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Over the past few years, Amazon has been quietly releasing tools and reports to help brands expand and grow sales. However, Seller Central is notorious for being overwhelming and difficult to navigate and, as a result, the new features have largely gone unnoticed by the wider seller community.
It’s no secret that Amazon is becoming increasingly competitive—pay-per-click ad revenue achieved +47% growth from 2020 to 2021, not to mention the impact of supply chain constraints and FBA fee increases. It’s never been more important to ensure you’re doing everything you can to gain a competitive advantage.
In this blog we dive into the top Seller Central resources you can start using today to level up your business. With so many sellers unaware of these resources, this is your opportunity to educate yourself and gain the inside edge.
Product Opportunity Explorer helps sellers explore customer demand for new product ideas. If you’re wanting to launch a new product, this tool will give you valuable insights into customer search and purchasing behaviors within a niche. Previously, actual search and conversion data wasn’t available to sellers and opportunities had to be assessed using estimates. Not any more!
There are two options for beginning a search: enter a search term or find opportunities using the Amazon search categories provided. Once you’ve selected your category, summary data will display for the niche including the sales potential score, search volume, search volume growth, units sold, top clicked products, and average price. The sales potential score is a new addition to the report and indicates on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the highest) the likelihood of sales in this niche compared to other niches in the same product category.
If a niche catches your eye, simply click on the search term to uncover more information. This is where things get really fun! You can view key metrics for the niche within four different reporting options:
To start exploring this tool in Seller Central, select Growth -> Product Opportunity Explorer. If you don’t see this available in your menu, email opportunity-explorer-request@amazon.com and include your Merchant Token to request access.
Pro-Tip: The products tab displays the most clicked listings from search results. Entering these ASINs into your ZonGuru Sales Spy tool will help you understand how the listings have been performing over time. You can view historical data over a one-year period to identify seasonal and in-stock trends to determine if this truly is a niche you want to compete in.
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The Marketplace Product Guidance dashboard contains personalized recommendations from Amazon on how you may grow your business. It covers three main areas including an analysis of global demand for your products, new product recommendations, and insights into your selling category. Recommendations are updated weekly and based upon trending customer preferences.
The new product recommendations report is particularly relevant as the suggestions are based upon products within your existing selling categories that have high demand but are low in offer. The report contains a lot of helpful data that sellers can use to validate new product ideas including an opportunity score, sales forecasts, demand, ratings, main buyer keywords and so much more.
The category insights module of the dashboard is also very useful for understanding buyer preferences for a selling category. Users can select a product type or keyword to see metrics including average return rate, search-to-purchase ratio, number of sellers, demand and so much more. It’s even possible to view the most popular color variation for a product type! This information is incredibly valuable if you’re considering entering a new selling category.
Access the Marketplace Product Guidance dashboard from Seller Central under Growth → Marketplace Product Guidance.
Pro-Tip: The Category Insights tab shows the most popular buyer features for each niche. You have the option of saving different niche preferences to a ‘favorite features’ list that you can export to CSV for further analysis. This can be very helpful if you’re developing a product that covers numerous niches. For example, if you were considering selling a dog travel bag you can identify what features are most important for dog products and travel products within one table. This helps sellers create products that buyers are sure to love.
Amazon prefers to partner with quality brands and provides tons of resources and benefits to brand registered sellers to encourage them to join the selling platform. One of these features is access to the Brand Analytics Dashboard. This dashboard contains valuable data insights that brand owners can use to make strategic decisions about their product portfolio and marketing activities. We could write an entire article covering the benefits found in the Brand Analytics dashboard but have listed a few of our favorites below:
Demographics Report - This insightful report is perfect for understanding your customer avatar and creating audience groups for off-Amazon targeting. The demographics report provides details of your buyer's age, marital status, income, gender, and education levels. This information can be very powerful when incorporated into a holistic marketing program. When you incorporate this data by creating images and copy that resonate with your customer avatar, you will be more likely to convert shoppers into buyers.
Market Basket Analysis - This handy report shares what other products buyers most often purchase at the same time as your products. This allows you to quickly identify competitors as well as opportunities for expansion or bundling. Expanding into related products is a great way to build your brand as you already have goodwill with the customer avatar. Plus, your existing manufacturer can often produce the related product which allows you to leverage your existing supply chain.
If you find shoppers are frequently purchasing competitor items at the same time as yours you can use this data to your advantage as well. Analyze the competitor listings to see what can be learned and applied to your listings. In addition, you can craft highly targeted Pay-Per-Click sponsored display advertising campaigns for these ASINs. This will ensure your products show on the listing pages that are your biggest competition.
Access the Brand Analytics dashboard from Seller Central under Brands → Brand Analytics.
Pro-Tip: It’s important to pay close attention to your main competitors and be aware of any key listing changes they make. Entering the ASINs found in the Market Basket Analysis report in your ZonGuru Product Pulse tool will make sure you’re always in the know. You’ll receive email alerts anytime a key listing event happens on one of your main competitor listings including price, title, bullets, selling category and so much more.
