With approximately 1.9 million active sellers, Amazon is riding high on success. According to the Seller app, the firm grows at the rate of $4,722 every second and over $17 million in an hour. The massive scaling and growth allow for a profitable deal for sellers, even more, for new-age merchants. No wonder, the competition on the platform is intense. However, even with the intense competition, this place lets every company know their presence.
On the buyer side, if we narrow it down to a specific geography, then the US alone has 100 million prime subscribers. These statistics, compared to the population of 126 million, doesn’t fall short to impress. Thus, Amazon certainly deserves a pat on the back for accelerating every merchant’s profits and overall growth. Of course, many in the pool may have failed to create their space on Amazon. It happens when sellers fail to understand how to place their product in this pure competition. Hence, they get outrun by the other sellers.
This cutthroat competition might be a challenge, but the result is fruitful, especially if we see these merchants getting a $10,000 – $25000 average monthly profit.
Not only profit, but Amazon gives a seller an infinite number of reasons to choose over other marketplaces. Here are a couple of top level benefits you would get when you are on Amazon.
Customer Base and Reach
The number of 310 million Amazon users is enough to get you onboard, isn’t it? These users are the loyal customers of the marketplace. Additionally, this brand’s marketing effort leaves no stone unturned to attract more – another reason to put up your wares on Amazon.
If you are a seasoned seller on Amazon, you know already that quite a number of sellers started young and are still keeping up. Interestingly, a fair number of such sellers deal with products that appeal to a highly focused niche, such as tutus and pettiskirts. As the platform caters to a wide range of customers with different purchase preferences from different geographies, even such an uncommon product category finds a decent market share to sell in volume.
Besides offering a wide market to the sellers, the Amazon brand name helps the sellers leverage on image rub off. Sellers’ authenticity automatically gets established, just because they are selling on the marketplace, complying with its tough policies. On top of that, if a seller is a performer, it’s a double sundae for the business. The seller gets the vantage of external support from marketers or investors to grow the business. The reason is simple: a performer on Amazon, is bound to get more traffic than its competitors, hence it makes sense for other businesses to keep their eggs in that basket.
Tools and Services
For a new age merchant, it is very important to get a hold of their customer base and product. Once a seller enters the Amazon market, the e-commerce platform tends to offer a lot more than mere customer base. From tips for product title to winning the buy box, Amazon guides every seller in order to make the road easier. Using Amazon’s tools reduces the chances of errors and poor performance. The below average performance of a seller can be a warning call for its business. After all, as an established marketplace, Amazon too ranks its sellers. Thus, a seller failing to establish a good run for its business can result in Amazon’s loss as well.
Going forward there’s more which gives sellers enough reasons to get on board with Amazon. Especially for new-age sellers, these services by Amazon are a boon!
What’s More with Amazon?
Amazon FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon)
More than the product development, distribution and warehousing have been a frequent headache for the sellers. A new-age merchant prefers to avoid the money wastage on unnecessary commissions to intermediaries and untimed delivery hassles. That’s when Amazon FBA comes into the picture. Since 2006, this extended support of FBA has been a huge hit. Amazon follows a simple mantra of “Seller sells, we ship”. Thus, all the order fulfillment and delivery hustle are taken care of by Amazon itself. Once sellers hand over the responsibilities of distribution to this marketplace, from warehousing to packing, the entire process is initiated and executed. A seller makes sales while Amazon stores products. Afterwards, from return to refund, every aspect is managed by their team. In case of any discrepancy and distribution issue, the cost is borne by Amazon.
C-19’s after effects can be a potential concern in establishing a business for new-age merchants. Plus, limited manpower and limited capital can lead to a poor in-house warehouse and logistics system. Hence, Amazon FBA is the next best thing one would do!
Amazon SPN (Service provider network)
The battle is on 24×7 to become a successful seller on Amazon! Right from getting enrolled trained, everything is taken care of by Amazon SPN. The strong network of certified professional trainers helps sellers quickly get aware of the market and prepares them with the skills they need to excel on Amazon. Under the SPN umbrella, services like Amazon Fly, Cataloguing, and imaging are available to a seller. Amazon fly is provided to the seller to enable a smooth onboarding. Through brand registration and service account setups, the experts assist the seller throughout the process. On an exact similar note, imaging and cataloging is a service provided to enhance the brand’s look and description. The goal is to ensure that the merchant does not miss any detail to make the brand shine. Thus, when a new-age merchant benefits from these tools, the seller experiences more product clicks and adds to carts.
Amazon MWS (Marketplace web service)
Amazon MWS allows the merchant to create applications that support inventory management, product selling, and order processing. This service helps sellers programmatically exchange data on receipts, reports, payments, and more. As per Amazon services, the features provided by MWS are inventory management, order fulfillment, reports creation and management, tracking of shipment, and submission of orders fulfilled. These features give sellers automatic control of their after-sales process. As Amazon FBA takes care of the shipment process, a seller can track, monitor, and suggest the firm in case of any advancements. When selling is automated with integrated data, the result is naturally reduced labor. Eventually, it lets the customers get a timely response which increases the seller’s overall performance.
Amazon Buy Box
After training and sales automation, the next hurdle is the Buy box. If a product complies with Amazon standards then a seller is most likely to win the buy box. For the win, a seller has to keep in mind the following:
- Offer a new version of the product: Among all the substitutes, a seller must enhance the product with some specifications. This will add extra oomph and the product will stand out in its respective category.
- Offer competitive pricing: This is neither price skimming nor penetration. It is about keeping a moderate level of pricing which can get a customer to purchase the product without hampering the product margin.
- Good customer review: In order to win leverage from a marketplace, ratings of a product should be good. Average feedback + average rating will be considered during the time of qualification for the Buy box.
- Keep up with the inventory level: An ‘add to cart by a customer will be of no use if one’s stocked out. Thus, it is important to keep up the inventory level to ensure product availability.
Winning a buy box makes a seller sail the journey towards sales very easy. For a new seller, this feature can prove to be a beneficial one and can give an edge over the substitutes.
Take This Home
A seller who aims to enter Amazon’s door, the welcome may not be very pleasing. The breathless competition has taken over the entire market. But we have a parallel view as well. Amazon is not only a competitive marketplace, rather it elevates those associated with it. The excellent product quality and complete use of Amazon features makes the seller’s performance stand out. By doing so, one can stand out from the other 1.9 million sellers.
Cloverbites By Rupesh Sanghavi 
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