Copyright 2015 SellerLabs AMAZON SEARCH SECRETS IMPROVE YOUR BRAND S PRESENCE ON THE WORLD S LARGEST PRODUCT SEARCH ENGINE

Transcription

1 Copyright 2015 SellerLabs AMAZON SEARCH SECRETS IMPROVE YOUR BRAND S PRESENCE ON THE WORLD S LARGEST PRODUCT SEARCH ENGINE

2 The Guide 2 // 16

3 SellerLabs Amazon Search Secrets table of contents SECTION 1 INTRODUCTION PAGE 4 SECTION 2 US ONLINE RETAIL SALES PAGE 6 SECTION 3 PRODUCT DISCOVERY PAGE 8 SECTION 4 AMAZON SEARCH TECHNICAL OVERVIEW PAGE 9 SECTION 5 KEYWORDS PAGE 10 SECTION 6 IMAGES PAGE 11 SECTION 7 CONTENT PAGE 12 SECTION 8 REVIEWS PAGE 13 SECTION 9 SALES PAGE 14 SECTION 10 CONCLUSION PAGE 15

4 SECTION 1 INTRODUCTION WELCOME & INTRODUCTION 4 // 16

5 overview As e-commerce becomes an established industry, market share is consolidating at the top. Amazon has emerged as a world leader in e-commerce and accounts for a hefty portion of US and world online retail sales. The purpose of this white paper is to explain why Amazon needs to be a vital part of your e-commerce strategy. It s also intended to educate you on leveraging Amazon to build your brand across the internet and in brick and mortar. WHO IS THIS FOR? Brand owners and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) Exclusive resellers (meaning you have exclusive rights to sell a brand on Amazon) Resellers interested in launching their own brand 5 // 16

6 SECTION 2 US ONLINE RETAIL SALES 02 The The Internet Retailer Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide reported in 2014 that the top 100 US online retailers earned an astounding $ billion. Combined, these top 100 companies account for 83 percent of all US online retail sales. Of these top 100 companies, Amazon leads the list with nearly 50 percent of the gross merchandise volume. In 2014, Amazon s direct retail revenue earned it $70.08 billion. It collected an additional $9.4 billion in commissions from third-party sellers. Assuming the average commission is 12 percent, we can estimate that Amazon s third-party sales were around $78.33 billion. By combining Amazon s direct and third-party sales we can approximate the total gross merchandise purchased on Amazon in 2014 to be a staggering $ billion. With Amazon s declaration flag firmly planted atop the US e-commerce mountain, focusing solely on your own e-commerce website is no longer a reliable strategy for success. Amazon is a behemoth. If your brand is not present on it, you re missing out on lucrative opportunities. You ll notice ebay is not present in this chart. Internet Retailer doesn t calculate its sales because ebay s revenue is divided among individual merchants. ebay s GMV is close to $70 billion including used items and automobiles. We estimate ebay s new retail sales at around $20-$30 billion of the $ billion allocated to everyone else. 6 // 16

7 Everybody Else $ $78.33 $70.08 $5.7 $11.23 $12.14 $ // 16

8 SECTION 3 PRODUCT DISCOVERY 03 PRODUCT RESEARCH Not only is Amazon the number one place to sell online in the US, it s also the go-to product research tool for most shoppers. Google s chairman, Eric Schmidt, said last year in Berlin that ALMOST A THIRD OF PEOPLE LOOKING TO BUY SOMETHING STARTED ON AMA- ZON--THAT S MORE THAN TWICE THE NUM- BER WHO WENT STRAIGHT TO GOOGLE [1]. Amazon is more than just a marketplace, it s a shopping search engine. Schmidt went on to say, They [Amazon] are answering users questions and searches, just as we are [1]. Amazon s reach is larger than just online sales. According to Forrester Research, for every $1 purchased online, $6 are researched online and purchased offline [2]. Shoppers are using Amazon and other sites to do their window shopping. Meaning they research a product online but make the purchase in a brick and mortar location. Here s more evidence of online window shopping: Forty-eight percent of all purchase decisions made in the US--that s $1.5 trillion--are now influenced by digital decisions [3]. REI recently disclosed that 75% of REI s in-store shoppers have visited the retailer s website in the seven days prior to a store visit [3]. [1] html [2] [3] 8 // 16

