This tool lets you set up rules that adjust your prices automatically based on what your competitors are doing and what the market wants. No more constant price-checking and manual updates.

But here’s the thing: Knowing it exists isn’t enough. You need to understand how to use it right if you want to see results.

We’ll review how Amazon’s automated pricing works and how you can make it work for you. By the end of this guide, you’ll have the know-how to fine-tune your pricing strategy and pump up those sales numbers.

Amazon’s Automated Pricing Explained

Amazon’s auto-pricing is a tool that is designed to help you keep your prices competitive without you losing sleep over it.

Here’s the scoop: You set some ground rules, and the system takes care of the rest. It watches what your competitors are up to, keeps an eye on supply and demand, and adjusts your prices accordingly.

Now, you’ve got two options:

1. Amazon’s own tool: It’s built right into the platform. Simple, straightforward, gets the job done.

2. Third-party tools: These are the souped-up versions. Think Seller Snap and our contemporaries. We offer more bells and whistles, better reporting, but yeah, at a cost.

Here’s a real-world example: Say you’re selling gadgets. You could tell the system, “If our competitor drops their price, let’s undercut them by a buck.” Boom. Done automatically.

The upside? You can move inventory faster and stay in the game without constant price-checking. The downside? Prices can get a bit wild sometimes, which might throw off some buyers.

Bottom line: This tech can be a game-changer, but you’ve got to stay on top of it. Set it and forget it? Not quite. More like set it, then keep an eye on it.

Amazon’s Tool vs Third-Party Tools: What’s the Difference?

Let’s break down the key differences between Amazon’s built-in pricing tool and the third-party options out there.

So, what’s the bottom line? Amazon’s tool is great if you want something simple and free. But if you’re looking to really dial in your pricing strategy, a third-party Amazon repricer might be worth the investment. It all comes down to how much control you want and how deep you want to dive into the data.

How Amazon’s Automated Pricing Tool Functions

Amazon’s automated pricing system uses several rules to help sellers adjust their prices based on market changes. Key rules include:

Competitive Buy Box:

This one’s all about the Buy Box – that coveted “Add to Cart” button. You can set your price to undercut, match, or even go a bit higher than the current Buy Box price. It’s like saying, “I see your price, and I’ll raise (or lower) you.”

Competitive Lowest Price:

Instead of focusing on the Buy Box, this rule looks at the absolute lowest price for your product on Amazon. You decide if you want to go lower, match it, or stay a bit higher. It’s a balancing act between being the cheapest and protecting your profits.

Competitive External Price:

Off-Amazon Price Match This one’s for the big-picture thinkers. It lets you keep an eye on prices outside of Amazon. You can cap your price at what others are charging elsewhere or match them exactly. It’s about staying competitive across the board, not just on Amazon.

Based on Sales Units:

This rule is all about moving product. If your sales dip below a certain point, you can auto-drop your price to get things moving again. Think of it as a built-in sale trigger.

So, that’s the gist of it. Amazon’s system juggles all these rules to keep your prices in the sweet spot. It’s like having a pricing expert working 24/7, always adjusting to keep you in the game.

How to set up Automated Pricing on Amazon?

Alright, let’s walk through setting up auto-pricing on Amazon. It’s not as complicated as it might seem, but you’ll want to pay attention to each step:

Step 1: First things first, log into your Seller Central account.

Step 2: Head over to the “Pricing” tab and look for “Automated Pricing” in the drop-down. That’s your starting point.

Step 3: You’ll see an option to “Create a customized Pricing rule” – that’s what you want.

Step 4: Now you’ve got choices. Want to focus on competing for the Buy Box? Go for “Competitive Featured Offer.” More interested in how fast you’re selling? “Sales Velocity” is your pick.

Step 5: Give your rule a name. Make it something you’ll remember easily.

Step 6: Choose which marketplaces you’re targeting. Could be just one, could be several.

Step 7: Here’s where it gets interesting. You’ll set your pricing parameters. Think minimum and maximum prices, profit margins – all the good stuff.

Step 8: Time to pick your products. This is where you decide which items get the auto-pricing treatment.

Step 9: Almost there! Choose your “Take action” option. This is basically telling Amazon what to do when your rule conditions are met.

Step 10: Double-check everything. Make sure it’s all set up the way you want.

Step 11: Ready? Hit “Start Repricing” and watch your new rule go to work!

A couple of quick tips before you dive in:

●  Amazon’s got different tools for this. “Automate Pricing” does the work for you based on what’s competitive. “Repricing” lets you call more of the shots.

●  Do your homework first. Know your competition, understand your costs, and have a clear idea of what you want to achieve with your pricing.

Remember, setting this up is just the beginning. Keep an eye on how it’s performing and be ready to tweak things as you go. Good luck!

The Pros and Cons of Amazon’s Automated Pricing

Now that you’ve got a handle on the basics of Amazon’s automated pricing, let’s dive into the pros and cons to help you weigh your options.

Pros of Amazon’s Automated Pricing:

Saves You Time

Ever feel overwhelmed by constant price checks? Amazon’s Automated Pricing is your new best friend. Set it once and let it do its thing. What could you do with all that extra time? Maybe innovate your business or improve your marketing strategies?

Easy to Master

Worried about learning curves? Don’t be. This tool is straightforward, with a clean interface that summarizes price changes effortlessly. You’ll be on top of your game without drowning in complexity.

