BrightonSEO – Amazon SEO and Marketing Training Course

Jul 19,2017 / By Prabhat S / No Comment

Amazon SEO and Marketing Training BrightonSEO

We had a fantastic Amazon SEO session at BrightonSEO in April this year. It was well attended with brands and digital agencies from the UK and abroad. This training is running for the second year as a part of BrightonSEO.

This opportunity with Kelvin came about via a tweet intro from a good friend of mine, @steviephil It clearly demonstrates the power of peer recommendations.

Our session started with a well-known ice breaker. This helped everyone to engage with each other and created a comfortable atmosphere. It was a very simple exercise of arranging printed statements.

Our key agenda for the day was:

Understanding How Amazon SERP Works
Product listing Optimisation Best Practices & Examples
Factors influencing organic ranking
Sponsored ads: strategies and best practices
Winning the buy box – proven methods
Amazon marketing services for vendors: headline search ads & product display ads
Amazon content rich A+ page best practices

Every time I run Amazon training sessions I find it interesting to learn about the challenges faced by brands to get the product information correct, listing hijacking, getting the best out of Amazon paid ads and improving organic ranking. Most of the attendees were very keen on improving organic ranking and we discussed the following points:

Selling product via Fulfillment by Amazon helps improve your product ranking and to win the buy box.

Having product reviews and high number of product reviews helps conversion and ranking.

Amazon Paid Ads are important to improve overall sales. Some of the accounts we work with see 30% of sales from Amazon paid Ads. Paid ads allow an opportunity to place our products on the top of search results and on competing products. It is important to note there are hundreds of products like yours already and we are all trying to stay on page #1 organically so, paid ads give us that extra edge to get to page 1 quicker.

High quality and multiple product images help on conversion and ultimately ranking. Amazon guidelines say first image should be only on a white background and other images can be life style images or images showing details of the product.

Optimised Product Title helps to rank when customer search terms match. With limited space, if the brand name is not important it is good practice to use generic terms. It is also good practice to use converting search terms from paid ads.

Bullet Points act as a selling tool on Amazon product page. It is strategically placed next to the product image and buy now button. When viewed on laptop bullet points allows customers to stay within the upper fold of a page and streamline the checkout process. It is good practice to include unique selling points and product benefits.

Product Descriptions on mobile devices are displayed before bullet points and makes it significant. We are allowed certain html including paragraph change, bullet points and bold and in some categories table. This helps us to create reader friendly product listings like this.

Getting product data correct is important as all parts of the product listings are indexed. We see incomplete product information frequently and often missing important information which does not help organic ranking.

Probably product search terms are the most under utilised Amazon listing capability. These search terms are unseen by customers but indexed in search. It allows us to include synonymous words, closely related words and brand misspellings.

Parent-Child product listings allow us to display all product variants in one place. It helps conversion of products that are not converting otherwise by giving customer choices.

This is a very short summary of what we discussed over 5 hours. It was an excellent day with lots of discussion and I personally learnt a lot. There will be another session in September, 2017 and you can register your ticket here.

Events

Get found on Google – Find out more about GS1 SmartSearch

Jul 12,2017 / By Prabhat S / No Comment

Search is evolving and it is now right time for retailers to get smarter to get their products appears when buyers look for them. To help you move forward quickly GS1 has developed way forward. They have termed it as GS1 Smartsearch. I was with Ricky at GS1UK few weeks ago to see find out how this works and within 30 mins I learnt how this can be implemented.

GS1 SmartSearch makes it easier for shoppers to find, compare and buy products online. This new standard enables website owners to improve their product description so that the search engines can index these correctly. And this means they’ll show up for more relevant search results – for customers ready to buy products like yours.

There is a webinar on the 19^th of July with the team at GS1 to understand bit more.

Join webinar with the GS1 UK team and you’ll learn:

The challenge for search engines
What is structured data
How GS1 SmartSearch can help your online business

Date: Wednesday 19th July
Time: 10.30 a.m.
Duration: Approx 20 mins with Q&A

Amazon

Amazon’s Early Reviewer Program: What You Need to Know ?

Jul 9,2017 / By Prabhat S / No Comment

Amazon’s Early Reviewer Program: What You Need to Know ? When Amazon banned incentivised reviews many of us found very difficult to gather product reviews because most buyers simply don’t bother writing reviews. They are important to rank better in search and to get sales – there is no doubt on this. Recent Amazon announcement with a solution for this is a fantastic news. It is called Amazon Early Reviewer Program.