9 SECTION 4 AMAZON SEARCH TECHNICAL OVERVIEW 04 STRATEGY Search is the primary way shoppers look for products on Amazon [4]. An effective strategy needs to have the Amazon search engine in mind. Amazon has a team of brilliant engineers whose goal is to display the most relevant products for a search term from a catalog with hundreds of millions of possibilities. This team is called A9 and you will find its logo at the bottom of every Amazon search result. The 9 in A9 represents Algorithm because it has 9 letters--a9 quite literally means Algorithm. CloudSearch is a highly technical product and being familiar with programming helps to understand how to use it. By looking at things like Amazon Cloud- Search and running experiments, we have been able to get key insights into how Amazon search works. The rest of this white paper will explain the key findings we have uncovered from studying Amazon search, along with some beneficial secrets you can implement to improve your presence on Amazon. [4] The same team who developed Amazon s product search, also created CloudSearch, which allows other programmers to tap into the same technology that powers the Amazon product search pages. 9 // 16

10 SECTION 5 KEYWORDS 05 Historically, keywords search engines--including CloudSearch and Amazon s product search--have ranked search results by how often a search term appears in the listing. As a result, loads of merchants are stuffing their Amazon listings with keywords to help them rank better in search. This is why you often see lengthy titles and spammy bullet points. Amazon made an update to its title policy, though, on July 15, 2015 by limiting all new titles to 200 characters. While targeting relevant keywords is important to rank well in Amazon search, it s not always that simple. Your efforts are better spent focusing on quality, relevant keywords rather than trying every combination. Here are some useful tools and suggestions we recommend with keywords: Use the keyword planner from Google Adwords. This will give you some starting points for terms you may not have thought of. If you run your own website, data from your SEO research can help you know which keywords are the most relevant. Use Amazon s search suggestion to get recommendations. Go to Amazon.com and start typing in a keyword for your product and see what other keywords Amazon suggests. Create a Google survey with photos of your product and have people explain to you what they think it is and what search phrases they would use to find it. Try using MerchantWords.com. This service gives you access to more than 20 million popular search phrases used on Amazon. Simply show friends, family, coworkers, etc. your product and ask them to describe it. Take good notes and use that as a baseline for your keywords. Include relevant keywords in your title, bullets, description and keyword fields when creating your listings. 10 // 16

11 SECTION 6 images 06 beyond keywords Beyond keywords, it s important to make sure your product pages on Amazon are highly converting, and quality images can boost your conversion rate. Images are an easy improvement most companies can do. Products with better images are three times more likely to convert [5]. Amazon considers images so crucial that it will suppress a listing from searches if they don t meet its standards. Amazon requires the product to take up at least 85 percent of the frame and pixels to trigger zoom-in [6]. And the product must have a solid white background without anything impeding its visibility. Here are some useful tools and suggestions we recommend to help with images: Use the maximum resolution allowed to enable the zoom in feature. When customers move their mouse over an image, a larger version appears with greater detail. Have good lighting in the photos. Shoppers won t buy what they can t see. Have detailed shots of your product. Highlight key product features--show first with photos, tell later with words. Try featuring different images to see how it affects your conversion rates. [5] conversion-rate [6] Use high resolution images. This will make you look more professional and legitimate. Hire a professional if you don t think you have the skills to take good photos // 16

