Every Amazon Seller Must Avoid These Mistakes At All Costs

So, you’re a newcomer who is eager to leverage the benefits of Amazon to promote your business. Or you’re a veteran Amazon seller who just can’t ace that top spot in the search results. At some point, dealing in an enormous E-commerce marketplace such as Amazon becomes quite challenging and you’re bound to make certain mistakes on the way. And mind you, these errors can harm the position of your business on Amazon – both literally and figuratively. While it is implied that Amazon sellers duly comply with the platform’s conditions and guidelines, there are still some aspects that often miss the eye. With that in mind, we have revealed some of the most common mistakes that Amazon sellers make (especially the beginners) and how to avoid them.

1. Ignoring The Competition

One of the primary requisites for you as an Amazon seller is doing thorough product and competitor research. This applies to reviewing competitor keywords and product niches.

Owing to their negligence, many sellers pick a highly competitive product niche and they end up deep down in Amazon’s jungle of products. This is because the platform is already dominated by industry-leaders with millions in revenue.

Choose your preferred niche very wisely to avoid a conflict with the big game players. Focus on keywords that might enable an escape hatch to the top of search results for your newly-launched product.

 Also, make sure your product’s USPs are easily and clearly identified so that the customers can easily distinguish your product from your competitors.

2. Poor Product Listing Optimization

The most important selling point of your business on Amazon is your product listings. Customers on Amazon base their purchasing decisions majorly on the elements of the product listing. And if they aren’t optimized appropriately, you risk losing a significant number of customers to your top rivals.

Always make sure that your product listing is rich with relevant keywords for your business to win the search results battle.

Customers are interested in knowing whether your product can resolve their pain points. Be sure to keep your features and product description highly informative, precise, and consumer-centric. Demonstrate high-quality lifestyle images of your product to educate the audience about its utility and USPs.

Missing out on any of these points can result in a shoddy Amazon product listing and your conversion rates taking a huge blow.

3. Careless Product Launch

As an Amazon seller, even if you successfully get through the first two points, your business’s performance still largely depends on getting the product launch right.

Amazon product launch is more like a long marathon rather than a short sprint race. It is much more than just designing your product listing and publishing it on the platform. As an Amazon seller, it is your job to make your product visible to the audience in a truer sense.

An adequate product launch comprises several elements in succession such as social media promotion, discounts and/or giveaways, Amazon Sponsored Product campaign, and more. You must adopt a ‘loud and clear’ approach to let the audience know about your product as well as your brand.

 Also, keep an eye out on the performance metrics of your product listing and optimize it accordingly.

4. Turning A Blind Eye To Customer Service

The cornerstone of a successful business is impeccable customer service. And the same holds true for your company’s performance on an E-commerce marketplace like Amazon.

More than pricing, customers value how companies and sellers treat them. In a digital sense, it’s the smooth and enhanced customer experience that turns out to be the deciding factor for a buyer.

Most sellers prefer to sell their products through Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) and let the E-commerce giant take care of the customer service. Should you choose to do it by yourself then you must be prepared to tackle any and all the problems that your customers might have.

Time is of paramount importance here. If you fail to resolve issues and deliver swiftly, your customers will undeniably resort to your rivals in hopes of better customer service.

This brings us to the next point, which is

5. Untimely Fulfillment of Orders

This is a key factor in determining the quality of customer experience served by an Amazon seller. Customers shop at Amazon for two major reasons: (a) Convenience and (b) Prompt delivery. As an Amazon seller, your top priority must be delivering the products right on time or even better, before the due date. (Customers love early surprises)

If you decide to take on the responsibility of the logistics on yourself, make sure that you back your business with timely deliveries. You obviously wouldn’t want your customers to give you negative feedback, right?

An easier alternative is to trust FBA with your product deliveries as they are known for their quick and efficient fulfillment services.

6. Overlooking The Benefits of FBA

If there’s one thing that easily draws the customers’ attention to your product, it’s the shipping prices.

As a seller on Amazon, it is only natural that your pricing decisions revolve around the profit margin. At the same time, customers are overwhelmed when confronted with high shipping charges.

It is, therefore, necessary to emphasize the shipping charges in your pricing equation. You can get in touch with various logistics partners and choose the option that aligns perfectly with your pricing goals.

If not, you can always rely on FBA with their cost-effective shipping services. On top of that, partnering with FBA can unlock several benefits for your brand such as Amazon Prime shipping and hassle-free customer service.

7. Getting Inventory Management Wrong

For an Amazon seller, having a product out-of-stock is the business equivalent of enduring a heavy nightmare.

 An out-of-stock product listing can adversely affect the SEO efforts of your company, thereby rendering the listing invisible for the customers. Besides, the threat of losing your valuable buyers to your competitors always looms large.

You can avoid getting your inventory management all wrong by cultivating a practice of frequently reviewing its levels. There are numerous software in the market that can assist you with keeping an accurate track of your Amazon inventory.

8. Unplanned Amazon PPC Campaigns

This point applies more to the newbie Amazon sellers. The Amazon Sponsored Products campaigns can work as a gold mine for the sellers but only when executed to perfection.

There’s more to the Amazon PPC campaigns than meets the normal eye. Amazon sellers, especially beginners, need to cautiously consider all the aspects before embarking on the exciting world of Amazon advertising.

 The Amazon PPC campaigns are characterized by heavy optimization and constant supervision. Setting up an ad campaign without a proper plan in place can result in negative ROI and your business will end up incurring a major monetary loss.

All Things Considered, Even A Single Apology To Amazon Can Be Very Costly

Some of the seller mistakes can hit your sales more than the others but all of these errors can significantly undermine your Amazon seller status. As a seller, you can always be alert to Amazon's terms & policies and get ahead of all the potential seller mistakes.

Or you can simply team up with YourSeller to manage and grow your business on Amazon without any hassle. Our certified Amazon experts never fail to keep up with the latest trends to craft an ideal Amazon optimization strategy for your business.