images, product comparison charts etc. to promote products.

Image result for amazon A+ content

Using all of these tactics together maximizes sales opportunities for new products on Amazon. Believe me when I say it works – we’ve launched many of our now best selling products this way!

Good Selling!

 

 

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Top Ecommerce Trends for 2018

I came across this article in HBSDealer and thought you would be interested in these emerging ecommerce trends.

Consulting firm Absolunet, based in Montreal, Canada, revealed its list of top 10 trends that will impact North American retailers in 2018. The impact will be felt across the entire supply chain: by manufacturers, distributors, retailers and consumers alike, says the company.

“The technologies themselves already exist, we expect the adoption and proliferation of these technologies to grow substantially this year, changing the very nature of how companies do business.” says Charles Desjardins, Absolunet senior VP. “We hope that the top ten e-commerce trends for 2018 report helps retailers, manufacturers and distributors gain valuable insight and helps them choose the right strategies and partners to bridge the ecommerce gap.”

Here are the top ten:

1. The rebirth of brick and mortar

A  breed of retail stores and in-person experiences will begin to replace outgoing retailers.

2. The consumerization of B2B

The perfect storm is about to hit the nearly 1 trillion $ B2B e-commerce sector.

3. AR in your house

Augmented Reality will go from “novelty” to a sales driver.

4. ROPO (Research Online, Purchase Offline), the new measure of a retailer’s digital success

Retailers will be able to know which clicks led to in-store sales.

5. Mobile checkout overtakes desktop checkout

Mobile commerce’s biggest challenge – checkout – will become its greatest asset

6. AI will create the perfect customer experience

Shopping will be customized and optimized for every consumer.

7. Amazon and the year of marketplace maturity

Amazon will be a ubiquitous element in every e-commerce Business Plan in 2018.

8. Voice will change Google/SEO/e-commerce forever

In 2018, consumers will speak to their devices and use voice to make purchases like never before.

9. Photo shopping

Image-based product searches will be big in 2018, essentially altering the very nature of “search”.

10. Reaching peak browser

The browser will no longer be the de facto means by which we purchase products or services digitally.

What trends do you see on the horizon for ecommerce and retail in 2018?

Good Selling!

Four Steps To Better Data-Driven Marketing

Data Disruption By Greg BonsibCheck out the newly published Mighty Guides eBook Data Disruption and my chapter on data-driven marketing.

Data has always played an important role in marketing. What has changed in recent years is the sheer volume of data now available from so many different sources.

If we were once challenged to see the forest through the trees, we’re now challenged to see the forest through the leaves.

“I look at data strategically, with the essential premise that the customer is the ultimate focus of interest.”

Here at Zenith, we primary sell our products through our network of retail partners. We do have a product website, but it is not a major source of our sales. In my role at Zenith Products Corp., I look at data strategically, with the essential premise that the customer is the ultimate focus of interest. With that in mind, I have a four-step approach to using data in customer marketing:

  1. Start small. For example, we often use Amazon Services (AMS) ads to test the effectiveness of promotional strategies. We will focus on a product or a phrase or an idea and watch how it performs. By doing so, we can create a test with a focused objective, and we can keep the cost of our tests very low. Amazon Webstore provides an excellent data environment in which to try something small at low cost and capture meaningful performance data around it.
  2. Test and learn. By keeping the test small and the cost low, we can try many different variations. For instance, I used AMS to test category ads, product ads, brand ads, ads based on search words, ads based on competitors, even ad placement that AMS recommended. The good thing about this method is that Amazon provides data that allow us to track ad performance directly to Amazon Webstore sales. In this way, we can identify ad strategies that perform well and those that are total duds. Failures are as important as successes. The best-performing ads returned $5 in sales for every $1 spent on marketing—a 500 percent return on investment (ROI) on marketing spend.

“In this way we can identify ad strategies that perform well and those that are total duds. Failures are as important as successes.”

  1. Build on success. Using the proof point of a 500 percent marketing ROI, I can then build that ad concept into a larger marketing strategy that involves product packaging, in-store promotions, and many other things. Then, I start looking at other kinds of performance data. For instance, if a store is running a promotion on a product, I pay close attention to the halo effect of that product on the sales of other products.
  2. Document your knowledge. It is incredibly important to document what you do. Documentation enables you to build a body of knowledge about what works and also to share that knowledge through your organization.

The power of this kind of data-driven marketing is that when you have data that prove your strategy, you can gain credibility and resources to do it again.

Key Lessons for Better Data-Driven Marketing

  1. When testing ideas, it is important to create a test that has a focused objective and to keep the cost of tests low.
  2. The power of data-driven marketing is that when you have data that prove your strategy, you can gain credibility and resources to do it again.

Good Selling!

Greg Bonsib is an author of the new Mighty Guides Ebook Data Disruption.