How to Fix Common Amazon Errors

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2 10 Amazon Mistakes You re Probably Making & How to Fix Them! How to Fix Common Amazon Errors We all know the saying: Everybody makes mistakes. It s only human. But when it comes to Amazon, mistakes are costly, and we d rather just avoid them in the first place. Whether you re a seasoned Amazon seller or looking to expand to the marketplace, this ebook will help you double-check processes and prevent you from falling victim to some of the most common Amazon mistakes. Don t worry! If you re guilty of any of them, we ve provided fixes to make your processes spick and span once again. Amazon is growing at 25%, compared with 15% for e-commerce as a whole. Scot Wingo, CEO of ChannelAdvisor Source: Forrester and ComScore Reports, 2012/2013 CONTENTS ONLY COVERING CUSTOMER SERVICE S ON WEEKDAYS: PAGE 3 ASSUMING SELLER FEEDBACK IS SET IN STONE: PAGE 4 KEEPING A TIGHT FIST AROUND PRODUCT DATA: PAGE 5 NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO LEAD-TIME-TO- SHIP: PAGE 6 ADJUSTING PRICES MANUALLY: PAGE 7 ASSUMING POLICY VIOLATIONS ARE INCONSEQUENTIAL: PAGE 8 NEVER GETTING IN THE CUSTOMERS SHOES: PAGE 9 NOT KEEPING UP WITH AMAZON CATEGORY AND TEMPLATE UPDATES: PAGE 10 MAKING PEACE WITH THE CUSTOMER BUT LEAVING FEEDBACK UNRESOLVED: PAGE 11 NOT CONSIDERING FULFILMENT BY AMAZON: PAGE 12

3 10 Amazon Mistakes You re Probably Making & How to Fix Them! Mistake 1: Only Covering Customer Service s on Weekdays When the clock strikes five on Friday, you fall silent to Amazon customers completely or automate customer communications throughout the weekend. Enquiries aren t dealt with actively again until Monday morning. Active communication five days out of seven doesn t seem so bad, but weekends account for close to 30% of the year. Amazon s Contact Response Time measures the percentage of customer messages responded to within 24 hours, and many sellers aren t aware that auto-responses don t count. Falling silent on the weekends results in poor performance in this metric, puts you at risk of negative feedback and we can confidently predict that your chance of winning the Buy Box will be impacted. Assign staff to manage customer communication at the weekend. It shouldn t require a major time investment: pepper Saturday and Sunday with check-ins, and assign team members days or half days to ensure full coverage. Keep in mind that queries that do not require a response may be flagged for removal from response-time calculations by checking No Response Needed within the Reply area.

4 10 Amazon Mistakes You re Probably Making & How to Fix Them! Mistake 2: Assuming All Seller Feedback is Set in Stone Products fall short of expectations. The product is not as sturdy as you d hoped, the picture frame isn t quite the right match for your existing living room décor or the shoe size you selected is slightly too large. Unfortunately, Amazon merchants take misdirected blows in the form of productfocused Seller Reviews. Shoppers post negative product reviews within Seller Feedback, an area intended for customers to review their purchase experience with the merchant - not the product. You let these product-focused reviews remain in your seller feedback area. Product-focused negative feedback, though misplaced, still affects your rating, creating chords of distrust and scaring away potential buyers. Amazon will remove feedback upon request in specific cases, which are outlined here. Common scenarios in which feedback is eligible for removal include: Obscene, profane or commonly misunderstood language is included. The entire comment is a product review. Comments that are partly productfocused but also contain appropriate feedback about the service will most likely not be removed. The entire comment reviews fulfilment or customer service for an item fulfilled by Amazon FBA. To submit feedback for removal, submit a TAM support ticket identifying the offending feedback, clearly stating that you accurately conveyed product information and that the customer has introduced bias. It may be beneficial to directly reference Amazon s guidelines in these submissions.

5 10 Amazon Mistakes You re Probably Making & How to Fix Them! Mistake 3: Keeping a Tight Fist Around Product Data Amazon s Shared Listing Pages gather the best data from multiple sellers to create the ideal listing to be shared by all merchants selling an item. For example, three merchants sell an identical brandname watch. One supplies an excellent title, the second a superior description and the third poor data altogether. Amazon sources the best data to create the listing, meaning that the third merchant reaps the benefits of work they have not sown. Frustrated that costly content will be shared, you refuse to release data to Amazon for these listings, send malnourished data and keep the good stuff for other channels, withhold attribute values or don t bother creating quality data to begin with. Being tight-fisted with your data has minimal effects on your competition but is detrimental to you. Data for the shared listing will be provided, regardless of your decision. Withholding affects only your likelihood of garnering shopper attention through search results. Acknowledge the reality and remember the bigger picture. You re in a common listing and competition is inevitable. Set out to win the customer within search by providing data as if you were the only merchant selling your product. The query watch returns nearly 750K results. Do you provide keywords and attributes to guide the buyer as they refine results? Give shoppers what they need to find your product and convert, then let your seller rating, reviews and more distinguish you.

