An e-commerce expert is offering advice to businesses selling on Amazon to help them convert listings into sales.
Chris Turton from E-Commerce Intelligence has been working with businesses for over 16 years and claims many are falling into common traps when listing on the platform.
Around 100,000 UK small and medium sized businesses sell on Amazon, meaning competition is tough to secure sales. Ofcom data suggests around 16.4 million adults visit the platform on an average day.
But many businesses are falling at the first step by failing to optimize listings, with the result being poor visibility, a low click through rate and conversion rate.
Chris claims Amazon is no longer about setting up a listing and forgetting about it, or using AI to create a listing.
He says addressing some simple listing mistakes could be the difference between making a sale and building trust and customer loyalty to seeing your brand plummet.
Chris Turton from E-Commerce Intelligence said: “One of the most common mistakes brands make and an easy trap to fall into is following best practice. By this I mean ensuring the title has the maximum number of characters rather than thinking about customer expectations and what they’re looking for when making a purchase decision.
“Having the customer front in mind is essential and thinking about what will sell the product to them both in terms of the wording used and the imagery selected. A poor main image is a big red flag to customers, instead they want to see a clean, high resolution shot on a white background and shown to scale. Video footage is a good addition.
“Cramming the title with keywords can be confusing and muddled. Instead think about relevancy and readability. What does your potential customer want to know? What will secure that purchase? Descriptions are equally as important. Use information wisely and think about the emotional triggers that could turn that browse into a conversion.
“Analyse your data too. This will help you make decisions based around the click through rate and conversion rate. It will show where change needs to happen in your listing.”
Chris continued: “The wording and images on your listing aren’t the only things that could be detrimental to success. Are back end search terms correct? Filling available characters, adding regional variations and secondary attributes are all important.
“As is the pricing and your margins. A seller should be benchmarking against competitors to make sure pricing isn’t wildly off course. If your profits are going back to Amazon in terms of fees, ads and storage cost, then you have no margin to reinvest and grow. You need to track every cost including taxes and returns and closely monitor your profits and losses.
“Factor in ads not working for your brand – sponsored products are key but the strategy behind them matters. You need tightly focused campaigns with highly intent keywords and use sponsored products to showcase your store front if you have multiple SKUs.”
Chris concluded: “Sellers need to be ruthless when it comes to cutting waste. Amazon is a brand platform and those who win build trust and customer loyalty. Brand registry is there to protect and enhance your listing and a branded store front will unify your products.
“This is best summarised as ‘stop being a seller and start being a brand’. As a brand you need to make sure you have stock – run out and your listing can drop and slow logistics means you can’t scale and will fail to grow. If your brand isn’t growing, you may well be focussing on the wrong metrics.”
Chris Turton has over 16 years experience in e-commerce, having worked with hundreds of sellers and vendors from across the globe. He and his team work with over 70 different clients, doing over £60m+ a year in sales on Amazon. He built E-Commerce Intelligence from zero and now has a team of 20, turning over £1.6m a year.