This a positive move from Amazon although currently available in the US only. Soon it will be here in the UK. Vine program for vendors has been very popular but was not accessible for 3rd party sellers.

What exact it is ?

This program is a way to incentivise reviews for new products. It is aimed at to help brand owners to gather early reviews. These reviews:

Helps shoppers make smarter buying decisions
Increases page views
Increase click-throughs, and
Ultimately sales

FAQs more info here>

#1 Is this available everywhere ? : Currently it is available only in the U.S. brand registered Amazon sellers.

#2 Is this available for everyone ? : It is only available for Brand owners so you’d have to apply for Brand Registry if you own the trademark. If you have not applied for your brand, find out more here

#3 Can I enrol all of my ASINS ? : In order for an ASIN to be eligible for the Early Reviewer Program, it must have fewer than 5 reviews and must be priced above $15.00.

#4 What is the cost?: A seller pays $60 for each SKU to be enrolled in the program chargeable once a SKU gains a review. The Early Reviewer Program will continue to gather reviews for a SKU for up to 1 year from time of enrollment, or until 5 reviews are received through the program, whichever occurs first. More info here>

#5 Can we select customers to write review ?: No, Amazon randomly selects customers from a list of all customers who have purchased products participating in the program

#6 What is the incentive for Reviewers? : They receive a small reward (a $1-$3 Amazon gift card, for example) after submitting their review that meets the community guidelines. Their review can be positive or negative.

#7 Early Reviewer Program reviews are denoted with an orange badge that reads “Early Reviewer Rewards.”

How to Enroll in Amazon’s Early Reviewer Program ?

#1. Enroll Your Brand in Amazon’s Brand Registry

#2. Upload your SKU with CSV from < Advertising tab >

#3. Upload upto 100 SKUs at one time

Whilst this program helps sellers speed up reviews gathering process there is no there’s no way to guarantee positive reviews. However, this is a better and much safer way to build reviews without spammy content for your new products on Amazon.

Amazon Amazon Strategies

Why do brands need an Amazon strategy?

Jul 4,2017 / By Prabhat S / No Comment

Amazon Brand Strategy

Listing products on Amazon is just the start. You are then required to create a strategy and compete with other sellers to be visible.

We are here to help. Having worked on the Amazon platform since 2009, we have a very deep understanding of how Amazon works. We have worked with numerous brands in the UK and abroad including Men Rock, Arena Flowers and Mustard to name just a few.

We provide the training & consulting to maximise sales and ensure your brand is represented well to customers. We have three training modules to suit your needs – Amazon Professional for sellers just starting up, Amazon Advanced for faster growing Amazon sellers and Amazon Vendor for brand owners and manufacturers.

We are leaders in creating successful Amazon strategies that help Amazon sellers take advantage of both the Amazon Vendor channel as well as Amazon’s Marketplace. Get in touch to discuss your Amazon requirements today.

Amazon

What I learnt from Amazon Sponsored Ads Webinar

Jun 23,2017 / By Prabhat S / No Comment

Amazon sponsored Ads are very successful strategies to grow your sales on Amazon. Recently I attended Amazon hosted Sponsored Ads Webinar and listed below some key things I learnt. This will give you overview of sponsored ads. If you have more specifics questions, please feel free to drop a line on ps@daytodayebay.co.uk

#1 Use both Automatic and Manual Ads. Decrease bid of automated ads after running manual campaigns. Automated ads are important because it captures customer trends and wider audience.

Manual campaigns do not display your products on product details pages. So, you will be missing out on product placement if you just run Manual campaigns.

#2 Group item based on product type to see reports on search terms together. This way you will see precisely which word converted which products.

#3 Cost Per Click ( CPC) you are charged based in auction. Suggested bid helps to find benchmark of cost per click and set maximum you are willing to pay.

#4 If you archive a campaign you cannot run it again in future.

#5 Running campaigns throughout the year is recommended.

#6 Sales are recorded only if sales happen within 7 days.

#7 Search terms report shows actual customer search terms. If we put similar products in one ad group we will be able to precisely measure which word converted which product.

#8 We see ASIN in search term report when customer clicked on our ad when it appeared on product pages.

Search for ASIN and use product brand name, item name, item category add as keyword on manual campaigns.

#9 First day impression and last day shows the demand of products.

#10 Other ASIN sales means customer clicked on one advertised items and ended up buying another ASIN. If buyer clicked on white sofa and ended of buying grey.

