Why Every Brand Should Care about their Product Listings on Amazon

There are always a handful of brands that dismiss Amazon as either irrelevant or not worthy of their time or investment. I understand the sentiment, and there's a lot that goes into deciding which marketplaces should merit a companies time and attention. However, I'd like to address in this article why every brand, no matter the size, should care about how their product is displayed on Amazon and make an investment to ensure it's success.

Amazon Traffic

Amazon has 300 million customers and gets over 170 million visits every month. In addition, there are approximately 90 million Amazon Prime Members (80% of who filter by Free 2-Day Shipping) who tend to spend 2-3x more than non-Prime members. There is no other platform that can compete with this and the amount of exposure that a product can get on Amazon is unprecedented.

New brands have the opportunity to gain exposure to new audiences, and existing brands have the opportunity to stay in front of their audience while simultaneously reaching a larger one. Utilizing Amazon Campaigns, Lightning Deals and Headline Search Ads can increase the organic traffic with paid traffic all within Amazon.com.

Amazon is a Branding Platform

While it's natural to think of Amazon as an eCommerce platform, you should think of it first and foremost as a branding platform. Customers visit Amazon to do product research prior to purchasing, even if they plan to shop in brick and mortar. Over 50% of all online searches now start on Amazon so whether you're an established or emerging brand it's vital that your listings stand out as consumer worthy with tons of great features and positive product reviews.

Product listings that are better optimized, have positive product reviews and better content revealing the product features and benefits are likely to rank higher than others. This means that if you want to show up for that critical product research you need to be optimized ahead of time, utilizing proper SEO in the title and search terms for the relevant generic search terms, as well as have excellent product copy, high resolution product and lifestyle images in addition to videos, enhanced brand content and other options now available to brand registered sellers.

Clutter is Confusing to Consumers

One of the biggest challenges that brands face is that of duplicate listings. Anyone can create a listing and sell on that listing as long as what they are selling matches the description. However, that doesn't mean that they've taken the time to display your product well. In fact, no third party seller will ever take the time or make the investment to optimize an Amazon listing like the brand owner.

When a customer searches for your product and sees multiple listings show up utilizing different images, different copy and different pricing it becomes confusing and oftentimes discourages customers from purchasing. In addition, many listings also have unauthorized sellers that can be selling sub-par quality product or outright counterfeits that can lead to negative product reviews that stay with the listing and reflect negatively on your brand. Anytime a product has duplicate listings the Best Seller Rating (BSR) is split between multiple products and can keep a product from becoming a #1 Best Seller.

Selling Directly Leads to Increased Customer Confidence

When a product has a brand listed (i.e.: ACME) and it is sold and shipped by the same company (ACME, Inc.) it gives customers confidence knowing that they are receiving legitimate product that will be backed by the manufacturer warranty. This is likely to increase conversion rates simply by having the brand selling the product directly on the listing. It also reassures the customer that the listing is legitimate and can increase sales even if the brand owner is not currently winning the buy box.

Distribution Enforcement has become a huge issue, with multiple sellers on each listing, including drop-shippers who never even see or touch the product as well as retail arbitrage and third party sellers who acquired the product at a discount. As a brand owner you have the opportunity not only to sell directly to each customer but also to follow up and provide excellent customer satisfaction increasing your product reviews and ranking.

Brands with Registered Trademarks Gain Access to Exclusive Tools

There is an entire suite of tools and benefits available for brand owners with registered trademarks who apply for Brand Registry 2.0. These benefits have the ability to increase conversion rates by 12-15% (Enhanced Brand Content), reach more customers at a lower ACoS (Headline Search Ads) and create custom branded experiences (Amazon Storefronts).

These features are only available to the brand owner, and while a brand can give brand registry to another seller for a limited time, only the brand is likely to be equipped with the assets, budget and motivation to take advantage of all of these features.

In Conclusion

If you're a manufacturer or brand owner, I want to challenge you to spend just 10-15 minutes doing a search on Amazon to make sure that your listings are optimized, without duplicates or unauthorized sellers, and utilizing the best features and benefits Amazon.com has to offer.

About the Author

Shannon Roddy is the owner of Marketplace Seller Courses, online courses designed to help Brand owners maximize their experience selling on Amazon. For more information on listing optimization, distribution enforcement or driving traffic to your listings you can visit: www.marketplacesellercourses.com