Eliminates Human Error

Tired of those small, annoying mistakes in pricing? With Amazon’s automated system, you can say goodbye to human errors. Enjoy seamless and efficient price adjustments that keep your business running smoothly.

Keeps You Competitive

Concerned about keeping up with competitors? The automated tool tracks price changes for you, adjusting your prices to stay competitive. This means you’re always in the race, without constantly monitoring your rivals.

Cons of Amazon’s Automated Pricing:

Might Miss Out on Higher Prices

Sure, setting your prices low might boost sales, but what about those times when buyers are willing to pay more? This tool might keep you from seizing those chances to up your average selling price—and that’s a missed opportunity for bigger profits.

Setting Prices Can Drag On

Got a big inventory? Prepare for a slog. Amazon’s tool requires you to set min and max prices for each SKU individually. If your product list is long, you’ll be clicking away for hours. Not exactly the quick fix you were hoping for, right?

One Strategy at a Time

Here’s a tricky one: the tool won’t let you target both FBM and FBA sellers in the same breath. Choose FBA competitors, and you might miss out if an FBM seller snags the Buy Box. Opt for no preference? You might undercut yourself just trying to match prices with FBM sellers, losing your edge for the Buy Box.

Can’t Always Outsmart Competitors

Think you can always outprice the competition? Think again. If your competitor’s minimum price is just a bit higher than yours, they might end up with the edge. Imagine you both drop prices by $0.05 under the lowest. Your price might hit rock bottom first, leaving your competitor to swoop in and take the prize at a slightly higher price. Frustrating, right?

Ready to Automate Your Amazon Pricing? Here’s How to Qualify

So, you want to jump on the auto-pricing bandwagon? Here’s what you need to do:

Have Active Listings

First up, you need products listed on Amazon. Not just any products, though—they need to be eligible for automated pricing. Make sure you’ve got active offers on the SKUs you want to enroll.

Set a Minimum Price

Want to keep your profits up? Set a minimum price for each SKU. This is your safety net to ensure you don’t sell at a loss, no matter how fierce the pricing wars get.

Pick Your Pricing Playbook

Amazon’s got a few tricks up its sleeve when it comes to pricing strategies. Competitive pricing? Sales velocity? Take your pick. Just make sure you’re choosing a rule that makes sense for each of your products.

About That Professional Account…

Here’s a bit of good news – you don’t absolutely need a Professional selling account to use auto-pricing. Sure, it’s handy if you’re moving a ton of product, but even individual sellers can get in on this action.

Remember, getting set up is just the start. You’ll want to keep an eye on how things are going and tweak as needed. And hey, play by the rules, okay? Amazon’s got policies about pricing – keep things honest, consistent, and reflective of what you’re actually selling.

Is Amazon’s Automated Pricing Right for You?

Amazon’s automated pricing can be a game-changer for sellers looking to stay ahead. It offers an easy-to-use interface and customizable rules that save you time while fine-tuning your prices. But here’s the catch—it’s not a magic fix. You still need to keep an eye on things and tweak your settings as the market changes.

To really take your Amazon business to the next level, you should combine automated pricing with smart overall strategies. That’s where Seller Candy comes in. We offer expert Amazon support to handle the time-consuming tasks, from resolving Seller Central issues to managing your listings, so you can focus on growth.

Our service tiers are designed to fit different business needs, offering everything from basic task management to full-scale support and premium tools.

Ready to level up your Amazon game? Let Seller Candy handle the tough stuff so you can focus on what really matters—growing your business. Book your FREE consultation today!

What is Market Research?

Market research is the organized process of gathering, analyzing, and understanding data about a market. It includes insights about the target audience, competitors, and industry trends, helping businesses make informed decisions, find opportunities, and mitigate risks. For eCommerce enterprises, market research is crucial for understanding customer needs, refining product offerings, and devising effective marketing strategies.

Market research is not a one-time endeavor but an ongoing process that enables businesses to adapt to dynamic market conditions. It encompasses data collection from diverse sources, rigorous analysis to extract meaningful insights, and strategic utilization of these insights. In the fast-paced realm of eCommerce, where consumer preferences and market dynamics evolve swiftly, continuous market research is indispensable for maintaining relevance and competitiveness.

Relevant Technology in Market Research

Technological advancements have revolutionized market research, enhancing its efficiency and accuracy. Here are some key technological innovations:

Big Data Analytics

Big data tools can process vast datasets from multiple sources to uncover patterns, trends, and insights that traditional methods may overlook. They empower eCommerce businesses to understand customer behavior, predict market trends, and optimize marketing strategies.

Data Collection: Big data tools gather data from diverse sources, including social media, website analytics, sales data, and customer feedback, encompassing structured (e.g., sales transactions) and unstructured data (e.g., social media posts). Data Analysis: Advanced analytics tools analyze extensive datasets to reveal patterns and trends. Machine learning algorithms can identify correlations and predict future behaviors based on historical data.

Data Analysis: Advanced analytics tools can process and analyze large datasets to uncover patterns and trends. Machine learning algorithms can identify correlations and predict future behavior based on historical data.

Data Visualization: Big data tools gather data from diverse sources, including social media, website analytics, sales data, and customer feedback, encompassing structured (e.g., sales transactions) and unstructured data (e.g., social media posts). Data Analysis: Advanced analytics tools analyze extensive datasets to reveal patterns and trends. Machine learning algorithms can identify correlations and predict future behaviors based on historical data.