6 10 Amazon Mistakes You re Probably Making & How to Fix Them! Mistake 4: Not Paying Attention to Lead- Time-to-Ship Lead-time-to-ship, or handling time, is the time it takes to receive an order, process and pack it, and get it to the shipping carrier. The default value is two days. We see two common blunders: By understating how long it takes you to deliver, you disqualify yourself from gaining a competitive edge. By overstating, you re at risk for reoccurrences of late shipments. Set correct expectations for each SKU. Accuracy trumps low value, but if you re confident you can deliver within narrower timeframes, indicate this. Always deliver based on the lead-timeto-ship you have configured. 1. You state a time that is more than actual: All products are set to the default of two days. When asked if you deliver faster, you respond yes, with the exception of select items. 2. You state a time that is less than actual: You oversell yourself, sending a value of one or two days and, when asked if you are always able to deliver on this lead time, you admit that you aren t. In both scenarios, time indicated is not completely accurate.

7 10 Amazon Mistakes You re Probably Making & How to Fix Them! Mistake 5: Adjusting Prices Manually Pricing in the sweet spot where items attract buyers and garner profits is a challenge, and proactively adjusting prices on Amazon as the competition dictates is crucial to winning sales. You brush up on product pricing each day, week or month, but you adjust prices manually. Add up your time spent tinkering with prices; the total might alarm you. Time is of the essence in e-commerce; more needs to be devoted to business growth strategy and less to laborious tasks. Consider the shelf life of any single price-adjustment you make and you ll be motivated to take this task to the next level. Automate! Technologies that automate repricing based on rules you set and the competitive landscape are becoming the norm. ChannelAdvisor s Repricer automatically adjusts listing prices based on your rules and goals, meaning the tedious work is off your chest but you ll stay neck-and-neck with the competition at all times.

8 10 Amazon Mistakes You re Probably Making & How to Fix Them! Mistake 6: Assuming Policy Violations Are Inconsequential Policy violations happen; no merchant is perfect. But when Amazon slaps your wrist, you take it as a warning with no significant consequences and continue with life and listing as usual. Policy violations have repercussions, though sometimes not immediate. Sellers who choose not to take early issues seriously have later faced account suspension for repeat violations, without much warning. Respect, protect and remain proactive in your relationship with Amazon. Treat interactions with customers as interactions with the marketplace. When a violation occurs, initiate this 3-step process: 1. Investigate. What changed in your business, processes or circumstances to cause this infraction? 2. Reflect. Is this a one-time event? Could it happen again? What effect did this have on my relationship with Amazon and with my customer(s)? 3. Correct. What will I put in place or change to prevent this from occurring in the future? Nurture your Amazon relationship. ChannelAdvisor has seen quality retailers make accidental stumbles with major effects on Amazon customers, but because these retailers had invested in caring for their Amazon relationship from the get-go, Amazon did not suspend or close their accounts.

9 10 Amazon Mistakes You re Probably Making & How to Fix Them! Mistake 7: Never Getting in the Customers Shoes Item misrepresentations, unclear imagery or description typos can easily slip through the cracks. These mistakes affect your visibility in searches, and misrepresented products can backfire down the road, negatively impacting your seller metrics. Get in the customers shoes. Click through your products to see how they re matched to an ASIN, priced, positioned, categorised and searched. Develop a process sheet or check list for periodic QA testing. The list of details to QA can get long, but these should get you started: Successful brands never lose sight of the customer. They remember that, at the end of the day, they re in the business of providing a need for a real person. The evaluation of whether or not that need is met on Amazon involves thorough quality assurance (QA) testing of your listings. But you forego the process altogether, execute it hastily or only QA best-sellers. Variation Format Listings Multiple Case Packs Single Pack Items that Others Sell in Multi-Pack New Categories Repriced Products Listings Created by New Staff Spot check to guarantee that variations appear within the correct parent/child structure. Check all of these listings. This is crucial when the same UPC might normally be associated with a single-pack item. Categories in which pack listings are popular include Office Products, and Health and Beauty. Single Pack Item listings cause pain when matched improperly because sellers end up fulfilling orders at a loss, or risk negative feedback and Order Defect Rate issues from cancelled orders from confused buyers. When branching into a new category, research similar listings and QA your own listings when they go live. When creating Repricer rules, it s wise to test and monitor price updates. Monitor how the rules are working to reprice products on the marketplace to ensure you re meeting business goals. The learning curve for managing Amazon listings is steep. Provide adequate training and review new hires listings thoroughly.