This is the latest and greatest reporting dashboard available for brand-registered sellers. The dashboard has two parts, Search Catalog Performance and Search Query Performance. The metrics contained within each report relate to funnel performance and excludes PPC traffic.
Search Catalog Performance provides information about shoppers' search behavior in relation to your products. It displays metrics for each stage of the sales journey including impressions, clicks, add to carts, and purchases. Using this information, you can identify where your sales funnel may be falling short. For example, if you have strong impressions and a high click-through rate but low conversions, that could indicate your listing images and content aren’t communicating the benefits of your product clearly in language that resonates with your customer avatar.
The Search Query Performance dashboard provides information about your buyers' search behavior patterns including top ranking keywords, impressions, clicks, brand share, adds to shopping cart, and purchases. This information is valuable for identifying which keywords you should give more attention to so that you can increase your market share. It can also help identify opportunities to expand product portfolios based on common customer keywords.
Brand registered sellers can access Search Analytics from Seller Central under Brands –> Brand Analytics. At the top of the screen, click on the button that says “View Search Analytics.”
Pro-Tip: Search Analytics data is only available for your brand. If you’re wanting to view the keywords your competitors are ranking and converting on, try the ZonGuru Keywords on Fire tool. This reverse ASIN lookup tool allows you to view the keyword data for up to 25 different ASINs at once. Find those keywords your competitors aren’t fully utilizing and be sure to include them in your listing and campaigns.
Deciding what content to include on your listing page can have a huge impact on clicks and conversions. What you think is best may not be what your ideal customer thinks is best. Manage Experiments removes the guesswork, allowing you to create two different versions of content and test with real-life Amazon customers. Based on the results, you can move forward knowing with certainty that you have made the correct content selection.
You can use the Manage Experiments tool to submit alternative A+ content, titles, and images. Each experiment runs for 4 - 10 weeks and you can cancel the test at any time. The Manage Experiments tool is available to brand-registered sellers and is found under Brands → Manage Experiments.
Pro-Tip: The title is one of the most important aspects of your listing. Making sure you have the right keywords in your title is crucial to appearing in search results and grabbing shopper's attention. The ZonGuru Listing Optimizer tool is perfect for helping sellers craft winning copy. You can quickly see your optimization score and know with confidence your listing is better crafted than the competition.
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a necessary piece of the Amazon seller puzzle. Making sure your advertising dollars are working hard for you is crucial to maintaining healthy profit margins. We recommend regularly checking which keywords in your campaigns are delivering and which should be removed or have spend reduced.
The best way to check on the performance of your keywords is to arrange for a Search Term report to be automatically emailed to you each week. The scheduled weekly email delivers important information about clicks, conversions, and can help identify new keyword opportunities. Staying on top of campaign performance prevents PPC spend leakage and ensures you’re always optimized for the best keyword opportunities.
The search term report can be found under Advertising → Campaign Manager → Measurement & Reporting → Create Report.
Pro-Tip: Making small tweaks to your advertising campaigns every week is much more effective than making big adjustments more regularly. Frequent, drastic changes to spending and targeting can harm campaign performance.
Would you like to know the percentage of shoppers who find and purchase your products on a mobile device vs. laptop? The experience shoppers have on their mobile phones is very different from a traditional desktop. Knowing the breakdown of your audience can be super helpful for curating your content and making sure your listing is best optimized for your most common shopper device type.
This data is available on the Detail Page Sales and Traffic By Child Item report. Click the column options and ensure you have mobile app data toggled on. Identify mobile heavy SKUs from your catalog and ensure the corresponding listing page is optimized for mobile to better attract buyers. The mobile shopping experience is very image-rich, so ensure all images maximize available space and high-quality A+ content is shown on your listing. A+ content is shown above bullet points for most categories on mobile devices.
Find the report from Seller Central under Reports → Business Reports → Detail Page Sales and Traffic By Child Item.
Pro-Tip: If you have a mobile heavy SKU catalog, it’s not only important to optimize each listing page but to also review your storefront to ensure it displays correctly for mobile devices. When creating or updating your storefront, toggle the desktop/mobile view to see how this appears.
Brand registered sellers have access to the virtual bundle program. This allows sellers to group 2-5 products from their catalog together and be sold as one, typically at a discount. A benefit of this program is the products are not packaged together but are sold together under an independent SKU. Virtual bundles make it easier for shoppers to discover and buy more from your brand’s catalog by combining products that go well together.
In addition, stock levels are automatically maintained and updated by Amazon. For example, if you create a virtual bundle that includes a laminator machine and laminator pouches, and you have 20 units in stock of the machine and 30 of the pouches, the virtual bundle's available quality would show 20 units.
Virtual bundles are available in Seller Central under Brands → Virtual Bundles. More information on virtual bundles can be found here.