AI and Machine Learning

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning algorithms can analyze data, predict trends, and deliver actionable insights with minimal human intervention. These technologies enable eCommerce businesses to optimize pricing, personalize marketing efforts, and enhance customer service.

Predictive Analytics: Machine learning algorithms can analyze historical data to predict future behavior. For example, predictive analytics can help identify which products are likely to be popular in the future or which customers are likely to make repeat purchases.

Personalization: AI enables personalized marketing messages and product recommendations based on individual customer preferences and behaviors, enhancing customer satisfaction and boosting conversion rates.

Customer Service: AI-driven chatbots and virtual assistants provide instant customer support, addressing common queries and resolving issues promptly. This improves the customer experience and reduces the workload on human support teams.

Social Media Analytics

Tools for monitoring and analyzing social media activities offer real-time insights into customer sentiments, brand perception, and trending topics. Social media analytics assist eCommerce businesses in understanding customer preferences, tracking brand reputation, and identifying influential figures.

Sentiment Analysis: Social media analytics tools evaluate the sentiment of posts, categorizing them as positive, negative, or neutral. This enables businesses to monitor brand reputation and address customer concerns.

Trend Analysis: Social media analytics identify popular topics and hashtags, keeping businesses informed about current trends and consumer interests. This informs marketing strategies and content creation.

Influencer Identification: Social media analytics tools identify influential individuals with large followings and high engagement rates. Collaborating with influencers helps businesses expand their audience reach and bolster brand credibility.

Trends in eCommerce Market Research

Personalization

As consumers increasingly demand personalized experiences, market research focuses on understanding individual preferences and behaviors to tailor offerings accordingly. Personalization enhances customer satisfaction, increases conversion rates, and fosters brand loyalty.

Personalized Marketing: Market research identifies customer preferences and behavior patterns, enabling businesses to create tailored marketing messages and offers. For instance, personalized email campaigns recommend products based on past purchases or browsing history.

Product Recommendations: Personalization algorithms analyze customer data to provide customized product suggestions on websites and mobile apps, enhancing shopping experiences and driving sales.

Customer Journey Mapping: Understanding the customer journey helps businesses pinpoint touchpoints for implementing personalization, improving overall customer experience and fostering loyalty.

Mobile-First Research

With the surge in mobile commerce, research methodologies are adapting to prioritize insights from mobile users. Mobile-first research helps eCommerce businesses understand how customers interact with mobile websites and apps, optimizing the mobile shopping experience.

Mobile Surveys: Surveys conducted via mobile apps, SMS, or social media gather feedback on the mobile shopping experience, providing insights for enhancing user experiences.

Mobile Analytics: Analytics tools track user behavior on mobile websites and apps, offering insights into navigation and interaction patterns. This helps identify areas for improvement and optimize the mobile experience.

Responsive Design: Research informs the development of responsive design strategies to ensure websites and apps are optimized for different devices, enhancing user experience and increasing mobile conversions.

Voice Search Optimization

As voice search gains popularity, understanding customer usage patterns of voice assistants offers insights for optimizing product listings and content. Voice search optimization helps eCommerce businesses reach customers who use voice-enabled devices for product searches and services.

Voice Search Behavior: Research identifies how customers use voice search, including query types and device preferences, informing voice search optimization strategies.

Natural Language Processing (NLP): NLP technology optimizes content for voice search by understanding natural language in voice queries, improving search rankings and visibility.

Voice-enabled Shopping: Understanding how customers use voice assistants for shopping helps businesses develop voice-enabled shopping experiences, such as voice-activated product searches and guided shopping carts.

Sustainability and Ethical Consumerism

Consumers’ growing awareness of environmental and ethical concerns drives research into sustainable practices and products. Understanding customer preferences for sustainability helps eCommerce businesses develop and market eco-friendly products.

Sustainable Product Development: Research identifies customer preferences for sustainable products, guiding the development of eco-friendly product lines, including recycled materials, biodegradable packaging, and ethically sourced ingredients.

Green Marketing: Understanding customer attitudes towards sustainability helps businesses craft green marketing strategies that resonate with eco-conscious consumers, highlighting environmental benefits and sustainable practices.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): Research identifies opportunities for businesses to engage in CSR initiatives aligned with customer values, enhancing brand reputation and customer loyalty.

Data Privacy Concerns

As data privacy regulations tighten, businesses must conduct research while ensuring compliance and maintaining customer trust. Understanding customer concerns about data privacy helps businesses develop strategies to address these issues.

Compliance with Regulations: Research keeps businesses informed about data privacy regulations such as GDPR and CCPA, ensuring research methods and data handling comply with legal requirements.

Transparent Data Practices: Understanding customer concerns about data privacy helps businesses adopt transparent data practices, communicating clearly about data collection, usage, and protection.

Data Security: Ensuring customer data security is crucial for maintaining trust. Research identifies best practices for data security, guiding the development of robust data protection measures.

SellerSprite’s Market Analysis Tool

SellerSprite’s “Market Analysis” tool offers unparalleled insights into over 20,000 sub-markets on Amazon, empowering sellers to make data-driven decisions with precision. This sophisticated tool allows sellers to select their desired marketplace from a list of countries including the United States, Japan, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Canada, and India. After choosing the United States, sellers can set the research time frame, typically defaulting to the last 30 days, providing a relevant and timely analysis of market trends.

