Seven Ways to Make the Most of Your Amazon Storefront

Recently, we shared the details about Amazon Storefront guidelines and how to build an Amazon brand store. However, as with most parts of managing an Amazon business, there is always more to be done. 

Leveraging an Amazon shop to support your growth requires continuous focus and an understanding of all the tools available. If you’ve already launched your Amazon Storefront, don’t overlook these seven ways to take advantage of everything it can offer your company. 

#1 Tell your brand’s story

E-commerce success doesn’t just come from selling products online, it also requires selling your brand to customers in a way that strengthens satisfaction and encourages loyalty. You want to relate to your customers as people, not just treat them as numbers on a spreadsheet. 

Creating an Amazon Storefront is an incredible opportunity to raise brand awareness among shoppers, which can lead to more sales. Customers who connect emotionally with a brand name typically have a higher lifetime value. And according to Deloitte research, 80 percent of consumers would pay more for products if the company committed itself to being socially responsible, environmentally responsible, and/or paying higher wages.

While there are several ways to share the story of your brand via an Amazon Store, it all starts with clear and concise writing. From the copy on the landing page to the bullet points on each product page, the style and tone should enhance your brand, not compete with it. One way to ensure successful copywriting across all your selling channels is to create a style guide that can help copywriters maintain a consistent voice. 

The images on your product pages and your Amazon store should reinforce your brand story. It’s not just a matter of what these images depict, but how. Professionally shot and art-directed images – by people fully briefed on your brand narrative–will help ensure your pictures do more than just look good but say something too. From the hero image at the top of your brand store to the photos in your slideshows and galleries, the choices of subject matter, angle, lighting, color, etc. should be driven by your brand story.

Nothing packs a storytelling punch quite like video. The rise of YouTube and all the streaming video services make that point crystal clear. As you plan out your Amazon Storefront, lean on video’s particular power to engage people emotionally to showcase your brand story and stand out. When vetting video firms to help you create content, be sure that they have proven storytelling chops. Unfortunately, not all video scriptwriters, directors and producers can deliver on this critical front.

#2 Dive into the data

One of the greatest benefits of opening an Amazon Storefront is the amount of data that becomes available to an Amazon seller. Joining the Brand Registry, a necessary first step to an Amazon Store, provides access to the Brand Analytics Dashboard. Furthermore, creating a Storefront leads to Store Insights about the shop’s performance. 

Strengthening your brand on Amazon and making it easier for shoppers to navigate your online shop aren’t the only reasons to build an Amazon Storefront. This invaluable tool also allows your company to access data that you wouldn’t otherwise be available. Once your online store is active on Amazon, you’ll be able to see the platform’s Store Insights and have a glimpse into the habits and sales conversions originating from visitors to your stores. 

Amazon Store insights also track how visitors are finding the online store. In some cases, the accuracy of this data will depend on your ability to utilize source tags within your digital marketing plan, including in Amazon sponsored ads. Data on the sources of your Store’s visitors can help a company evaluate current marketing efforts and provide direction for new initiatives. 

While Store Insights are specific to the performance of your Storefront, it’s not the only data accessible to Amazon brand owners. Participation in the Amazon Brand Registry program opens the door to Amazon’s Brand Analytics, making even more relevant information available to guide your decision-making.  

The data provided to a brand owner via the Brand Analytics dashboard comes via four types of reports. These include Amazon Search Terms, Market Basket Analysis, Item Comparison and Alternate Purchase Behavior, and Demographics. 

#3 Optimize your listings

Amazon product listings are also fundamental to your Amazon Storefront’s effectiveness. After all, they are the reason an Amazon shopper visits your brand store. While adding products is relatively simple, creating compelling product listings is much more challenging. Often, it hinges on familiarity with the process, an understanding of what Amazon’s algorithm values most, and careful attention to the requirements for every product detail page. Even steps as intuitive as writing the listing title come with nuances that can trip up inexperienced sellers.

You should describe your products with clarity and precision. A well-executed SEO plan calls for integrating keywords into your Amazon product listings and avoiding the wrong search terms that could land your product in the results of an irrelevant search and tank your conversions. The proper keywords should be placed strategically throughout your title, bullets and product description. But they also need to be added to the backend of your listing via Seller Central. Thorough research on your product category and competitors can help you develop a list of specific, long-tail keywords and effective short-tail keywords to include. 

It’s also essential to understand the value of Amazon A+ Content. It’s your chance to provide fantastic product details for your product listing pages, integrating high-quality images, comparison charts, and more. In a world of e-commerce often driven by social media, shoppers now expect enhanced brand content that exhibits personalized service, captivating content, and a flawless user experience. 

Consider A+ Content necessary to showcase your products in the best ways possible. Every Amazon product image and the words in each description should complement your website and social media, in addition to connecting with your customers. Most importantly, you must communicate your product’s unique advantages over the competition and offer customers a satisfying shopping experience on the Amazon marketplace that creates loyalty.

#4 Create a comprehensive campaign

Creating an Amazon Storefront should not be an isolated tactic. Instead, it needs to be part of a broader campaign to develop followers and strengthen your brand. Consider ways to drive traffic to your Amazon shop using your other brand assets, such as social media followers, digital advertising or a Sponsored Brands campaign. 