So, see other ASIN report and focus campaign for products that resulted sales and reduce bids for variants are not actually creating sales.

#11 Bid + is a special feature of manual campaigns which allows your products to appear in top of search terms. You will pay upto 50% more than current bid.

Use product placement report to find out Bid + performance.

#12 Types of keywords match type:

Broad Match: Words does not have to be in any particular order, includes common misspellings, plurals

Phrase Match: Orders of words are important, words before after keywords included, misspellings and plurals included

Exact: Has to be exactly the same, includes plurals and misspellings

#13 Increase your daily budget if you are happy with ACoS. Also Bid + is a good strategy to get continuous top of the search placement.

#14 Schedule your reports to get regular downloadable report.

#15 Same keyword on two campaigns does not compete and will raise bid.

I hope this helps you give quick insight on Amazon Sponsored Ads. I have been working on various Amazon accounts for the past few months and they certainly work. Here’s a snapshot of two accounts I work with.

Account A < campaign sales vs total sales >

This chart shows sponsored ads brings in about 30% of sales in total.

Account B < spend, sales >

This chart shows spent is very is very less and often below 5% Advertising Cost of Sale ( ACoS ).

This shows Amazon advertising can perform very well and it is something that any business should consider. I’d love to answer any more questions you have, audit your current sponsored ads to show strengths and weakness and manage your sponsored ads for you.

eBay Strategies

Removing Active Content from existing eBay listings

Jun 4,2017 / By Prabhat S / No Comment

This post is by Jonathan Pollard CEO & Co-founder of Codisto – a provider of Amazon & eBay integration and listings tools. I met Jonathan in 2016 at Birmingham Online Seller Meetup and we have been in touch since to discuss how we can work together. This post is just a start and I’d like to help Codisto tools reach more eBay sellers in the UK.

‘Marketplace Connect’ is a lightweight extension offering full integration for Magento, WooCommerce & Shopify.

‘Xpress Lister’ is a browser based tool offering bulk edit of existing listings and bulk creation of new listings from spreadsheets.

eBay’s new ‘Active Content’ for listings from June 2017 has been well reported. However, reports have generally focused on what Active Content is and recommendations of what to do for new future listings. Which leaves some important questions unanswered:

What about the thousands of sellers and millions of existing eBay listings containing Active Content?
How do sellers remove Active Content from existing listings to enable sales history to be retained?

Are personalised eBay sales templates a good thing?

Personalised eBay listing templates are a good thing for sellers. They allow sellers to stand out from the crowd and promote their brand. However, sellers have often created different forms of their templates over time leading to listings with inconsistent templates that all contain Active Content. Quite often we see the HTML contained in listings varying from product to product depending on when the products were first listed, sometimes stretching back several years.

The heart of the Active Content problem for existing listings is eBay’s ugly architecture. To remove Active Content, the eBay template must be updated. The best way to architect a software solution that allows the updating of templates is to have separate ‘template’ and ‘product description’ elements (that is how we built Xpress Lister because it allows bulk updating of either templates and/or descriptions).

However, eBay’s architecture is such that the “ebay description” is a joint blob, containing BOTH the ‘written product description’ AND the template HTML (used to make the listing look good). This means the HTML is intertwined with the ‘written product description’ and any Active Content is intertwined in the HTML – a messy ‘blob’.

Why is it difficult to remove Active Content from existing eBay listings?

For merchants to remove/replace active content from existing listings they must either:

Identify and replace the offending active content code intertwined in the HTML of the “ebay description” – possibly on many different templates across many products. This involves using the “Sell Your Item” flow, clicking “Revise listing”, scrolling to “Description”, switching out of ‘wyswig’ editor into html mode, copying that and pasting to a separate editor and picking through the HTML line by line! Moreover, it has to be done listing by listing! Very time consuming and a real struggle for many merchants; or

‘Wipe the slate clean’ by removing the old templates and applying new active content compliant template to every listing. However, there are two significant challenges here to this approach. Namely:

#1 Applying the new template to every listing:

eBay doesn’t provide sellers with a suitable tool (Turbo Lister doesn’t include any template functionality). 3^rd party template design services will provide Active Content compliant designs but they offer no means of distributing to the listings other than copy/paste listing by listing. Furthermore, even if merchants are prepared to apply the new code listing by listing on eBay by copy/pasting on each individual listing, once it’s deployed the template code is ‘dumb’ or ‘orphaned’ – there is no way to make changes to the template later and have it automatically flow to every listing e.g. updating a logo or terms of sale – it’s a case of going listing by listing AGAIN!

