Over 300 million users worldwide shop on Amazon each year, across categories including clothing, electronics, DIY and more. With its massive reach, robust marketing tools, and trusted reputation, Amazon offers an unparalleled opportunity to boost your visibility, increase sales, and expand your brand’s presence. Your brand can’t afford to miss out.
In today’s competitive market, an Amazon strategy is vital for e-commerce success. Read on to find out how your business can succeed in 2025.
In this guide:
- Vendor vs Seller
- Amazon Margin & Profitability
- Seasonality
- Advertising
- SEO
- Content OptimisationStorefronts
- Nozzle & Customer Lifetime Value
- Turning Your Amazon Goals Into Reality
Vendor vs Seller
Before you do anything, you should decide whether to sell as a Vendor or Seller. Deciding between the Vendor and Seller models is crucial because it significantly impacts your control over pricing, inventory management, and marketing.
How do you decide?
Choose the Vendor model if you want a more hands-off approach where Amazon handles most of the retail operations for you, and you’re ready to commit to bulk shipments with less control over pricing and inventory.
Choose the Seller model if you want to retain full control over your brand, pricing, and marketing efforts, and are ready to invest more time and effort into managing your listings and customer relationships.
Or there’s a third option…
Choose the Hybrid model for a combination of both approaches, where you can sell certain products via Amazon Vendor and others via Amazon Seller.
Ultimately, mid-sized brands should weigh their ability to handle logistics, desire for control, and long-term growth goals when choosing between these models.
Amazon Margins and Profitability
Choose products in high demand with the potential for solid markups whilst balancing volume and profitability. Research costs, including Amazon fees and shipping, to ensure a healthy margin remains.
Price competitively but protect your margins. Amazon’s “Automated Pricing” feature helps you adjust prices based on competitors, and avoids underpricing. Add value through bundles or premium offerings to justify higher prices without sacrificing margin.
The Buy Box on Amazon sits on a product page and allows customers to add items to their cart with just one click. Winning the Buy Box means your offer is selected as the default seller for that product which can significantly boost visibility and sales. To win the Buy Box, focus on competitive pricing, maintaining excellent seller metrics (such as high ratings, low order defect rates, and fast shipping), and offering Amazon Prime or FBA fulfillment for faster delivery.
Seasonality
Accurately forecasting product demand is essential for maintaining stock levels and maximising profit. Refer to past data and Amazon’s tools, such as the Amazon Seller Central Dashboard, to predict upcoming trends for the seasons. Anticipate fluctuations in demand and plan inventory and supply chain strategies well in advance to avoid stockouts or overstocking.
During high-demand seasons, consider increasing prices slightly to reflect the added value, scarcity and market conditions without sacrificing profitability.
Seasonal keywords are crucial for driving traffic during peak times. Use tools like JungleScout or DataDive to identify high-traffic seasonal keywords and update your product listings to include the relevant terms. e.g., “summer essentials,” “holiday gifts”) to increase visibility and capture seasonal searches.
Advertising
Target the right customers and drive sales for your products with strategic advertising.
Amazon Sponsored Products: Increase visibility for your listings. Target relevant keywords based on your product’s features and customer search behavior. Start with automatic targeting to gather data, then switch to manual targeting for more precise control over your ads. Monitor performance and adjust bids to ensure optimal ROI.
Sponsored Brands: Showcase your brand and multiple products in a single ad. This is a great way to build brand awareness and drive traffic to a custom landing page or your Amazon storefront. Use compelling images and strong calls-to-action to engage customers and direct them to your best-selling or highest-margin products.
Sponsored Display Ads: Retarget shoppers who have viewed your products but didn’t purchase. This can help boost conversions by keeping your products top-of-mind for potential buyers. You can also use these ads to target similar audiences based on shopping behaviours, increasing exposure to relevant customers.
SEO
No matter how great your content is, it’s not going to make sales if customers aren’t seeing it. SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) targets the keywords users are searching for. Strategically sprinkle these keywords in your title, bullet points and product description to bring more eyeballs to your listing.
However, balance is key. Overstuffing your listing with keywords not puts you at risk of being penalised by Amazon, but it also makes your copy sound robotic – an instant turn off for potential customers.
Content Optimisation
A compelling listing is essential to capture your customers’ attention and convince them your product is exactly the one they need.
Firstly, you need a descriptive title. A good title shows the brand name, product and a few key details about the item.
The bullet points are your golden opportunity to show off your product’s features and explain to consumers how it’ll make their lives easier or better. To make sure they’re fully visible, we recommend keeping bullets to a strict 250 character limit.
93% of customers actively engage with product images. This means you’re missing out on a goldmine of potential conversions if you’re not optimising your visuals.
Effective images display the product in a real-life setting, with clear call-outs or captions highlighting key features and benefits. This approach ensures customers who are quickly skimming through images get the vital information they need to make a purchasing decision.
To maximize impact, the product should fill at least 85% of the image, with a minimum resolution of 1000px by 1000px. For even better clarity, we recommend 1500px by 1500px, so the image still looks sharp when customers use the zoom-in feature.
Videos are also an excellent way to showcase your product. They offer a near in-person experience, giving customers a closer, more detailed look than static images – it’s the next best thing to physically picking it up in a store and taking a good look at it.
Storefronts
Your Amazon storefront acts as a mini-website within Amazon itself. It’s a fantastic way to bring your brand identity onto the platform whilst showcasing your range of products.
Think of the layout like a shop window. No one visits a dusty old store with the blinds closed. Look alive and open for business with a visually appealing design that invites customers to come in and take a browse.
Have you ever wandered up and down aisles, searching for something specific, only to end up asking a store employee for help to find what you need? Guide your customers in the right direction with clear categories. For example, an electronics brand may use categories such as ‘Laptops & Computers’, ‘Smartphone Accessories’ and ‘Headphones & Earbuds”.
How about trying a couple of categories called ‘New Arrivals’, ‘Deals’ or ‘Bestsellers’ to make it easier for your customers to snag a bargain or see what’s trending?
Over half of Amazon’s traffic comes from customers shopping on their phone, so make sure your storefront is optimised for mobile and test it for readability across all device types.
Nozzle and Customer Lifetime Value
Customer Lifetime Value is a crucial metric for Amazon sellers, measuring the total revenue a customer is expected to generate over their entire relationship with your brand. It’s an essential insight that allows you to make informed decisions about acquiring new customers and retaining existing ones, ultimately guiding your Amazon strategy to maximise profitability and long-term success.
Nozzle, founded in 2020 and exclusive to Optimizon, uses technology and data science to analyse customer buying patterns on Amazon and uncover metrics, including customer repeat order rate, customer lifetime value, customer acquisition cost, cross sells and more.
Turning Your Amazon Goals Into Reality
With Optimizon’s help, Opro, the world leader in tooth protection for extreme sports, achieved remarkable success when 40% of their products reached the #1 spot on Amazon’s search results page. Within the project’s first month alone, their sales were double that of the entire previous 6-month period.
Your brand could join the ranks of Opro, Typhoo Tea, Durex, Dettol and others enjoying success on Amazon with Optimizon. Hit the button below to get started.
