Amazon seller account development and optimization can be a nightmare if you are not an expert. Unless you have a dedicated expert/agency working on your brand optimization and sales improvement, the chances of succeeding are almost zero.
PowerHouse Consulting Group comes to support Thai and Southeast Asian brands who want to create a strong brand and a very decent income stream by selling on Amazon in the US, Europe, and other markets like Japan, Canada, China, India, and Mexico.
What we usually hear from clients who attempted to manage their Amazon seller account alone is that “it’s a labyrinth.” As with every tech thing. Amazon changes many things very fast and very often, making it impossible to follow.
You should be able to focus on managing your brand, developing your products, improving the customer experience, expanding in new marketing channels, optimizing your logistics, and concentrate on the bigger picture, instead of worrying about the maze called Amazon.
However, one significant thing you can’t ignore is that Amazon. At the moment, it commands almost 70% of global online searches when it comes to product searching and shopping. It means that people nowadays go to Amazon instead of Google for their shopping. If you are not there, you are ignoring this 70% at your peril.
Jewelry Brand Amazon Seller Account Case Study
*** Click Here To Jump To The 2019 Case Study Update
We started working with a Thai jewelry brand where the owners and staff were trying to develop a seller account and make some sales on Amazon US, last quarter of 2018. After almost one year of struggling and failing to fulfill Amazon requirements as well as not reaching any significant sales numbers, or establishing a decent net profit.
They decided to turn to the experts hiring PowerHouse Consulting Group to help them improve their sales and develop their jewelry brand on Amazon, starting with the US marketplace and expanding to Europe marketplace and Japan shortly.
Let’s Dive Into More Details
As expected, the Amazon back office situation we found was dramatic, and that is a normal phenomenon unless you are an Amazon expert.
Our team started working with product listings that had default low-quality photos, titles were written from a manufacturer point of view (SKU: Abcd-ert…), no bullet points, no descriptions (or very short with Google-translated English), no Enhanced Branded Pages, no brand registered at all, no researched keywords, no product specs, no GS1 international EAN/UPC barcodes, and the list goes on…
On-Page Optimization
We worked on the product listings from the ground up, explaining to our client exactly how to design the photos, what to include to make them eye appealing, how to shoot the videos, and what specs we need from them to add in Amazon product listings. (To upload a video, implies that you have first registered a trademark and hold a brand in Amazon)
The next step was to write new appealing and optimized titles that would take advantage of the 200 characters space Amazon allows in the jewelry category as well as adding as many keywords as possible.
After that, we had to plan the bullet points. Make them easy to read and straight to the end for mobile users (capital letters and checkmarks) as well as describing the most critical elements of the jewelry brand or why a visitor should choose this jewelry instead of a competitor one.
Additionally, behind the scenes, we completed extensive keyword research, including competitors and Google sources. Then we added those keywords to each listing, and that helped dramatically with organic rankings of the product listings on Amazon. Of course, the keywords are updated frequently according to updated research.
Enhanced Brand Content Pages
At the same time and as our team was working on optimizing the product listings, we collaborated with our client to obtain all the necessary documents to register the brand with a trademark in Amazon. That allowed us to get access to features like Enhanced Brand Content for product listing pages as well as a Brand Store with a brand vanity URL on Amazon.com!!! (how cool is that?)
Additionally, we could upload product videos, access the Amazon Early Reviewer Program, and run advertising campaigns sending traffic directly to the Brand Store. After working with Amazon’s Enhanced Brand Page templates and widgets, the product listing pages looked a lot more professional and provided more information to the viewers. That part increased sales by at least 30% to 40%.
Focus On Attracting Reviews
When you are selling online, customer reviews are the holy grail of a product’s success. Reviews can lead to tons of sales or destroy your brand name if not seriously taken under consideration. A lot of retail business owners do not understand that an online buyer will judge a product by the reviews and the photos. Period!
At the same time, and according to Amazon policies, it is illegal to solicit reviews from customers. So this is something you will have to take under consideration before doing any review request actions.
In PowerHouse Consulting Group, we use precise tools and email templates that make customers want to leave us feedback before even asking them for a review. That way, we can be sure that if any problem arises, we will take care of it before it turns out to a negative review nightmare.