12 SECTION 7 content 07 converting views into sales Just as important as keywords are to finding your listings, content with in them is equally valuable to converting views into sales. Your listings should clearly describe your product and entice the shopper to purchase. Here are some useful tools and suggestions we recommend to help with content: Read the style guide for the category you are listing your product in. Use simple HTML formatting in your descriptions. Carefully tweak one thing about your content at a time to see how it affects your conversion rates. Regularly review your conversion rates and other data within Amazon business reports. Have someone proofread your copy for spelling and grammatical errors. Less is usually more. A shopper should be able to make a purchase decision from your title alone. Use bullets to show feature benefits. Remember, bullets will be viewed more than descriptions. Style for Home and Garden guide: ClothingStyleGuide.pdf Descriptions should contain all the technical and detailed information about your product. 12 // 16

13 SECTION 8 REVIEWS 08 Here REVIEWS Reviews are vital in driving sales to your Amazon products. Product reviews are also crucial to Amazon s search algorithm, but more importantly, they will help you convert traffic into sales. Amazon s recent update to how reviews are ranked is known as Machine Learning. In the context of product reviews, this means that Amazon has fed all of the existing reviews--those that have been approved, and those that haven t--into this new system and have trained it to recognize reviews that will ultimately be the most relevant to customers. It is able to approve, rank, and surface reviews quicker than waiting for hundreds of users to click the vote button. are some useful tools and suggestions we recommend to earn quality reviews: Offer exceptional customer service. customers who had a great experience at least once. Ask for reviews either manually or with an automated tool like Feedback Genius. Leave a personalized note in your packaging asking for a review. Use a promotional service, like Snagshout to encourage shoppers to leave reviews for discounted products // 16

14 SECTION 9 SALES 09 Amazon SALES has an extraordinary data point most search engines don t. It has actual sales data it can use to determine which products shoppers find most relevant to them. What better way is there to determine what customers want than by measuring what they have voted for with their own wallets? Amazon states this well by saying, In general, better-selling products tend to be towards the beginning of the results list. As your sales of a product increase, so does your placement [7]. Regular sales help a product get noticed on Amazon search. The more competitive the category, the more sales you need to rank well. For example, let s measure Amazon sales on a graph with the y-axis measuring a sale s worth in points, and the x-axis measuring time with the most recent sales to the far right. Now let s imagine a listing that was created in 2011 up until the sales history from the past week. 14 // 16 The sales in 2011 are worth 1 point toward search relevancy, 2012 is worth 2 points, 2013 is worth 3 points, 2014 is worth 4 points, Q1 of 2015 is worth 10 points, the past month is worth 20 points, and the past week is worth 50 points. As you can see, the closer you move to the present day, the sales points increase. Older sales still add value but recent sales are weighted significantly higher for search relevancy. Here are some useful tools and suggestions we recommend to improve sales: Offer a competitive price. Leverage Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) because shoppers are more likely to purchase FBA items for Prime benefits. Add variations to your items, like color and size if possible. Use a promotional service like Snagshout to drive highly-converting traffic to your listings. [7]

15 SECTION 10 CONCLUSIONS 10 overview Implementation of this document s information can propel your products to the top of Amazon search results. Having a top performing product on Amazon will not only help generate direct revenue from sales, but will also strengthen your brand everywhere else. A stellar presence on Amazon can improve your sales across all channels and even open up new ones. Building a brand on Amazon is a labor-intensive task but we have the tools to help you succeed. A NOTE TO RESELLERS If you are selling another brand s products, you are probably aware of The Race to the Bottom, as well as the other challenges that come with reselling on Amazon. If you have exclusive products, they are most likely your largest profit centers. To get more exclusive products you can work with brands to implement these strategies on Amazon for them. Additionally you may consider launching your own brand. If you are interested in learning about creating your own brands, visit: learnmore. A NOTE TO BRAND OWNERS Your customers are more than likely already researching and buying your products on Amazon. They may be buying your products directly from Amazon or via a third-party reseller. Even if you sell directly to Amazon, it may be a good idea to stock at least some inventory directly on Amazon. If you are selling your products to third-party resellers, you should make sure they are incentivised to follow the strategies contained in this guide. You may also consider selling your products direct-to-consumer on Amazon yourself. If you are interested in going direct-to-consumer on Amazon or becoming an exclusive reseller, check out to contact us for information and help // 16

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