SellerSprite’s Market Analysis tool offers extensive datasets based on the top 100 selling products, providing a comprehensive overview of the market. Key features include:

• Main Keywords Search Volume Trends: Analyze the search volume trends for primary keywords to understand consumer demand over time.
• Market Sales Trends: Compare sales trends across different months to identify seasonal patterns and sales peaks.
• Listing Concentration: Understand the sales and revenue distribution among listings. For instance, the “Beckham Hotel Collection” bed pillows dominate with over $3.28 million in sales, highlighting significant market concentration and potential entry barriers for new products.
• Brand Concentration: Evaluate brand dominance within a subcategory. For example, a 50.5% brand concentration based on 66 brands over the last six months indicates a highly competitive market. Sellers can filter brands by revenue and analyze detailed brand-related metrics.
• Seller Concentration: Assess the distribution of sales among sellers. A high seller concentration suggests a market dominated by a few key players, which can inform competitive strategies.
• Fulfillment and Rating Information: Analyze fulfillment methods (FBA vs. FBM) and product ratings to gauge logistical preferences and consumer satisfaction.
• Countries of Sellers: Identify the geographic distribution of sellers, with a significant proportion often originating from China, followed by the USA, UK, and India.
• Product Supply and Demand Trends: Track the balance between product availability and consumer demand to anticipate market movements.
• Return Rate: Monitor the average return rate and conversion ratio to evaluate product performance and customer satisfaction.
• Launch Time: Examine the launch dates of top products to understand the market’s maturity and the potential for new entrants.
• Launch Time Trends: Analyze the number of products launched over different years and their corresponding sales proportions.
• Ratings: Assess the competitive landscape based on product reviews, with a high number of products having over 500 reviews indicating intense competition.
• Rating Average: Compare average ratings to identify quality benchmarks within the subcategory.
• Price: Use filtration functions to sort products by price range, helping to identify optimal pricing strategies.

With SellerSprite’s Market Analysis tool, sellers gain access to a wealth of data, enabling them to navigate the complexities of the Amazon marketplace confidently. This detailed analysis helps sellers understand competitive landscapes, identify lucrative opportunities, and strategize effectively, making it an indispensable tool for any serious Amazon seller.

Benefits of Using SellerSprite’s Market Analysis

• Data-Driven Decision Making: Make informed decisions based on accurate and up-to-date market data. SellerSprite’s Market Analysis tool provides actionable insights that can help you make strategic business decisions.
• Competitive Advantage: Gain a competitive edge by staying informed about market trends and competitor activities. The tool helps you identify opportunities and threats, allowing you to adapt and thrive in a competitive market.
• Improved Product Performance: Optimize your product listings and marketing strategies to improve performance and increase sales. The Market Analysis tool provides insights that can help you enhance your product offerings and attract more customers.
• Efficiency and Accuracy: Save time and resources by using a comprehensive and accurate market research tool. SellerSprite’s Market Analysis tool streamlines the research process, providing reliable data and insights quickly and efficiently.

In conclusion, eCommerce market research is an indispensable tool for businesses aiming to thrive in a competitive landscape. You can gain valuable insights that drive growth and innovation by leveraging various research methods and embracing modern technologies. And with tools like SellerSprite’s Market Analysis, conducting effective market research has never been easier. Start exploring the potential of your market today and unlock new avenues for success!

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About the Author:

SellerSprite is an all-in-one tool for Amazon product research, market analysis, keyword suggestion, sponsored ads insight and product tracking for Amazon sellers.

Understanding Seasonal Spikes on Amazon

Seasonal spikes in ecommerce are periods when consumer demand increases significantly, typically correlated with changes in the weather or consumer holidays and the relevant products for those periods. It’s critical that Amazon sellers optimize for seasonality in order to streamline growth and ensure the best results for their business. By truly capitalizing on the immense volume of sales that come with these seasonal spikes on Amazon, you can drive profits and take your business to new heights.

However, if unprepared for seasonal fluctuations, Amazon sellers often find themselves in a cash flow crunch, running out of inventory, or losing sales to competitors. This means that it’s critical to understand seasonal variation patterns and execute appropriate demand forecasting to plan ahead and avoid those annoying hiccups that come with delayed Amazon payouts. All of this to say, having accurate predictions regarding traffic to your product listings and order demands, optimized advertising investments and timelines, and a seamless operations and fulfillment process is key for success.

Common Amazon Seasonal Events

While the season changes periodically with the weather and there are plenty of holidays throughout a calendar year, certain events tend to hold greater influence over ecommerce marketplaces. These high-priority events help to explain shopping trends and customer behavior, so they’re important to take into consideration when forecasting for your Amazon business.

Amazon Prime Day

Over the past decade Prime Day has become one of the greatest success in only shopping events. Taking place in mid-July each year, Amazon Prime Day boasts some of the biggest deals of the year for customers, driving demand and satisfaction along with sales and profit. Amazon sellers preparing for Prime Day begin months in advance, increasing inventory, ramping up marketing efforts, and launching new products ahead of time to ensure success.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Ecommerce “exclusive” sales aren’t the only holiday events that have an impact on ecommerce seasonality. Long standing retail sales, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday (also known as BFCM), have a major impact on Amazon sellers to this day. Amazon sellers have the opportunity to run deals all throughout the long, holiday weekend on the Amazon marketplace–meaning even greater revenue.