Maintain The Account Health
Your Amazon Seller account has to follow many requirements, due to Amazon’s focus on excellent customer support and satisfaction. For that reason, every seller account has an Account Health dashboard and has to main excellent ratings there.
Our client’s Account Health is one of the most critical aspects of our service quality. Imagine working with a marketing consulting agency that got your Amazon Seller account penalized, not right. All of our decisions and discussions with our clients start with the Amazon Seller Account Health in mind.
Improve Inventory Performance Index
The Inventory Performance Index is based on how well you keep popular products in stock. How well you maintain healthy inventory levels and fix listing problems. The index tells you everything you need to know about the performance of your inventory, and it increases or decreases, dramatically slow, week by week.
It took us more than six months to increase by 60 points. That should give you an indication of how vital the Inventory Performance Index is about your inventory.
Another important inventory index is the Excess Inventory Percentage that tracks the percentage of excess inventory you maintain in Amazon’s warehouses about the total stock. (i.e., in the above photo 44.94% is the excess inventory from the 100% of the entire inventory)
Following the recommended actions will help you to improve profitability and save on storage fees. With this client, we received an inventory that was more than 65% in excess and unsellable.
Since then, we worked methodically, using all kinds of different coupons and promotions Amazon provides. To decrease the excess inventory by more than 20% WITHOUT removing any SKU and without losing money for the client.
FBA In Stock Rate Performance
Here’s another essential index that affects your inventory performance. The FBA In Stock Rate Performance measures your inventory stock rate. In this photo, you can see that it kind of works as a proof of our successful results.
Due to a lot more sales than expected, our client went out of stock for the first time (even for a few days) for some of the best-sellers SKU’s. The ball is at our client’s factory to manufacture and ship products, faster than Amazon can sell them.
The last of the inventory performance indexes is the Strander Inventory Performance Index. This index tracks listings with issues that are unavailable for purchase on Amazon.
Most people don’t know that Amazon accepts feedback and recommendations from everywhere. That means that a competitor could claim incorrect details or flag one of your products. Automatically that product would become stranded and unsellable costings you potentially thousands of dollars daily.
Keep Control Of Advertising Costs
Advertising is one of the most critical sources of viewers for your products. If done correctly, it can build you a steady and predictable sales rate. However, even without sales, advertising is still aiding in brand awareness and authority in your brand name.
If you are a brand that controls the manufacturing process and operates on a high margin, then advertising on Amazon can literally “print money.” Take the case in the photo above, if our client’s net margin is 50% and they have a 22% ACoS (Average Cost of Sale). It means that the client earns a net of 28% per sale.
Advertising on Amazon is slowly reaching Google AdWords levels in depth of details and data to work with, and it’s something that you need an expert to manage.
Evaluate Sales Results
As a businessman or woman, you need to know and evaluate your brand’s growth on Amazon. Here you see an example of a Year-to-Year sales graph with the exact sales numbers every month for the running year and the previous year.
A whopping +369% increase in sales for February 2019 (compared to February 2018) is pretty impressive.
Here you can see a comparison between the peak season of 2017 and 2018. The numbers are dramatically different. With seven units sold on the best day of 2017 and 53 units sold the best day of 2018.
Just a mere 600% increase in sales between an optimized and a self-managed Amazon Seller account.
Keep An Eye On The Net Profit
Last but not least, the most crucial part of your business. Unfortunately, Amazon does not give a direct way to calculate a client’s net profit, so we are using third-party software. Where we can input all the client’s expenses like product cost, shipping cost, import tax, packaging, etc.
The software then will use data from Amazon’s API to present us with the correct data like total net profit and net profit per product AFTER all expenses. A significant number to track for your business and overhead.
*** 2019 Case Study Update
Opt-In To The Latest Amazon Promotions
Amazon published the Vine program for registered brands in the US during 2019. As our team is always searching for new opportunities to increase the revenue of our clients, we saw this as a very exciting way to boost sales, and so we opted-in 5 of the client’s best-seller items.