Take advantage of tagged source links when promoting your store on other advertising channels, whether social media platforms, email marketing or elsewhere. Capitalize on the new data sources that come from Brand Registry and Store Insights to inform your digital advertising campaign. Strategies such as retargeting customers who visit your products or competing listings can be much more effective than trying to convert shoppers who haven’t shown a previous interest in your items. 

Using these strategies can make your Amazon Storefront’s successes part of a comprehensive campaign that can help grow your business exponentially. Remember that just because Amazon is where your sales are happening, it’s not the only place to engage customers. All aspects of your branding and advertising should support your Amazon Store, and your presence on Amazon needs to contribute to your overall brand in return. Fortunately, utilizing an Amazon Storefront efficiently can help you do exactly that. 

#5 Keep it organized

One of the most critical aspects of an effective Amazon Store is organization. In addition to telling the story behind your products, a brand store should improve a customer’s shopping experience on the Amazon platform, not make it more complicated. You also want to create a structure that will introduce shoppers to new products that complement the ones they are already familiar with. 

In many cases, the navigation within your Amazon Storefront should be set up similarly to your direct-to-consumer site, assuming it is already rooted in how consumers shop your products. We recommend setting up the navigation by need or “job to be done.” This approach prioritizes the perspective of customers who typically shop based on a problem they are trying to solve. 

Regardless of the product category, the design needs to be simple and organized. One of the quickest ways to lose potential customers is by presenting them with a confusing layout that frustrates them and makes finding products difficult. Remember that shoppers rely on mobile devices more than ever. You should navigate your brand store from multiple browsers to spot unanticipated challenges that users may face under these different circumstances. 

Opt for simple naming conventions for your Store’s pages rather than trying to cram descriptive details into each one. Save those long-tail keyword efforts for your product listings. It’s also best to create a minimum of three pages for your Amazon Store. More expansive stores make organizing products in appropriate categories easier and keep shoppers in your brand store longer, often increasing sales per visitor. 

#6 Be creative

One overlooked feature of an Amazon Storefront is its flexibility to respond to your brand’s seasonal swings or promotional efforts. Tiles, featured products and categories can be easily adjusted to reflect the changing interests of consumers during holiday periods or when certain products are in higher demand. 

Amazon brand stores even offer a “Versioning & Scheduling” option to support temporary sales. This can be used to capitalize on events such as Amazon Prime Day, Black Friday, or Cyber Monday while minimizing the disruption to your usual Storefront design and the amount of work required to adjust between versions. 

You should also consider that your product presentation within an Amazon Storefront doesn’t have to be limited to an Amazon listing. It’s important to also clearly communicate the benefits that the items you sell can provide to a purchaser. You can make these benefits a key piece of your brand messaging through endorsements from credible reviewers or informative videos. 

Similarly, Amazon Stores can be an opportunity to educate customers more broadly about your brand and introduce them to other products they may be interested in. Rather than focusing entirely on promoting each product individually, consider how the items in your inventory can complement each other and which tools within the Storefront can be used to showcase those relationships. 

#7 Stay vigilant

Much like your other e-commerce tactics, brand stores demand continuous refinement. According to Amazon, Storefronts that were updated within the past 90 days see 21 percent more repeat visitors and a 35 percent increase in sales per visitor. Those statistics mean you can’t afford to neglect your Amazon Store. So, in addition to making sure your latest products are featured appropriately into the structure, you can also monitor your Store Insights to spot problems early. 

Low daily traffic to a Store can mean visibility is lacking. Tweaking the comprehensive campaign discussed above can be one way to address this issue. Social media, off-site digital advertising and Sponsored Brands ads can all increase traffic to your Storefront. It may also be wise to confirm that the brand byline for your ASINs is correctly linked to your brand store. 

A solid flow of visitors but less than expected sales point to an issue with your products. Pricing could prevent conversion, or the path from product to cart may be too complicated. Consider revamping your product listings to include video or other assets that better communicate value or changing the tile types within the Amazon Store to those with an instant “Add to cart” button. 

Another way to ramp up sales is to identify pages that are performing well in regard to conversion but may be lacking when it comes to traffic. These are ideal opportunities to promote via Sponsored Brand campaigns that drive shoppers directly to the pages proven to move your products. Conversely, high-traffic pages with poor conversion can be adjusted to better feature the products customers are most likely to buy from the Store. 

Of course, a complete lack of traffic or sales for a specific page in your Storefront means a significant problem with your content or navigation. You may need to reconsider the strategy for that page or troubleshoot your Store from a shopper’s perspective to identify the root of the problem. 

One more way to boost Storefront success

Executing these strategies can certainly take your Amazon brand store to new levels of success. But if one or more of these suggestions seems overwhelming or beyond your expertise, there is another option to consider. A partnership with the experts at Amify can be the fastest and most efficient way to optimize every part of your Amazon business. 

Contact us today to learn why so many brand owners chose us to help them navigate the complex world of selling on Amazon. You’ll quickly see the results that keep our partnerships growing. From marketing and sales to analysis and logistics, our team is ready to show your company how to win on Amazon.