As a brand on Amazon, you have several things to track at once. How do you provide a stellar experience and track orders without getting overwhelmed?
If you’re not sure where to start when it comes to running a successful brand on Amazon, implementing these best practices can help you get a head start.
Sell a High-Quality Product
The best place for you to start building your brand is by offering a high-quality product. When your customers know they can count on your product to be of good quality, they’ll want to come back for more. Sound quality also makes a difference when it comes to product reviews.
If a product is too low quality, Amazon can take disciplinary action against your brand and your product. Source your products and product components from reputable sellers and keep documentation of your vendors. If you have safety concerns, take them up with your vendors.
Amazon requires you to ship the products listed on your page. If they don’t match exactly, they have the authority to take disciplinary action against you as well.
Utilize Seller Central and Other Amazon Resources
Amazon has provided dozens of resources for sellers to promote their products. Most of those resources are accessible through Seller Central. Amazon offers Seller Central to help you manage all aspects of your account. Add product information, update your inventory, manage orders, payments, and more through this platform.
Amazon also has an extensive user knowledge base that provides support to sellers on issues they don’t know how to address. Use this knowledge base any time you have questions, as getting an answer straight from Amazon is going to help you more than information from a third party.
Create a Brand Control Plan
Seller Central offers several ways for you to control your brand and promote it. But what good are those features without a plan to enact them?
Amazon Advertising helps you promote your products and control what ads customers encounter when searching for terms relating to your brand and items.
If you aren’t sure where to start, Charmac can help you create and maintain a brand control plan on Amazon. We understand the challenges of selling on Amazon and can save you hours of Googling and watching YouTube videos to try to get traction in the market. We’ll create a brand control plan for you and manage it, so you don’t have to. We offer free consultations, so you can understand what is being provided before committing.
Use Fulfillment By Amazon for Shipping and Handling Control
Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) outsources your products to Amazon to pack and ship for you.
All you have to do is prepare your products so they’re ready for e-commerce. Then ship your products to Amazon. From there, Amazon will manage customer questions, refunds, and returns as well, so you don’t have to worry about providing customer support either.
FBA also comes with fast and free shipping for Prime Customers. Customers will receive tracking info from Amazon, so they can check and see where their products are at any given moment.
[bctt tweet=”When using Fulfillment by Amazon, they will manage customer questions, refunds, and returns for you.”]
Prioritize Accuracy Every Time
It’s better to complete your order correctly the first time than it is to do it quickly and then have to do it again because you didn’t do something right.
By taking the time to ensure your orders are accurate upfront, you’re saving your team a considerable amount of work later. It’s more difficult to untangle incorrect orders than it is to get it right the first time.
If you’re not sure how you’re going to ensure accuracy in your orders, create a checklist. Have your team go through specific steps with each order.
You can also have Amazon take care of your orders by using FBA. That way, they are in charge of ensuring accuracy and will take the fall if something isn’t correct.
Check Your Account at Least Once Daily
Amazon has no guarantees of when someone will order one of your products. Missing an order by even a day can lead to you missing deadlines, and getting complaints on the platform. Depending on how much product you’re selling, you may want to check several times a day.
Seller Central has a Manage Orders page that tells you when things have been ordered within the minute. While Amazon does send you sold email notifications, these can be delayed and may not reach you by the time you need to ship your items.
Send Shipping Confirmations
If you decide not to go with FBA, you’ll have to manage your packing and shipping on your own. Use tracking numbers and send them along with a shipping confirmation. That way, your customers will know when they can expect their items to arrive. They can also monitor the package as it travels.
Offer a Stellar Customer Experience
Amazon prioritizes buyers on the platform. Everything the company does is for the benefit of the buyer. That’s how they make money. It’s how they’ve built a monopoly in the online shopping industry. They want customers to have the best experience possible, so they’ll keep coming back and making more purchases.
Because of that, Amazon expects you to represent your brand well on the platform. They expect you to be customer-centric since that’s what they value, and they are allowing you to use the platform they’ve built.
You’ll want to dedicate several employees to handling customer experience. These people will be the first ones to be contacted when your customers have issues and will be the customer-facing representations of your company.
Manage Your Inventory Regularly
If you don’t know what all you have in your inventory, there’s no way you can guarantee a specific amount of your product to your buyers.
If you are using FBA, they should manage your inventory for you. They will let you know when you’re running low on specific items, and when you need to send in more product.
If you’re not using FBA, you’ll need to be more vigilant in tracking your inventory. Set up a more automated system so that you will stay ahead of your product needs. It’s not going to look good for you if you run out of products and only discover that after a customer is relying on you to deliver. Once you get to a certain level, it’s time to reorder from your vendors and restock.
These best practices were created to help you manage all aspects of your business. Together, they paint a picture of the different areas you’ll need to work on and maintain. Representing your brand on Amazon can be a full-time job. Charmac can help you manage some of the related aspects so you can get back to developing your product and spending time on the things you know you already do well.