The results were unexpected, with a dramatic boost in sales and brand awareness from popular influencers and reviewers in the US market. The items received exciting 5-star reviews from TOP-1000 and even TOP-500 reviewers on Amazon, increasing the conversion rates of each item by a lot!
Expand Globally To New Markets
Our plan was to take full advantage of the markets that Amazon allows a seller to sell in since the beginning. During 2019 and with our help of planning the correct strategies and researching each market for the appropriate items to sell, our client established their brand in not 1, not 2, but 29 new countries and markets!
That means that our client’s brand is now visible and available for sale in all the countries in the European Union, Australia, and Japan. Now, this is a very, very time-consuming and hard-working feat because you need to be able to manage inventory in different countries, manage different currency conversions and pricing as well as work with listings in various languages like German or Japanese.
We expect to increase market penetration and boost sales during 2020, where the listings will be completely optimized for each local Marketplace while targeted advertising campaigns will support the brands’ goals.
Get A Spherical View With Brand Analytics
No matter the industry or niche, intimately understanding one’s audience is crucial to earning more sales. With Amazon’s new demographics analytics information, brands with registered trademarks can finally gain the perspective they need to enhance their performance on Amazon.
This is a new way to improve not only your sales but your actual organic customers. Separating your unique customer data helps you in a lot more way to expand and focus your marketing strategy on your returning customers or new customers pool, this in return translate to more sale and better manage your marketing expenses and eventually profit.
Keep Improving The Inventory Performance Index
Your overall Inventory Performance Index score is based on three categories: In-stock rate, excess inventory percentage, and stranded inventory percentage. Each of these metrics is helpful for just about any FBA seller looking to.
To increase the IPI, we optimized inventory, especially that of top-selling products that continually stock-out due to high demand, Fix stranded inventory immediately and Remove excess inventory.
Focus On The Sell-Through Index
Reduce The Excess Inventory
Track Your ACOS
ACoS is an important metric for evaluating the success of your advertising campaigns on Amazon. But it’s equally important to view your ACoS in the context of your overall goals. This can be achieved by applying different strategies and applications and a constant review of things that work and can be improved. A good ACoS varies per category and ultimately, everyone wants to get as much profit to the lowest spend possible or an as close to 0% ACoS.
Keep Increasing Your Sales Year-On-Year
A 3.1X times increase in total sales for Q2 in 2019 proves that selling on Amazon needs a long-term business plan and strategy. The more years you prove you are a professional selling brand and maintain your Amazon Seller Account in good standing, the more sales, and revenue will come to you.
Amazon rewards serious sellers and professional Seller Account Management, giving a multiple times increase in annual revenue. That’s the raw power of working with Amazon Experts to build your online selling business internationally.
Understand Your Profit Margins
A good seller looks at his profit; a great one checks its trend as far date as possible. In this scenario, we have the past years’ profit and trends, with a dramatic increase in profit margins!
Another solid proof that by professionally managing and optimizing your Amazon Seller account, one can reach profit margins you cannot easily achieve under standard e-commerce or retail environment.
Get Rewarded By Amazon For Your Performance
Amazon rewards good business and that means rewarding great sellers with professional brands that help Amazon make more sales. And when Amazon rewards you by giving your items the “Best Choice” tag or including your items in the “Best Deals” page, you know you are definitely doing something very very well!
Just imagine the brand exposure and the number of sales these special Amazon perks brought to our clients in addition to the brand awareness and recognition their brand earned.
Thai Jewelry Brand Amazon Seller Account Case Study
According to public data and our experience, brands usually double, triple, or quadruple in sales and revenue after a successful year with fully optimized Amazon Seller accounts. Going strong for year two, with a hefty goal in sales.
Our specialized team in PowerHouse Consulting Group manages tens of clients Amazon Seller accounts, helping them sell almost globally from the US, Canada, Mexico, European countries to Japan, and more. We also work in collaboration with Amazon Global Selling team Thailand on some of our accounts, which allow us to get extra support and to apply for exclusive deals and seasonal events, which can grow revenue for our clients even further.
Would you like to build a successful brand on Amazon and build additional revenue streams?
Contact us via our contact page or Twitter for an initial consultation appointment.
