In final month’s publish, I described cases of giving choice to an Amazon buyer quite than one from my very own website. I hated that. It is without doubt one of the causes I scaled down my Amazon listings.
For me, customer support is paramount. It’s one factor an impartial retailer can do higher than the big box-shifters. However good service is feasible provided that the enterprise survives, which is often why retailers migrate to Amazon in a single kind or the opposite.
Nonetheless, Amazon has created a platform and promoted it so that buyers suppose they’re Amazon’s clients — market sellers are little greater than success suppliers. So when they need a repeat buy, shoppers look to Amazon and never the impartial sellers. Thus offering good service to Amazon consumers generates loyalty to Amazon, not these sellers. Always remember that. Settle for this rule or depart {the marketplace}.
The 1-percent rule
It’s doable to outlive on Amazon with one detrimental evaluate or detrimental A-Z declare. However too many will significantly cut back your order quantity. In my expertise, market sellers ought to maintain the speed of dissatisfied clients to beneath 1 p.c general. A technique of doing that is by having tons of of orders.
I just lately examine some Amazon sellers creating orders and sending free seeds to unsuspecting clients. This generated tons of of trouble-free orders, which buffeted the retailers’ statistics and prevented downside orders from exceeding 1 p.c.
I adopted an identical method that was simply as efficient. I used to promote paintbrushes on Amazon that value lower than $1 every for beneath $2. The gross sales generate little revenue, however no loss, both. I offered about 100 units a day, which created a cushion towards unreasonable clients.
Thus through the years of buying and selling on Amazon, I performed the system throughout the guidelines to make sure Amazon’s clients obtained no higher service than my very own. Sadly, there are solely so many low cost fast-selling gadgets, equivalent to paintbrushes. Different sellers ultimately copied the concept. Then Amazon itself began promoting low cost paintbrushes, undercutting us all. That’s after I started scaling again my Amazon enterprise. I didn’t wish to spend the time finding an identical (low cost) product. However actually there are many alternatives.
Going ahead
The Covid-19 pandemic is accelerating the development towards ecommerce. Amazon is nicely suited to take benefit. It’s simple to begin promoting on Amazon, and it’s simple to grasp why shoppers are interested in the corporate. Many ecommerce companies will seemingly have to promote on Amazon and different marketplaces to develop within the subsequent few years.
My recommendation? Play by Amazon’s guidelines, present glorious customer support, and don’t overlook your individual ecommerce website.
