Amazon Seller Tips, Expert Insights & Insider Knowledge
In the following article, we’ve pulled out a few Amazon Amazon Seller Tips, Expert Insights, and Insider knowledge for Amazon Sellers in 2022. If you want to see more, you can download our full Amazon Insights 2022 Report for free right here. You will see that it is packed with optimisation tips, insights and expert opinion for Amazon sellers in 2022.
Get the Amazon seller fundamentals right first
Before we delve into some expert tips for your account performance, it is imperative to ensure that your business has the Amazon seller fundamentals covered.
This isn’t a five minute job – it’s an occupation. As Amazon has evolved to become the biggest online marketplace on the planet, Amazon optimisation has become more specialised in every area.
If you want to be at the top, it is imperative that you keep ahead of your competition and ensure these areas your account are fully optimised:
- Optimise Amazon product descriptions
- Optimise products for Amazon search
- Improve your Amazon product images
- Improve delivery times to sell more on Amazon
- Increase your positive Amazon reviews to give buyers confidence
Unless you have these areas covered, your business or brand will operate at a disadvantage on Amazon in comparison to other sellers who have them fully optimised. You’ll find articles covering all of these topics in more detail on our Knowledge Base.
Feed the Amazon Flywheel for results
Amazon’s customer focused flywheel is the secret to the company’s success. The fundamentals listed above all feed into Amazon’s Flywheel model.
Customer experience is king, and everything you do, from your content to your processes should aim to deliver excellent customer experience.
Throwing your products onto Amazon without delivering excellent customer service (from the content you show them, to the speed of delivery), is the most ineffective strategy for selling on Amazon.
It is important to deliver an exceptional brand experience on Amazon, ensuring that every customer has a great encounter. It’s a win-win for future growth both on and off the Amazon marketplace. Get that flywheel spinning!
Amazon’s General Pricing Rule is tightening its grip in 2022
We can clearly see from the Flywheel, Amazon is completely committed to customer satisfaction. This includes offering the best possible prices on Amazon too.
As a result, Amazon’s little known ‘General Pricing Rule’ is designed to enforce low pricing. It could damage your business if ignored.
So multichannel sellers beware! In 2022, Amazon’s web crawlers will be even more sophisticated at detecting price differences, not just on Amazon itself, but all over the web.
if you’re offering lower prices on eBay, Wayfair, OnBuy, any other marketplaces, or even your own web store, it can lead to a loss of seller privileges, penalties, and even suspension.
One benefit from keeping your prices as low as possible on Amazon is that Google is increasingly displaying Amazon results in their Shopping search results. Maintaining low prices on Amazon may result in a lower margin in some areas, but it will lead to more clicks through to your product listings (and higher sales) on both Amazon and Google.
Amazon Image Storyboarding
We don’t need to tell you how important images are when it comes to communicating your product to potential buyers.
There is a relatively recent method to increase conversion rates that you should be aware of, which we call Amazon Image Storyboarding.
Instead of simply uploading a selection of photos, each image can be designed with a cohesive visual theme and Instagram-style graphics. In other words, short text can be added to each image, in the same framework as your bullets.
Stoli Amazon Storefront 
Stoli listing – Title and Bullets 
A+ Content for Stoli 
Stoli Listing Imagery storyboarded
It is pushing the boundaries of Amazon’s technical guidelines, but it’s a sure-fire way to turbo-boost your product listings. In fact, Optimizon has seen eye-watering uplifts in conversion rates and sales owing to this simple change.
Much of the success of this technique is driven by Mobile users. Amazon’s mobile experience means that users may not see the text bullets at all, so the message conveyed by the images is vital.
Storyboard Image Structure
This is the structure we recommend when presenting storyboard images:
- First image always to be product image on a plain white background with no writing or logos (following Amazon’s requirements)
- PT02-PT04 – branded design images but focus on product imagery. Include captions that call out on key features or technical info.
- PT05-PT06 – branded design images. Include lifestyle imagery of the products being used and enjoyed.
- PT07 – If possible, include a quick 30 second video from the brand. Quick shots of the key features of the products and anything about the brand, where it’s designed/produced or other important messaging.
You should aim to take the customer on a journey through the images. They are already at the part of the buying funnel where they are ready to buy. You can now include information that confirms their decision.
Our content experts recommend that you include the brand’s logo on the images throughout, using colours and fonts from your brand guidelines to enhance brand awareness and buyer experience. Everything should be in keeping with the A+ content, storefront and other external marketing platforms. so it’s all consistent and recognisable.
Get ahead on Amazon Business (B2B)
Amazon Business will be a huge growth area in 2022. Amazon is heavily investing in its B2B marketplace. If your company isn’t selling on Amazon Business yet, our advice is that you should get in on the act before your competitors do.
If you are already an Amazon Seller, it costs nothing to add Amazon Business to your account. It gives the potential for you to make B2B selling easier, and open up your products to a wider audience.
Amazon Business allows you to benefit from higher visibility and lower fees on high volume transactions. It also gives you the opportunity to grow sales by reaching millions of B2B customers across the globe. Customers that would be very hard to reach otherwise.
As a seller there are multiple other benefits, which we cover in detail in our ‘What is Amazon Business’ article. It’s worth looking into because it is likely that the platform will continue to see major growth in the UK and other regions.
Brands target the B2C market
In the previous section we touched upon selling B2B via Amazon. However, there is also a big trend for B2B businesses and brands to cut out the middle-man, and go straight to market via Amazon.
This is a trend that we only expect to intensify in 2022.
Amazon appears to be actively targeting brands. It makes perfect sense, since this will allow Amazon to give customers even better prices and cut out part of the retail chain. It also means better brand experiences for Amazon customers (as brands tend to take more care of their content than resellers do).