10 10 Amazon Mistakes You re Probably Making & How to Fix Them! Mistake 8: Not Keeping Up with Amazon Category and Template Updates You pay close attention to listings and inventory, but you haven t taken note of Amazon s Category or Listing Template updates in months. Amazon frequently makes changes to categories and updates listing templates with new attribute fields and data options, but you find out about these behind the curve. Staying in the dark is like voluntarily succumbing to an unfair disadvantage in a race. Other sellers out there will be taking advantage of the enhanced visibility and selling opportunities offered through updated attributes and categories, leaving you in the dust. Stay up to speed; pull new Inventory File Templates for each of your categories on a regular basis. Make it a habit to evaluate what s new and to assess which data points you should add. If you use ChannelAdvisor or a third-party listing platform, review what attributes and categories are available in your Amazon Listing Template. ChannelAdvisor adds new categories and rolls out enhanced functionality in tandem with Amazon s updates.

11 10 Amazon Mistakes You re Probably Making & How to Fix Them! Mistake 9: Making Peace with the Customer, but Leaving Feedback Unresolved A customer leaves legitimate negative feedback about you in the seller feedback area (see Mistake No.2 for examples of inappropriate feedback). You resolve the issue with the end buyer, wipe your hands clean of the matter and return to business as usual. The negative comment remains in your seller feedback area even after the issue has been resolved, and becomes a stain on your reputation. Buyers trust buyers; they review ratings to determine whether to purchase from you. These negative ratings, in high volume, deter potential customers. Take the extra step to request that the end buyer withdraw the negative feedback; the buyer has 60 days to remove it from the time of posting. This is a fine line, so task your best customer service employees with such requests and consider incentivising employees for successfully reversing negative feedback. As best practice, be sure to review Amazon s full details about using the Feedback Manager.

12 10 Amazon Mistakes You re Probably Making & How to Fix Them! Mistake 10: Not Considering Fulfilment by Amazon While a reevaluation of your current fulfilment model a pressing need to keep your business afloat, you could be missing out on the opportunity to save time and grow profits if you haven t considered Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA). FBA touts a strong list of benefits to third-party sellers, including spikes in sales velocity, enhanced product visibility in search, access to Amazon Prime members and discounts, complete customer service coverage, nearly turnkey access to international audiences and streamlined fulfilment to other sales channels. You ve got this e-commerce fulfilment thing down to a tee; warehouses are in place, stocked with inventory, and you ve got your delivery process perfected. You re comfortable with your traditional warehouse model and you haven t thought about a new approach to fulfilment. Consider whether FBA is a strategic initiative for your business. If you re hesitant, pick several items from your inventory for which you know there is market potential but have not been converting as expected. Test them in FBA, and see whether the added appeal to the Amazon Prime audience, promotions and Amazon-branded fulfilment positively impacts your sales.

13 10 Amazon Mistakes You re Probably Making & How to Fix Them! Onto the Fixing Whether you re making 1, 5 or all of these Amazon mistakes, it never hurts to conduct a regular audit of your Amazon processes and performance to identify weaknesses, celebrate successes and identify opportunities for improvement. Work through the Amazon stumbling blocks you may be tripping over, and use this ebook periodically as a checklist to make sure you stay on top of best practices. Before you know it, these mistakes won t be getting the best of you, and you ll have far fewer Amazon anxieties. ChannelAdvisor s Marketplaces solution includes an Amazon 360 Dashboard, providing you with a comprehensive view into your Amazon status, including details about seller reputation, top-selling products, outstanding customer service needs, and everything necessary to maintain the health of your Amazon relationship. Sellers use this dashboard to tidy up the above mistakes with insight and simplicity, so they can focus on the high-level direction of their e-commerce business. To learn more about ChannelAdvisor s robust e-commerce platform for Amazon, ebay, emerging Marketplaces, Google Shopping, Paid Search, Comparison Shopping Engines and Social, contact ukteam@channeladvisor.com. Trust us. Be Seen. Call US AU Visit ukteam@channeladvisor.com The global standard for e-commerce leaders.