#2 Having ‘clean’ product descriptions to apply a template to:

Unless merchants have ‘written product descriptions’ readily available elsewhere, the product description is only available on the existing eBay listings and is intertwined with the template HTML! This means sellers have to pick through the ‘ebay description’ blob one by one to retrieve their written product descriptions.

Are there any tools to help make existing listings Active Content compliant?

Due to the reasons explained above, removing Active Content from existing listings to retain sales history is going to require a little effort. If you have written product descriptions available on a spreadsheet it will save you some time as some 3^rd party listing tools offer the ability to import and bulk update your existing listings with ‘clean’ descriptions and add an Active Content compliant template separately. But it’s also possible to clean Active Content if your descriptions only exist on eBay listings and you can’t import from another source.

You can use Xpress Lister to remove Active Content for free by following our guide here

Amazon

Amazon Sellers London: THE BIG LAUNCH!

May 30,2017 / By Prabhat S / No Comment

Meetups are always a good thing and there is another Amazon Sellers London meet up on 6th, June in London. There will be 3 of the world’s leading Amazon experts speaking.Get yourself booked in to hear these experts speak and there is also opportunity to meet other Amazon sellers. Register here >>

Speakers Include

• Will Tjernlund (USA). The original multi-million dollar FBA wizard. Went from $1 million to $6 million on Amazon in only 12 months.

• Danny McMillan (UK). Host of private label webinar series Seller Sessions and international speaker on Amazon selling.

• Joshua Price (UK). Amazon suspensions consultant with eCommerce Geek. Other consultants come to him for help with their toughest cases!

eCommerce

Sell on Mail Shop

May 25,2017 / By Prabhat S / No Comment

Sell on Mail Shop

Online sellers are constantly looking for new channels to sell. Many of clients I work with sell on deal sites like Wowcher apart from eBay and Amazon. And Mail Shop is additional channel that retailers can consider. I was talking with Richard, account manager, at Mail Shop few weeks ago and it looks like promising platform. Find more information below and get in touch to setup your account.

Introduction to Mailshop

On Tuesday 4th October 2016 Mail Shop was relaunched as an online marketplace with selection from 26 merchants covering Home and Garden categories. To date our focus has been to build credible selection securing brands such as Le Creuset, LSA International and Sophie Conran for Portmeirion. Mail Shop was born from a constant drive to innovate and improve the customer experience when readers shop with us. The result is a beautifully simple, inspirational and easy to use shopping destination which reassures users. We expanded into Health and Fitness in February with strong sales since launch.

Who’s our customer?

As a leading news brand we reach more than 25 million readers across print and digital each month.

49% of UK Adult population with 76% like to shop online. We have over 1 million MyMail loyalty programme members with 96% saying they would purchase goods with us.
In addition we also have the most engaged consumers of any British newspaper with 65% engagement five days a week and 40% engagement seven days a week.
With this in mind we are well placed to offer the customer a best in class shopping experience. A 3rd of our readers are under 55 years old with 49% still working. In addition 15% have children living with them.
Overall our audience is broad which provides opportunities for different types of Sellers on the platform.

Our current proposition

Our site is powered by Demandware with Merchantry used as our Seller platform. It allows Sellers to build and sell a catalogue of products. Merchantry access is granted to all new Sellers and is used to set up products, manage and maintain catalogues and to process orders, returns and refunds. Sellers are responsible for drop shipping products directly to customers. We will continue to focus on growing our selection within Home and Garden throughout 2017 with a number of opportunities in areas where we’re currently under-represented.

What are the benefits of selling on Mail Shop?

Selling with Mail Shop provides a number of benefits to new Sellers.

An incremental sales channel allows sellers to tap into the Daily Mail’s huge customer base which generates tens of millions of unique customer per month.
Low risk with no setup fees and no lock in.
Unlimited SKU count allows Sellers to list as many products as they wish for a fixed commission rate.
Technical Integration support given to all new Sellers both pre and post go live. Account management resource allocated in order to focus on strategic growth of Seller on Mail Shop.
Ad space and Supplements gives Sellers regular offline print triggering opportunities via Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday.
Greater opportunity for more differentiated/exclusive merchants (merchants specifically targeting the over 50’s) which is limited with all other UK marketplaces.
A controlled seller recruitment process means Mail Shop is selective with the Sellers that are recruited to the platform. This results in higher quality listings, the right products that the Mail customer is searching for and greater revenue opportunities for those listed on site.

