From sourcing products to figuring out shipping, from learning PPC to handling customer service, setting up an Amazon store is a Herculean effort. And after all that work, what happens if your product doesn’t sell as well as you thought it would?
Never fear: this article provides a road map that will help you improve your performance. This process, called Amazon listing optimization, includes seven survey questions you can ask today to make sure all your work pays off.
As you build your Amazon store, you’ll invest tremendous time and resources to drive traffic to it. Amazon listing optimization is the next step in the process. Once customers find your product, what can you do to keep them engaged?
Amazon listing optimization means taking a critical look at every aspect of your listings. Then, you’ll run experiments to see how the changes you make help or hinder your progress.
When you run these experiments, keep two audiences in mind:
As you optimize your listing, you need to address the needs of both these audiences. Too often, optimization strategies only take the A10 algorithm into account and ignore human behavior. That’s a big opportunity you don’t want to miss.
There are two ways to run experiments with your listing:
When you run a live split test, you rotate variants of an element of your listing over time and compare the results. For example, you might switch out your main photo or upload a new product description, then collect data over several days or weeks to figure out which version leads to more clicks and sales. You can use Amazon A/B testing tools to help automate this process or you can manually rotate your variants.
There are a few downsides to this kind of test. First, live testing requires you to have at least a few sales each day. Otherwise your test will not collect enough data to be useful. If you're a new seller, this optimization method will likely not work for you; at least not yet.
The second downside is that live tests take weeks to gather data. After all that time, results are often inconclusive. More importantly, if your new variant performs poorly you risk losing sales. A decline in sales hurts your Amazon search ranking. Be sure to tread carefully whenever you perform live tests.
When you run surveys outside of Amazon, you ask questions of a large group of people. In this survey, you show them all the variants you are considering (such as your main photo or your product description) and let the group compare each option and provide their thoughts.
The nice thing about testing outside of Amazon is you don’t make any changes to your live listing until the end. You can try lots of different ideas and improve them incrementally without risking your current sales or ranking. Only when you are confident about which variant is the right one do you update your listing.
A survey won’t take weeks to finish, either. In fact, using a tool like PickFu, most tests are complete in less than 30 minutes.
Running a survey on PickFu is easy. All you have to do is ask a question using the exact wording below, or riff on what’s there. Then, choose the people you’d like to answer your survey. For example, if you’re selling high-end wrinkle cream, you might choose women over the age of 45 who make at least $60,000/year. Another popular audience is Amazon Prime members. PickFu has over 40 targeting traits you can mix and match to create your ideal survey panel.
You can ask the following survey questions right now. Take into account the helpful tips included with each.
When you run surveys like the seven listed above, you quickly understand how shoppers react to your Amazon listing. Do they see what you intend them to see? Do they bring associations to your marketing content that you didn’t think of? As you test each element of your listing, common themes and reactions will emerge. These insights will give you a sense of how to improve your listings and ultimately, your sales.
Getting started only takes a minute, so run your own PickFu survey here!
P.S. If you ever wonder how the big fish in the FBA sea got to 7-figure status, check out the proven research and launch checklist here.
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