Back-to-School

The end of summer marks the beginning of back-to-school season for customers with school-aged children. While many ecommerce seasonal spikes are characterized by relevant products, back-to-school events are especially so, with school supplies, clothing, and dorm essentials making up most sales.

The Importance of Preparation

Measuring your Amazon business’ seasonal spikes is essential to maintaining agility throughout the year and maximizing your overall profits. If you can accurately forecast demand and sales, ecommerce seasonality on Amazon has the potential to help your business reach new heights within an accelerated period of time. Many Amazon sellers even manage to secure a quarter’s worth of sales in just one day with major shopping events like Prime Day or Black Friday.

However, if you aren’t well prepared with historical data for seasonal spikes on Amazon, you risk missing out on sales and profitable opportunities or, worse, dealing with a serious cash flow crunch. To truly optimize for seasonal spikes on Amazon it’s important that you monitor trends in sales and revenue, website traffic, conversions, customer behavior, and more. Not only will this data help you prepare for demand, but it also ensures that every dollar of working capital is put to maximum use in alignment with your cash conversion cycle.

Leveraging Funding

While understanding your Amazon business’ seasonal spikes and planning accordingly is certainly critical, it’s also important to maintain a healthy lead time on seasonal events and trends. By planning far enough in advance for your business to experience increased demand and sales, you’ll be able to remain agile and flexible enough to adjust to evolving customer behavior or unexpected challenges. Seasonality can be challenging for any ecommerce business, but preparing for the highs and lows of every season will allow you to take advantage of consumer tendencies throughout the entire year.

Increased Inventory Management

Proper inventory management is key to optimizing your Amazon business for seasonality. By taking advantage of advanced inventory forecasting tools and software to predict demand and optimize stock levels, you can proactively avoid stock outs and beat competitors. Many Amazon sellers even invest in safety stock to mitigate risk of stockouts during peak periods.

However, it’s important to remember that those tools aren’t free. Not to mention that increased inventory levels come at a high upfront cost. To meet the increased demand that comes with seasonal spikes on Amazon, you’ll need to work with your suppliers to purchase products in advance and at a rate you’re comfortable with. Funding can not only help you ensure that you have the cash flow to invest in more inventory and the necessary management tools, but also help to keep your business moving at a stable rate post-shopping event while waiting for Amazon payouts.

Utilize Multiple Operations Strategies

Even if you utilize Amazon FBA, during peak seasonality it’s wise to have alternative operations and fulfillment methods prepared. Whether you simply didn’t have the cash flow to purchase products far enough ahead of time to ensure they were at Amazon warehouses or you have your own packaging and shipment facility, offering multiple fulfillment channels will help you scale up your operations to meet increased demand.

Offering fulfillment by merchant (FBM) will not only allow you to increase your window to order inventory by bypassing Amazon’s check-in process, it will also give you a competitive edge on competitors. Amazon shoppers are looking for coveted items at a good deal during seasonal events, which means those items tend to sell out quickly. By storing and shipping items yourself, or through a 3PL, you’ll have extra inventory once competitors run out. While you may not be able to beat free shipping for Prime members, you’ll still catch plenty of customers–and likely make a bigger profit with increased margins.

The most strategic sellers often utilize a combination of strategies, dividing inventory between Amazon FBA and FBM to maximize sales and profits. By combining operations strategies you can scale up your fulfillment game to ensure that all potential customers have a 5-star experience.

Effective Marketing and Promotion

While it’s important to periodically review and update your marketing campaigns, this is especially critical if you’re getting ready for a busy season for your Amazon business. Good marketing, especially from Amazon’s PPC campaigns, will help drive shoppers to your products and increase conversion rates. However, PPC campaigns can rapidly become expensive during ecommerce seasonal spikes, so be sure to set a healthy budget.

To truly make the most of a season, running campaigns ahead of time will help to improve brand recognition with consumers and make your products more identifiable. Ad campaigns will also remind customers that deals are temporary and that they need to act now, ensuring your sales go through the roof.

If you’re looking for options off-marketplace for Amazon product advertising, consider Amazon influencer marketing, Google ads, and traditional email and text marketing campaigns. While these marketing strategies may not be as simple to implement, they often come at a fraction of the cost with strong results.

Creating a Strategic Funding Plan

Successfully navigating seasonal spikes on Amazon requires careful planning, strategic investments, and efficient resource allocation far in advance. By leveraging funding effectively and adopting a proactive approach to preparation, you can position your business to thrive during peak periods and capitalize on lucrative sales opportunities. Remember, the key to stay agile, adaptable, and customer-centric in your approach is maintaining enough cash flow to take advantage of every season. That’s where Viably comes in.

Viably is a people-first banking and funding experience, designed to help eCommerce sellers grow their business the way they know best. Learn how much funding your Amazon business could be eligible for in minutes with their simple application here.

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About the Author:

Viably is an all-in-one free financial tool for online sellers to run and grow their business.

Despite its critical role in the success of eCommerce businesses, a study from 2022 found that less than half of small businesses monitor their cash flow. While other financial data points may be easier and more convenient to track, cash flow gives a far more holistic view of your business’s financial health and ensures that you have the financial power to grow.

