With over 300 million active users, it’s safe to say the Amazon marketplace is one of the most powerful digital platforms to reach more customers and build your brand.
Not only is it the most popular e-commerce store in the US, but it’s also many internet users’ go-to when looking for shopping inspiration. Simply put, if you get your Amazon account management right, your store has a significant chance to attract one of the largest audiences in e-commerce.
However, staying competitive takes more than simply setting up your account, uploading content to product pages, and optimizing advertising campaigns. Almost half of product searches start on Amazon, so unless you continually optimize and refine your strategy to show up in search results, you’re leaving money on the table.
In this context, managing your store can quickly become a full-time job, which is a big reason why some businesses outsource that work to a dedicated agency.
So, you may ask, when’s the right time to take the step forward and hand over your Amazon account management to a team of experts?
Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer for this—it all depends on your industry, competition, and revenue goals. But to help you better assess your needs, let’s take a look at what’s required to manage and optimize a successful Amazon store and whether outsourcing can help.
DIY Amazon Account Management – The Pros and Cons
Keeping your Amazon account management in-house not only gives you control over your business but allows your team to focus 100% on your brand since everyone is familiar with your products and values. However, putting together a dream team and supporting them while learning the ups and downs of selling on Amazon is rarely a breeze.
Setting up and managing an Amazon account requires significant time and financial resources. The initial account registration, learning about fees, and calculating margins are just the tip of the iceberg.
If you still haven’t, you may have to apply for and ungate restricted product categories, enroll in Brand Registry and build a business model around Amazon’s philosophy and best practices—and the latter alone can take years!
An Amazon store rarely brings passive income. Once you get over the initial effort and learning curve, maintenance and optimization will continue to keep your team busy. To stay relevant in a highly competitive marketplace, they must work on fulfillment, product pages, images, and sales copy, among other things that keep the wheels running.
Moreover, as your business grows, you have to hire more people and invest in ongoing training, so your staff is always up-to-date about trends and rules. When analyzing your Amazon results, remember to evaluate the efforts that generate them!
- How much time does your team spend trying to make things work and fixing errors?
- How much money do you lose on unsuccessful strategies?
- How fast do your PPC campaigns become costly and inefficient?
- How much does a less-than-perfect customer experience cost your brand?
- How many more sales could you make if less trial and error was involved in this process?
At the end of the day, what you think you might save by having an in-house team manage your Amazon store can quickly end up costing you both financial resources and opportunities.
Reasons to Outsource Amazon Store Management
Working with a team of experts can help you leverage someone else’s experience with the Amazon marketplace to optimize your store, streamline your operations, and deliver a better shopping experience for your customers. In other words, you trade control for smaller costs and increased revenue.
Plus, you get peace of mind, as you’ll no longer have to worry about keeping up with Amazon market changes and the ongoing influence of customer expectations.
Why can Amazon consultants get better results than your internal team?
- Data
- Tools
- Experience
1. Data
Amazon consultants have access to multiple vendors’ analytics, so they make documented, data-driven decisions for store optimization and advertising. That’s because they work with numerous companies across more than one industry, which gives them insights from multiple sources. This way, they can keep an eye on the marketplace dynamics and even anticipate trends.
You, on the other hand, can only work with your data and analytics, which can give you plenty of information, but often not enough to see the bigger picture.
2. Tools
Amazon consultants spend years refining their processes, so they’re equipped to make the best management decisions to positively impact a client’s bottom line. That includes finding and utilizing the best software and tools on the market for those tasks that your team might do manually or with free software available online.
They test, select and optimize the best tools for everything they do daily, from keyword research to setting algorithms that optimize bid amounts.
3. Experience
Amazon consultants spend years fixing problems and growing sales for their clients. They know how to identify and eliminate bottlenecks before someone with less experience in the field becomes aware of their existence.
So, if things aren’t going as planned in trying to grow the sales on your Amazon account, an expert would immediately see the problem and develop a tailored solution to make sure you don’t lose business opportunities.
When Is The Right Time to Hire Out?
It all depends on your brand and company goals. As you know by now, Amazon fees can cut into your margin substantially, and the costs of trial and error reduce profitability even further.
Start with an analysis of your current efforts to identify the areas of your Amazon business that cost you the most. Track how you spend the money and how much each technique pays off. Calculate how much training and experimentation cost you month after month to see whether you can optimize the process to attract more clients with fewer expenses.
Don’t know where to start? This handy checklist covers the important elements inherent to setting up, managing, and optimizing a successful Amazon store. Whether you’re doing most things on the list or not, or simply seeing a low return on investment for those you are, it might be worth talking to an expert.