Pro-Tip: When you create a virtual bundle, Amazon requires you to select a ‘main component’ ASIN. Attributes for the bundle such as the category will be pulled from this ASIN. Make sure you select the ASIN that best represents your bundle to improve discoverability.
Amazon is famous for its social proof. Products with high star ratings are often given preference on the Amazon search page. But, what are your options when a low-star review is received?
The Amazon Customer Reviews dashboard can help sellers communicate directly with unsatisfied buyers. Sellers can respond to feedback and offer a remedy, refund, or replacement to help resolve issues. It’s even possible to respond using video by selecting the ‘Customer Support’ option when choosing a reply. An automated email will be sent to the customer seeking permission to be contacted via the buyer-seller messaging service. Once you get the okay you can send your video. A video can be super helpful if there has been a misunderstanding on how a product should be used or installed.
Although responses sent via the Customer Reviews Dashboard aren’t shown publicly on the Amazon listing page, buyers often choose to update reviews after they have had a positive customer support experience. The Customer Reviews dashboard can be found under Brands → Customer Reviews.
Pro-Tip: Amazon is famous for its social proof. Products with a high number of quality reviews often perform better and are favored by the algorithm. To help increase your review count, we recommend using the ZonGuru Review Automator tool. This set-and-forget tool sends terms of service-compliant review requests to all eligible orders. The clever tool even skips refunded or pending orders to increase the likelihood of receiving a five-star rating.
Amazon Post Publisher is an exciting development for brand registered sellers seeking to grow brand awareness. It is essentially Instagram for Amazon and allows brands to showcase beautiful lifestyle images of their products across mobile shopping feeds for free.
Shoppers who view the lifestyle posts can navigate directly to the product listing page to purchase, as well as become a follower of the brand. Brands can retarget followers at any time using engagement campaigns from the Amazon platform.
Amazon automatically places posts across brand feeds, product page carousels, related brand feeds, and category-based feeds for mobile shoppers. In addition, Amazon posts will automatically show as a sub-page on the related storefront.
Sellers also have access to the Post Publisher Dashboard to measure the effectiveness of each post. The dashboard gives handy data on impressions, engagement, clicks, and followers. Find out more and register for the Post Publisher program here.
Pro-Tip: When brands participate in the Post Publisher program an additional page will automatically be added to the Amazon storefront. This page will showcase posts and provide another opportunity for shoppers to engage with brand content and become followers.
Sellers who have gained followers using Amazon Posts have the added advantage of being able to access customer engagement campaigns. This feature allows sellers to send emails promoting new or existing products to their followers. This is a huge advantage for brands who are expanding their product catalog as they can showcase new products to an engaged audience who already loves the brand.
The campaign templates are designed by Amazon and change each month to correspond with upcoming holidays and special retail events. To view available campaigns in Seller Central go to Brands → Customer Engagement.
Pro-Tip: Amazon now allows 7-day deals to feature in email campaigns. This is a big win for sellers who regularly run promotions. Sellers can use the customer engagement tool to bring awareness of the sales event to their followers rather than relying on the followers to haphazardly find the sale on Amazon.
Amazon’s mission statement includes the objective to be the most customer-centric platform on Earth. This customer-focused objective is personified by Amazon’s generous refund and returns policy. Buyers can return most items within 30 days of delivery for a full refund. It is important to closely monitor customer feedback and returns as Amazon penalizes sellers who regularly fall short of providing an incredible product and buyer experience.
The Voice of the Customer Dashboard provides important information from customers about product quality. This metric is referred to as Customer Experience Health (CX). CX Health is categorized as excellent, good, fair, poor, or very poor. The rating is determined by comparing how your product is performing to similar products on the Amazon marketplace.
A low CX Health score can result in Amazon suppressing a product listing or requiring sellers to remove inventory from FBA. Regularly checking on product CX Health can help identify issues with the product, listing page, or buyer expectations and make adjustments accordingly. Often it can be as simple as adding additional information to your listing page or including instructions or installation guides with the physical product.
The Voice of the Customer dashboard is found in Seller Central under Performance → Voice of the Customer.
Pro-Tip: More often than not, CX issues relate to mismanaged buyer expectations. These can easily be rectified via detailed infographics, comprehensive bullets, or post-purchase instructions and installation guides. Sellers can use the ZonGuru Email Automator tool to provide PDFs to their customers such as warranties, installation instructions, and how-to manuals.
Amazon regularly releases new features to better support sellers and help grow sales. Being educated about these updates and ensuring your brand is registered can give you a major advantage over the competition.
The ZonGuru team is committed to helping you stay on top of Seller Central updates as well as providing the tools and data you need to achieve your business goals. To prove it, we’ve created the Successful Sellers Checklist. This checklist is your guide to the key tasks successful sellers regularly perform to grow their business. Download the checklist here and start optimizing your business today.
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