Essential to take control of your brand
If you are brand owner, it’s in your interest get in on the act and take control of your brand on Amazon for the following reasons:
- It’s essential to claim and control your brand on Amazon before someone else does (and they will if you don’t!).
- You can give your customers a good brand experience (which third-party retailers won’t). Furthermore, you can invest in the brand message, which will benefit your Amazon sales.
- Your full stock range (even the lower selling items, which aren’t stocked by all of your retailers) can be listed on Amazon.
- Your brand can expand into new markets to increase our overall market share.
- New brands are stealing market share on Amazon, so you need to present a strong brand image and separate yourself from the wide product choice, achieved through strong branding on Amazon.
Our experts advise you to take control of your brand on Amazon to deliver the best customer experience. Retail is changing; in 2022 your brand should be represented perfectly on the largest marketplace on the planet. Not thrown in haphazardly with the vast pool of other products.
You may need to be prepared to upset some of your existing retail network. But it’s time to stand firm and do what is best for your business.
Amazon Prime Day 2022
Once you have your listings fully optimised, you’re controlling your brand, and set up on the B2B platform, you can begin to think about promotions.
When it comes to Amazon Prime Day in 2022, you can start putting together some strategies now.
Nobody knows next the Prime Day date yet, but we expect 2022 Prime Day to be early to mid July in 2022. It’s wise to start planning towards this date until we hear otherwise.
Don’t be late to the party. Prime Day and Black Friday are two of the biggest selling weekends online. Make no mistake – there will be thousands of Amazon sellers who are already planning what they’ll sell, and what discounts they’ll offer. Make sure one of them is you.
Top tip: Try creating voucher code sites away from Amazon that can be redeemed on Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or Prime Day. You can use these to collect valuable customer data, and even email them on the day. Use Countdown timers to increase conversion rates and keep customers loyal to your brand. An effective customer list can by valuable for many types of digital marketing. Here’s an example of an effective product discount page.
What’s new for Amazon Ads in 2022
Yes, Amazon ads also feed the Amazon Flywheel.
Increasing your Amazon sales via Amazon ads could be the fastest way to achieve sales growth in 2022.
Success will come down to the margins you make from selling your products on Amazon.
Try to calculate your true cost of sale on your own platform (taking account of premises, postage, packing, advertising, etc). Run a number of test campaigns on Amazon and compare the two.
Remember, all marketplaces and selling platforms are designed to be pay-to-play services. If you invest in Amazon Ads, there will be spillover benefits to your organic Amazon search results. In other words, an effective ad campaign can increase sales, and it can also lead to improvements in your organic Amazon performance.
You should always plan to invest a proportion of your revenue back into ads, and then refine the campaigns to achieve optimal performance. For a rough guide on how much you should invest on Amazon ads, you can check out our article ‘Why is Amazon PPC important, and how much should you spend on it.’
New Ad Features
Amazon has rolled out a number of new features at the end of 2021. The most significant new features are the Brand Metrics and Brand Lift tools. In addition, third-party audiences are now available within DSP, providing opportunities for better audience targeting. Make sure you are capitalising on these new tools in 2022 to make the most of your campaigns.
In a nutshell…
- Amazon Brand Metrics: Identify opportunities for your brand.
- Amazon Brand Lift: Deep insights into brand campaigns.
- Third Party Audiences: More effective audience targeting.
You’ll find more information about these changes in our ‘Amazon 2022 Insights Report’, which is free to download.
Improved Amazon Analytics in 2022
Amazon has announced a Search Analytics Dashboard will be coming to the US in 2022. It is likely to be rolled out in the UK later in the year. This will help sellers registered in Brand Registry derive insights from the search performance of their products.
The Search Analytics Dashboard will enhance the existing Amazon Brand Analytics reports. Expect it to include insights into repeat purchase behavior, market basket analysis, item comparison, alternate purchase behavior, and buyer demographics.
Query Performance can be used to identify high-performing keywords. This can be used to fine-tune marketing and product development strategies, as well as identifying new opportunities.
Brands can also use Catalogue Performance to identify conversion issues and drop off points to optimise product listings, storefronts, and campaigns.
Expert Tips for 2022
Finally, we asked our team of experts at Optimizon to provide their most important tips for getting the best out of your account in 2022.
Here’s what they said:
- Treat your Amazon storefront, like your virtual retail shopfront. Give shoppers the same brand experience and always keep your storefront up to date with newest products and deals you have running.
- Make sure you know all the fees associated with selling your product on Amazon and how they are calculated. Know your product margins and price your products accordingly so that it doesn’t cost you more than you will generate. Knowing your margins is vital when deciding where to feed Amazon’s Flywheel.
- Keep up to date with competitors by analyzing market share. Knowing the market allows you to look for opportunities within that market.
- Always make sure you have a constant supply of stock and that your listings never go out of stock as this will affect its ranking. Fulfillment could be the biggest issue facing sellers in 2022.
- Always pay attention to Amazon category guidelines when setting up products. This gives you a clear guide on how to list products correctly based on the category it is in. These guidelines change often, and there are more to look out for in 2022.
- Images are vital. Have at least seven images on your listing, and if possible a video too. Make sure your images are of a high quality to allow shoppers to zoom into the image. Where possible, Storyboard your images. The result will have a big effect on mobile optimisation.
- Ensure your products are listed with GS1 barcodes. Amazon has made it clear that GS1 is the preferred supplier of barcodes. In the future, other providers may be phased out.
Free help
As always, if you require any specialist help with your Amazon selling activities, don’t hesitate to contact our team.
Furthermore, you can also download a copy of our full Amazon Insights 2022 Report (packed with Amazon Seller Tips, optimisation advice, insights and tricks, from the experts).