The Foundation: Understanding Your Store’s Cash Flow

In the simplest terms, cash flow is the movement of money into and out of your business. What makes cash flow different from other financial metrics, such as profit or sales, is its fluid and dynamic nature. By taking into account both the inflows and outflows of capital at a specific moment in time cash provides a far more comprehensive picture of your business’ financial health. However, this also means that cash flow metrics are evolving with every purchase or sale.

Inflows and Outflows

Cash flow can be broken down into the sources of funds compared to uses for funds, in other words, money coming into your business and money going out.

Inflows – Money coming into your business via sources of funds. Cash inflows can come from revenue, loan proceeds, investment capital, grant money, and more. It’s important to note that cash inflows aren’t calculated until they are deposited into your business bank account or accessible for use.

Outflows – Money exiting your business via the use of funds. Cash outflows include all costs of business, such as operational expenses, inventory purchases, salary payments, asset purchases, and more.

If you have greater cash inflows than outflows, your business will be exhibiting positive cash flow. Ideally, positive cash flow will organically provide your business with the capital necessary to grow. However, it’s not uncommon for eCommerce businesses to operate on tight margins or run into hiccups that cause them to dip into cash flow negative months.

Periodic cash flow monitoring can not only help alleviate these hiccups but also provide you with the relevant data to streamline your cash flow and avoid these negative months in the future. On top of that, real-time cash flow monitoring will help you establish a solid financial foundation and eventually grow your business sustainably.

Significance of Real-Time Monitoring

The uncertain nature of eCommerce means that the financial position of your eCommerce is constantly evolving. By monitoring your cash flow in real time you’ll have an up-to-date and comprehensive view of your financial health, allowing you to make data-driven decisions for your business.

Among the things that cash flow reports provide for your business, one of the most important is an understanding of exactly how much surplus cash is available to your business at a particular moment. That surplus cash can be invested into growth efforts, such as upgrading marketing or increasing buying power for a busy season, ensuring that you’re not just letting capital sit in your bank account. Making the most of capital available is crucial for growth, especially if you’ve taken on external funding so that you don’t pay interest on unnecessary funds.

Cash Flow Forecasting for Growth

Just like other financial metrics, it’s important to forecast your business’s cash flow. A cash flow forecast helps provide a sense of how your financial health will evolve over an extended period of time, allowing you to plan for future business decisions. Cash flow forecasts can be made manually by looking through sales data and combing through spreadsheets or automatically by utilizing new tools that pull information and generate projections based on historical data.

Anticipating Seasonal Fluctuations

Seasonal fluctuations can significantly impact your cash flow due to dips in sales and profits. Accurate cash flow forecasting helps anticipate these swings, allowing you to avoid stockouts, overspending, and maintain liquidity. Whether you’re cutting back on expenses and reducing inventory during lulls or increasing storage and buying more during spikes, cash flow forecasting will ensure that you’re optimized during every season.

Acknowledging typical fluctuations like a spike in sales throughout a holiday season, is one of the key differences between a cash flow forecast and more generic financial metrics like a run rate. While projections for a cash flow forecast may take longer to put together when done manually, they provide a much more nuanced and accurate picture of what your business’ financial journey will look like.

Predicting the Impact of Growth Initiatives

Cash flow forecasting also plays a critical role in evaluating growth initiatives before implementing them in your business. By projecting the financial outcomes of various strategies, you can choose the most profitable path for your business.

Now more than ever, there are a wide variety of directions to expand your eCommerce business. There’s no one right path to ensure financial success and brand recognition anymore. As more strategies to grow your business appear it’s important to understand which serves to benefit your ecommerce business the most, especially in terms of cash flow. By comparing your business’ cash flow forecast when impacted by growth initiatives you can strategically decide which opportunities to take advantage of and when.

Emergency Fund

While streamlining cash flow is crucial for success, there’s no amount of optimization that can ensure your eCommerce business is entirely immune to changes in a volatile economy. To protect your business and improve financial agility, it’s wise to build up an emergency fund that can serve as a reserve for cash flow negative periods.

While an emergency fund should be used sparingly and wisely, it can act as a financial cushion for unexpected expenses and help you maintain peace of mind. A robust emergency fund will help ensure that unforeseen costs don’t derail your cash flow growth or create pesky cash flow hiccups.

Sleep Well at Night Numbers

After building an emergency fund, many successful eCommerce business owners also build out a “Sleep Well at Night” number. This number is another type of financial reserve that helps ensure that your eCommerce business never has to dip into a cash flow negative month, while also helping keep your emergency fund available for true emergencies.

What’s the difference between the two? Your “Sleep Well at Night” number is supposed to regularly supplement cash flow. While an emergency fund should be reserved for, well, emergencies, a “Sleep Well at Night” reserve can be tapped into any time your eCommerce business has a cash flow negative month.

Whether you’re building up an emergency fund or a “Sleep Well at Night” reserve, you can do this by:

1. Determining how big your reserve funds should be. This is a question of how much capital you need to solve a problem. The bigger your business is, the larger your reserve funds will be.
2. Begin to allocate a percentage of your monthly sales to go into the emergency fund, rather than being cycled through with the rest of your cash flow.
3. Consider taking on external funding to supplement your cash flow and help provide your business with the necessary working capital to grow.

