As peak shopping periods like Black Friday get closer, there is no time to waste. This is the time you should start looking at your big-ticket items and consider how best to promote them.
It’s when you develop ad campaigns with creative visuals that showcase your most attractive offers. And if you’re serious about having a successful Black Friday, it’s the moment you optimize your Amazon product data feed, too.
While the company sells plenty of its own merchandise to eCommerce buyers, for example, as many as 60% of paid units are sold on Amazon by third-party merchants across a wide range of categories.
The size of the marketplace indeed means there is plenty of competition on Amazon. However, the company continues to offer innovations that help other brands stand out. This includes the “Inspire” feed introduced in late 2022, as well as product discovery tools based on augmented reality and visual search.
How to better list your products on Amazon Marketplace
Much like other online marketplaces, getting products listed on Amazon involves some basic steps.
You’ll need to choose the appropriate product category, determine your pricing strategy, select a fulfillment method, and use keywords Amazon visitors will likely key into the search bar.
Some of these steps will involve some manual effort, but to scale effectively and maximize your eCommerce sales opportunities, you’ll also want to harness the power of automation for your Amazon product data feeds.
Benefits of having an optimized Amazon product data feed
Amazon’s marketplace customers have the same expectations as those who discover your brand through your website or any other channel. They want to see accurate product listings, up to date, and reflect what’s available for purchase.
As you begin to list more products on Amazon, however, maintaining the quality of your data can become incredibly difficult. Updating pricing, available inventory, and other aspects of hundreds of listings or more isn’t a great use of employees’ time.
Beyond taking those chores away, the benefits of automating your Amazon product data feeds include:
1. Listings that do your products justice
When consumers walk into a physical store, you only get one chance to make a first impression. That’s why retailers often put out their best products on a table or rack where discerning customers can notice all the key details.
The same principle applies to online product listings. Your Amazon product data feed should be optimized to ensure you’re providing everything from product titles, descriptions, and images that convert visitors into buyers.
2. Product information customers can trust
Without automation, an Amazon product data feed might only be updated once every few days. That poses a risk that customers will not realize the price of an item they’re considering has changed, or that it’s temporarily out of stock.
Your goal should be to provide real-time updates that reflect the current state of every product in your inventory. That way, you can more easily offer promotions and discounts that drive more activity during periods like Black Friday.
3. Can’t-miss visibility in Amazon search results
Much like when they’re looking up information on Google, many consumers probably don’t want to go past the first page of results when they’re searching on Amazon.
When you put in the work upfront to research the right keywords, an Amazon product data feed will maximize the likelihood your items will rank higher than competitors. And of course, with its one-click buy button, Amazon makes it easy for customers to take the next step when they find what they want.
4. Access to a global market
Unlike the limitations of a physical storefront, eCommerce allows sellers to transcend borders and other geographic boundaries. This is especially true on Amazon, which enjoys billions in sales in markets such as the U.K., Germany, and Japan.
No matter where they’re based, though, your customers should have a consistent experience in terms of the level of detail and timeliness of the data in your listings. Automating your product feed on Amazon will ensure that, even if the same customer decides to browse across more than one Amazon regional site.
5. An end to constant inventory worries
It may sound like a nice problem to have, but when a product proves more popular than expected there can be more disappointed customers than those feeling satisfied. Running out of stock can hurt your reputation as a brand, both with customers and Amazon itself (more on that later in this post).
Think of your product data feed as a trusted assistant who makes managing inventory levels both easy and efficient. Stock getting low? You can set an alert to be notified and take action before it’s too late.
6. Out-price the competition
Depending on the product category, there may be little to truly differentiate your brand from your rivals, other than what you’re asking customers to pay.
Instead of treating this as a race to the bottom in terms of revenue, however, you can use Amazon’s Repricing tool or your analytics to determine what will make the most sense for your business.
Then, when you’re ready, you can use your Amazon product data feed to get new prices up with speed, especially amid moments like Black Friday when you know there are likely a lot of people browsing the marketplace for a deal.
7. A stronger partnership with Amazon
Amazon has to manage a slew of seller relationships, and its priority is understandably to ensure its marketplace meets the highest quality standards.
If your listings aren’t properly formatted, for example, or are missing key attributes, it can jeopardize your brand’s future in Amazon’s marketplace.
This is another example of where relying on manual, human effort doesn’t make sense. A product data feed optimized for Amazon reduces the risk of errors. That not only means you’ll avoid being suspended from Amazon’s marketplace program; you could become one of its most trusted eCommerce partners.
8. Greater capabilities to execute data-driven decision-making
Amazon wants its sellers to share its customer-obsessed approach to eCommerce. That’s why the company offers analytics tools that let them track their performance. Having the data is only the first step, though.
As you get a better understanding of what’s selling and why, you can begin to make tweaks to your listings that will supercharge your conversion rate. It might be adding more details to a single product listing, offering a promotion based on a possible best-seller or simply ensuring you hold onto the right level of inventory for seasonal products.
9. An accelerated path to eCommerce expansion
Creating an Amazon product data feed isn’t an isolated IT project that takes up time and resources. It represents the beginning of a multi-channel sales strategy that can continue to offer dividends.
With your product data optimized, for instance, you can begin to look at other digital channels that are likely to attract your target customers.
This can include social media channels like TikTok, for instance, or even one of the growing number of online marketplaces being offered by brands that are already household names, such as Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s.
10. A customer experience that builds brand loyalty
Customers who initially discover your brand on Amazon’s marketplace may decide to visit your website to learn more. They might pay greater attention when your products show up on Instagram or Facebook. Some will even opt-in to receive your e-mail newsletter for additional promotions and discounts.
The product data feed you set up on Amazon will let you build a relationship with these customers based on a positive experience, where they find what they want and get it sent their way. When they’re satisfied, it’s not just Amazon that benefits – your brand will too.
How to create an Amazon product data feed
Setting up an Amazon product data field involves the following:
- Open an Amazon seller central account so you have access to send your product data feed to the marketplace. You’ll need to provide a credit card, tax identification information, and basic business information such as your business name, address, and contact details.
- Link your business bank account to your brand’s Amazon seller account.
- Choose the local marketplaces Amazon operates that are most relevant to your business in terms of your target customers.
- Choose your preferred billing plan – unless you’re selling as an individual this will be a professional plan aimed at corporate entities for a nominal monthly fee.
- Complete your tax interview – Amazon needs to verify the professional status of your business.
- Enter basic product information – This is where you can clarify whether you’re the manufacturer of the products you’re selling or whether you’re reselling on an OEM’s behalf. You’ll also quantify the volume of products you’ll be selling on Amazon and whether or not you use UPC codes for your products.
- Add all the necessary data attributes such as product title, category, SKU, price, images, and URL of each item. Don’t forget critical details such as shipping costs if you’re not using Amazon’s fulfillment service. Be as detailed as possible to provide the best experience for Amazon customers.
- Upload your inventory file: Within your Amazon seller account you’ll visit the inventory page and deliver the content in either text or XML format.
Be prepared to make changes to this feed as you manage your stock levels, customer demand, and many other factors.
Managing your Amazon product data feed with Highstreet.io
There’s no need to tackle the complications of setting up an Amazon product data feed on your own. Highstreet.io has years of experience helping brands reduce their time to integrate with Amazon’s marketplace and focus on revenue generation.
Reach out to us to learn more about the marketplace integration services we provide. We can offer a demo that will show you what’s possible, and set you up for more sales on Amazon today.
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