No one is insured from running out of the stock problem. It happens to fresh Amazon FBA sellers who aren’t used to the system yet and experienced platform users who weren’t prepared for a very active season. The list of the reasons goes on, and the solution is always the same — to get back in stock as soon as possible.
Unfortunately, there are consequences. For instance, Amazon Algorithm punishes those who run out of stock frequently or even once and decreases their ranking because it is recognized as customers having low interest in the product. So what could you do when your product gets back in stock, and what actions could you take to return the deserved placements?
Getting Close to Running Out of Stock
If you aren’t out of stock yet, but very close, try to increase the product price slowly and look what happens. The idea behind this action is to minimize the time you’ll be out of stock and not decrease sales velocity enormously. With a higher price, you’ll get fewer sales and save some time until the stock is back.
Strategy 1: Listing and Product Detail Page Optimization
The goal after being out of stock is to rank higher for relevant keywords as soon as possible. It is likely, that profitability won’t be your priority until ranking higher again. Moreover, returning to a “big game” requires investments.
When the product is out of stock for any period, you are not getting traffic, clicks, adds to card, conversions, etc. Because Amazon Algorithm builds the ranking based on the relevancy, activity on the product detail page, customers satisfaction, and conversion rate, it takes some work and time to start ranking back up.
In order to improve all mentioned criteria that influence Amazon Algorithm, you need to optimize your listing and product detail page. Primarily, it’s essential for relevancy and attracting more traffic.
Listing and product detail page optimization includes the following points:
- Keyword Optimization
Keyword harvesting is a repetitive process for all Amazon sellers because keyword trends are changing very fast. Even if you have no problems with stock, monitor keywords’ modifications constantly to display your product listing to the most trending search terms and drive only relevant traffic.
When your product gets back in stock, the result you will get after this optimization is that Algorithm will recognize the activity on the listing and improve the ranking. After more traffic is driven to the product, the ranking increase will continue.
The easiest way to find trending keywords is to experiment with the product name in the Amazon search bar and Google Trends to find out which keywords target the most in search results.
- High-Quality Images and Video
As you’re interested in all sorts of activities on the product detail page to turn Amazon’s attention to the product and prove that the product will be successful, don’t be afraid to invest in impressive pictures and video.
Centralize products in the pictures and video, include relevant information, and create only high-quality content. Pay attention to A+ content as well. It refers to real-life situations where your product can be used. Such content encourages customers to purchase products.
- Bullet Points, Descriptions, Customer Reviews
First of all, written content must be helpful for customers who want to understand whether the item they’re planning to buy fits their expectations or any other requirements. Irrelevant information raises doubts about the product and brand image. Add product all measures, color, functions, etc.
Secondly, don’t forget to include best-performing keywords in the title, bullet points, and description so that the product will be more relevant to these keywords.
Finally, when sales start to pick up again, track the number of reviews you receive, and eliminate problems described in negative reviews. Amazon promotes thriving businesses that satisfy customer needs.
Strategy 2: Amazon PPC Advertising
As we already know, ranking improves along with high activity on the product detail page and more driven traffic. The last one gets fulfilled with PPC advertising on Amazon. PPC advertising increases brand and product visibility, attracts customers’ attention to the products and secures business owners from irrelevant visitors.
PPC ads with the proper campaign structure also boost brand profitability, but profit isn’t the priority after being out of stock.
- Optimize PPC advertising after getting your items back in stock, but turn it off when you’re out of stock. At this time, ads are unnecessary.
- Make sure you target proper keywords for the ads. Irrelevant traffic is a waste of budget.
- Don’t be scared to increase bids when your product ranks not as high as you want, but not extremely.
- Launch all types of PPC advertising to develop a brand and product awareness, “steal” buyers’ attention from competitors, and maximize products’ presence on the search result page.
Strategy 3: External Advertising
External advertising is the best tool to promote products and maximize the amount of driven traffic. Big plus: Amazon sees external traffic as organic traffic, unlike internal ads. That’s why external traffic is directly influencing organic ranking.
The rule is simple:
- Analyze popular third-party platforms like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, etc.
- Launch relevant ads.
- Monitor the results.
Amazon encourages sellers’ wish to lead customers from different websites. That’s why Amazon recently introduced to users Amazon Attribution. This tool allows sellers to track customers’ activity that came from external platforms. Amazon Attribution is available only for registered Amazon brands.
Case Study
Let’s look at the Profit Whales case conducted with the Amazon brand that was out of stock since the beginning of November. The graph below illustrates the change in Best Seller Rank positioning over the year.
It took time until February to solve the problem with stock, and until April, return the leading positions with the help of combining the strategies described above.
Conclusion
Either you have too much inventory and pay an additional fee for it, or at some point, you run out of stock. Because every Amazon seller runs out of stock eventually, it’s just a part of the business. Especially during the pandemic, when customers switch to online shopping and sales data from previous years isn’t helpful anymore, planning stock is complicated.
The most effective way to high positions in the Amazon ranking is to combine all the aforementioned strategies. Nevertheless, analyze your budget to understand what strategy fits you the most and apply it to succeed.
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