External Funding and Cash Flow

Although many eCommerce business owners are weary of taking on external funding, it can be an incredibly useful tool in boosting your cash flow. Since cash flow includes all capital available to your business at a given point in time, supplemental funding can help ensure that you avoid cash crunches that come with asynchronous sales and payouts.

Greater positive cash flow will give you the buying power to make decisions for scaling your business, rather than struggling to purchase inventory every cycle. For many businesses, external funding, like Viably, is the difference between slow burnout and sustainable growth. In fact, external funding can even be used to help build up a “Sleep Well at Night” reserve, ensuring that your business always has a healthy amount of working capital available.

A healthy amount of intentional debt can help your business grow in the long run. For many eCommerce sellers, this is the best way to afford investments with a real payoff.

Conclusion

Strategic cash flow management is the cornerstone of eCommerce growth. To truly streamline and optimize your cash flow it’s important to generate forecasts periodically, helping you plan for the future and make the best decisions for your business. Additionally, financial buffers, like an emergency fund or a “Sleep Well at Night” reserve, can work together with external funding to ensure that your cash flow remains healthy and without any growing pains.

Many profitable businesses fail due to a lack of healthy cash flow, meaning that it’s critical for success in eCommerce. Cash flow is the lifeblood of your business, so it’s important to fully optimize it now to ensure long-term, sustainable growth and success.

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About the Author:

Viably is an all-in-one free financial tool for SMBs to run and grow their business. Viably helps eCommerce business owners extend their cash flow through funding.

To be competitive, Amazon sellers need to leverage third-party tools and the enhanced information these tools provide. Two of the most popular tools are AMZScout and Jungle Scout. While both receive positive user reviews and critical acclaim, you probably only need to utilize one of these tools, depending on your needs.

To help you find the best tool, we have compared the features, prices, and accuracy of the two. Read on to find out more.

Overview of AMZScout and Jungle Scout

Both AMZ Scout and Jungle Scout are product research tools. While both are similar, the two offer unique features we’ll review below:

Main Features of AMZScout

• Product Database: A web-based tool that lets you find the most profitable product ideas from millions of Amazon products, based on 16 different parameters. You can also use pre-populated filters to help you identify new and trending products.
• PRO Extension: A Chrome extension that works on Amazon’s website to help you determine whether a product is worth selling based on current and historical data across different products and niches.
• Dropshipping, Arbitrage, and Wholesale Extension: An optional Chrome extension that provides specific data about a product and its profitability, and helps limit the risk factors of using these specific sales strategies.
• Keyword Research Tools: AMZScout’s Keyword Search lets you insert a single seed keyword to find and track various long-tail keywords. You can also use the Reverse ASIN Lookup tool to identify keywords used by your competitors.

Additional Features

• Monthly Reports and Weekly Hot Products: A hand-picked list of potentially profitable products and niches, reviewed by a team of experts.
• Free Tools: A series of no-cost tools that let you estimate FBA costs, review competitive data on inventory levels, and estimate the sales of Amazon products.

Main Features of Jungle Scout

• Browser Extension: A Chrome or Firefox-based browser tool that helps sellers evaluate products, forecast future sales, and request reviews.
• Product Database: A web-based database of products sorted by category, estimated sales, sales rank, revenue, and more.
• Keyword Research: Like AMZScout, Jungle Scout offers keyword research tools Keyword Scout and Rank Tracker across multiple products.

Additional features

• Supplier Database: A database of manufacturers to help you find suppliers who can create your custom product.
• AI Features: Both the listing builder and analytics tools rely on AI to help sellers automatically identify keywords and provide data on your financial performance.

Each toolset also offers additional features, but the above information summarizes the most prominent tools you can find on both platforms. On paper, both AMZScout and Jungle Scout provide helpful features. But what’s most important here is how these two tools compare when it comes to the data they provide.

Jungle Scout vs. AMZScout – Accuracy Tests

The ability to compute product sales based on BSR is the primary reason why most sellers require these tools. The accuracy of the tool you choose is a vital factor that can determine the success of your business. Overestimated sales numbers can impact your inventory management, resulting in stockouts or having to pay for the storage of unnecessary inventory. A great way to compare data accuracy is to see how close both products are to Amazon’s rough estimates.

It’s important to gather data across various categories, as this data provides a more comprehensive look at how the two products compare. In this case, our products come from the Kitchen, Technology, Baby, and Home categories. These categories are a strong representation of where many third-party sellers tend to compete.

Here is an example of a product with estimated sales numbers by AMZScout and Jungle Scout.

Below, you’ll see a table comparing products across various categories and rankings to see how the two compare.

Note: These numbers are accurate as of the moment when the article was written and may change over time.

How accurate is Jungle Scout? (Compared To AMZScout)

From this data, we can see that AMZScout provides sales data that more closely (in many cases) resembles what you’ll get from Amazon. The Jungle Scout Sales Estimator has a tendency to overestimate the number of sales, which can cause sellers to purchase too much inventory, resulting in storage fees. This is most prominent in the Kitchen category, which is full of competitors eager to overtake others who are competing to offer the featured product.

Advantages – Jungle Scout vs. AMZScout

While data accuracy is incredibly important, there are also other factors to consider when comparing Jungle Scout and AMZScout. Below, we’ll outline those factors for your consideration.

AMZScout Advantages

More accurate sales

Where Jungle Scout tends to overestimate, AMZScout provides a more accurate estimation of sales data. You can view this data under the niche and product histories through the PRO Extension. By leveraging AMZScout’s historical data tool, you can get a better understanding of how each product performs over time.

