7 Strategies for Small Business Owners Selling Products on Amazon

By Larry Alton

Selling on Amazon can be a lucrative endeavor for small businesses looking to cash in on some of Amazon’s 168 million monthly visitors. Outpacing even hugely popular retail websites like eBay in terms of traffic and sales, Amazon has grown to be the largest and most commonly utilized marketplace on the web -- and the company makes it easy for other businesses to get involved on the platform.

Unfortunately, simply signing up, listing your products, and hoping for the best isn’t enough. The competition is vicious, and if you’re going to be successful, you’ll have to know the tips and tricks that will allow you to stand out.

These seven strategies will give you a fighting chance at success in the gigantic world of Amazon selling:

1. Make Sure a Merchant Account Will Be Worth It. An Amazon Merchant Account costs $39.99 a month. There also are a handful of other selling fees, but that subscription will net you virtually unlimited sales. By comparison, selling as an individual costs $0.99 per sale, plus any other selling fees you might incur.

According to Amazon, if you’re going to be selling more than 40 items per month, that $39.99 “unlimited” price is going to be worth it. If you’re just getting started, or if you don’t plan on selling that many items, it may not be in your best interest to commit to such an account. If this is the case, get your feet wet with an Individual seller account, learn the ropes, and then upgrade when you feel comfortable, or when your sales start to exceed the $39.99 threshold.

2. Understand That Price Competition Is Fierce. You want to sell on Amazon because it’s such a popular platform -- and almost every other business owner in the world has had the same idea. That means you’re going to be competing with hundreds, if not thousands of competitors selling similar or identical products to yours, some of which are capable of producing or distributing at much lower rates than you. Some may even slash their prices to the point where they lose money just to get an increase in traffic or online visibility.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t be competitive, but you do have to be prepared for the likelihood that your planned price point will probably be undercut. As such, you’ll have to find alternative ways to make your product more appealing.

3. Find a Way To Make Your Products Unique. Rather than trying to compete directly with your competition by listing an identical product, you can circumvent the entire process and list items that are wholly unique to you. Amazon groups items by title, so if you’re selling the same product as a competitor with a higher rank and a lower price point, you’re going to get buried and unseen in the results.

On the other hand, if you list a product nobody else is selling, you’ll be the only item to pop up when users search for it. This is easier said than done, since almost anything you can imagine is already on Amazon, but doing the research and finding a unique way to name or position your products will give you a huge leg up on the competition.

4. Create Synergy Between Your Seller Account and Social Profiles. Having a seller account by itself can be valuable, especially if you invest a lot of time and effort into it, but you’re missing out on a lot of potential reach if you don’t establish synergy between your Amazon account and your company’s social media profiles. Social media is an outlet to the world, giving you a broadcast channel that can exponentially surpass the visibility limits of Amazon. If you find yourself getting buried in the mix, or if you just want to give an extra boost to some of your products, try pushing them on your social channels.

Of course, this is only effective if you take the time to build a social following, but synergy works both ways. As you’re selling, take every opportunity to lead your Amazon customers and visitors back to your social pages. For example, you could send a thank-you email to your purchasers with a request to find you on Facebook, or include your social information with the product when you send it out.

5. Integrate Amazon Into Your E-Commerce Platform. If you’re thinking about selling on Amazon, chances are you already have an e-commerce platform. And since Amazon offers an open API to sellers, you can easily integrate all your Amazon products into your existing e-commerce platform. Users will be able to find, review, and even purchase Amazon products on your unique storefront, giving them an easier, more familiar experience without alienating them from the domain of your online brand.

If you don’t already have an e-commerce platform, it might be worth designing and building one so you have an off-Amazon location for your potential customers to make purchases. This is especially effective if coupled with a content marketing strategy, which can help you improve your search visibility and attract organic traffic.

6. Make Your Customers Feel Special. This goes without saying for any seller, regardless of whether or not they’re on Amazon, but taking the time to give your customers a great experience will go a long way in encouraging repeat traffic. Include some sort of surprise or thank-you with your products when they ship out, such as a discount for a future order or an extra small gift. Additionally, you’ll want to do an audit of your customer service department, and step things up to ensure any inquiries are addressed promptly, personally, and appropriately. Doing this will get you great reviews, which will attract more new buyers in addition to reinforcing the great experiences of your existing buyers.

7. Optimize Your Product Postings. By now, most people are familiar with search engine optimization (SEO) as it relates to ranking in Google searches, but it’s also possible to optimize your products and your seller account to increase your rank and visibility in Amazon searches.

There are two types of factors that Amazon takes into consideration when calculating rank for a given search phrase: performance and relevance. Performance factors have to do with how well you’ve done in the past and how likely you will be successful with new purchases — including how much you’ve sold previously, whether or not your product has a full description and image, how your price compares to others, and your average product rating. Essentially, you can improve your search rank on Amazon by improving your history and making your products more sellable to end users.

Relevance factors are a bit more tricky, and have to do with how relevant your product is to a given query. You can make your product more relevant by having a full, descriptive product title (including both a brand name and an accurate product descriptor), detailed bullet points that describe the product in the product description field, and appropriately filled out “search terms.” Keep in mind that your search terms on Amazon should include any individual words that could apply to your product — don’t try to group them into keyword phrases like you would for Google keyword searches.

Selling on Amazon is like any other marketing strategy. It requires patience, commitment, and ongoing analysis and adjustments before you start to see results. But if you apply these strategies to your campaign from the beginning, you’ll have a nice head start on the competition in terms of visibility and ultimately, sales.