Commission Rates

All sellers are charged commission on each sale which varies by category. Payment for the previous week’s sales is transferred each Monday.

Next Steps

Once commercials are agreed Sellers need to complete the following steps in order to list products on Mail Shop. The onboarding process should take 2-4 weeks. All product uploads are reviewed by the Seller Recruitment team before being pushed to the Mail Shop storefront.

You can get in touch here Telephone: 0203 615 2145 Email: richard.bunt@mailnewspapers.co.uk

Amazon

BQool Repricing Central VS Amazon Automate Pricing

May 18,2017 / By Prabhat S / No Comment

If you have been an Amazon seller for a long time, you might already noticed that there is numerous repricing software on the market for Amazon sellers. Even Amazon itself has launched its own repricing system called Automate Pricing during the spring of 2016. Although the service is completely free, it’s not equipped with robust features for sellers and thus, failed to meet some sellers’ expectations. If you are looking for an Amazon repricer now and would like to know the difference between BQool Repricing Central and Amazon Automate Repricing, this article highlights the main advantages BQool Repricing has over Amazon Automate Repricing.

Basically, BQool Repricing and Amazon Automate Pricing both follow rule-based repricing, and allow exclusion of competitors by number of feedback ratings. BQool’s Repricing Central plans above $25 per month reprice every 15 minutes and plans above $100 per month reprice as fast as every 5 minutes, while Automate Pricing reprice every 15 minutes to one hour depending on the rule.

However, there are several differences between BQool Repricing and Amazon Automate Pricing. Here is a comparison:

Pricing strategy is an important part of running a business. How a user sets up their repricing rules to change prices also has a great impact on sales, sales volume, and competitiveness. Sellers should carefully consider all available features when choosing a suitable repricer for their business. Though Amazon’s repricer is free of charge to all professional seller accounts, BQool’s affordable repricer is packed with helpful features and data that give you a distinct advantage over competitors.

BQool is a SaaS company offering great software solutions that help Amazon merchants resolve daily business challenges. The BQool suite so far consists of Repricing, Feedback, and Review Central. To learn more about BQool, please visit https://www.bqool.com/

Amazon Amazon Strategies

Buy Box and Product Differentiation on Amazon

May 18,2017 / By Prabhat S / No Comment

Amazon is now a very crowded marketplace compared to 10 years ago when I first started selling. Sellers are now finding it tough to rank on best match search result and it is the same with winning the buy box. The Buy box is simply a top prominent “buy now” button. Losing this position may mean no sales at all. This post will talk about how to win a buy box and how product differentiation is a good way forward.

Amazon has set out many criteria to win the buy box position and out of many – Fulfilment By Amazon, Price and Feedback percentage are the main ones in my experience.

Fulfilment By Amazon (FBA)

How to win Buy box - Daytodayebay

In this example, the product sold by Amazon wins the buy box even if there are other cheaper products.
Tip: Trial FBA if you are competing with other Amazon sellers

Price

Buy Box Winning Strategies - Daytodayebay

Lowest price seller wins buy box in this example
Tip: Monitor your price and amend as necessary. It is always good to generate sales volume with less profit than no sales at all

Manual price update is possible with less SKU but if you have a high number of items automated solutions like eprice can help. It connects with all your Amazon accounts, follows your pricing rules and automatically changes prices keeping you competitive all the time.

Feedback Percentage

Seller with high feedback % wins the buy box
Tip: Ensure your performance level is up to standard. It is always best to avoid bad feedback even if this means a loss. This is simply because bad feedback impacts on your overall account.

So how to avoid Buy Box Competition

Private Labels

We have seen the rise of “Amazon Private Labels”. They are simply a copy of original products the “Aldi” way and production is now possible in smaller batches by reaching out to Chinese manufacturers via Alibaba or Global sources. Private labels now play a very significant role in creating sustainable businesses with Amazon.

What we are seeing here is successful three-way relationships between Amazon, brand owners and factories and this is only going to get stronger.

Product Bundles

Another way to avoid buy box competition is grouping products. If you are selling brands readily available to anyone else, it is good practice to include one of your brands in a bundle. This prevents any one else to list on your ASIN.

Create Product Bundles on Amazon - Daytodayebay

Tip: Include your own brand to prevent others from selling

With the rise of Amazon sellers everyone is doing their best to win the buy box and differentiate their products. The above examples hopefully act as reminder. If you have any more questions, please do get in touch.

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