Tool for dropshipping, arbitrage, and wholesale sellers

When following specific sales strategies, Amazon places strict requirements on some types of products. AMZScout’s tool for dropshipping, arbitrage, and wholesale helps you identify these products, reducing the risk that you’ll end up with inventory you can’t sell. This tool also includes data on Amazon Buy Box history, potential profit margin, return on investment, and other vital data to help you remain competitive.

Affordable price and free trial

While Jungle Scout offers no free trial, AMZScout does. This option helps you understand how to use the product before you commit to buying it. Alternatively, Jungle Scout requires an upfront payment, giving you a seven-day refund period to try their tool. AMZScout provides a longer money-back guarantee of 10 days. AMZScout also provides access to all essential research tools at a more affordable price.

Weekly product ideas (only in the annual bundle)

Sellers who are willing to pay for an annual bundle through AMZScout receive weekly product ideas. This means that AMZScout can handle some of the research process for you. Even if you don’t sell these products, they provide inspiration for additional products you can review via AMZScout’s Product Database.

Jungle Scout Advantages

More tools

Jungle Scout offers a wider range of tools that include review automation, an opportunity finder, a supplier database, an inventory manager, and an FBA reimbursement system. Opting for the whole package at a higher cost might be more reasonable for those involved in brand creation; otherwise, some tools in the set might go unused.

AI Assist

Jungle Scout provides an AI assistant in both its listing creation tool and analytical tools. The AI features in listing generation involve creating an optimized listing that uses your keywords. The analytical tools provide AI-generated insights into your product analytics.

Supplier Database

Jungle Scout has an integrated supplier database to help you find manufacturers, create purchase orders, and manage supplier quotas through its tool. This helps you find verified, niche suppliers to help you create a customized product. Alternatively, AMZScout’s PRO Extension for Chrome connects to Alibaba. Being one of the largest e-commerce support marketplaces in the world, Alibaba offers its own list of verified suppliers.

Conclusion

When comparing features, both AMZScout and Jungle Scout offer an impressive variety of tools. While AMZScout focuses on more data-driven approaches, Jungle Scout focuses on providing an extended range of tools geared specifically to private label sellers. For example, not all sellers need access to manufacturers. Some sellers are dropshippers or specialists in retail arbitrage, which is something for which Jungle Scout doesn’t provide specific tools.

In short, AMZScout is geared toward people who seek more accurate data from a more affordable tool. If you’re looking for an all-in-one solution and your budget isn’t a constraint, consider exploring Jungle Scout’s advanced plans. Make your selection based on what you prioritize as an Amazon seller.

In addition to managing sales, you still need to constantly monitor and track your product listings to make sure they don’t get compromised. If you don’t, you may see your listings copied, taken down, or suppressed, with all your hard work benefiting someone else’s bank account. Below, we explain the dangers your listing faces and how you can prevent them. 

Threats to Your Amazon Listings

The current state of Amazon is rife with threats: hijacking, sabotage, and search suppression — all on top of staying profitable in the world’s largest and most competitive marketplace! Let’s take a closer look at the risks faced by everyday Amazon sellers. 

Hijacking

Amazon listing hijacking is a newer strategy employed by dishonest Amazon sellers, but it’s caught on quickly. The idea is that other sellers steal or counterfeit your products to siphon your customers, but the tactics get more intricate than that. 

Amazon hijacking is most common with private-label products. Hijackers notice that your private label product does well, so they track down your supplier and offer the same product under their brand. They typically undercut your price to win Amazon Buy Box for your product, and often, the hijacker’s version is of poorer quality, leading to more bad reviews. 

Sabotage

Recently, more Amazon sellers have reported that their innocent listings have been marked as “adult” products. This can be disastrous for sales because adult listings are generally hidden from shopper searches. 

Similarly, hijackers may also change your Amazon listings to make them less appealing and/or harder to find. Typically, these listing changes involve the product title, brand name, or other product details that turn shoppers away. Sometimes, they even change your product images, which can lead to both less sales and more product returns. 

A sabotage like this is an effective way to drive traffic to the hijackers’ listings instead of yours. It’s essentially a smear campaign that can undermine a reputation years in the making. 

Search Suppression

Sometimes, your worst enemy is yourself. Failure to comply with Amazon policies, discontinuing a product without updating the listing, or forgetting to restock an out-of-stock product can all result in the listing’s removal from shopper searches or even getting it marked as “inactive.” 

More often than not, search suppression is caused by some oversight of the Amazon seller. Sometimes, they forget a detail in their listing, like setting a product category, or accidentally violate a policy, like using a title that’s too long. 

The good news is that these issues are usually easy to fix, but the bad news is that your listing could be suppressed without you even knowing why. For this, it’s crucial to track your Amazon product listings to ensure everything is above board.  

How to Monitor Your Amazon Listings

The best way to mitigate all these threats is to catch them early. You need to constantly monitor all your products to spot early warning signs, such as consistently losing a Buy Box (which accounts for more than 80% of Amazon sales) or a sudden dip in ratings. Once you see the signs, you can take action, whether sending a cease-and-desist to a hijacker or simply correcting your own mistakes to make a listing compliant. 

For monitoring your listings, you have two options: do it yourself or use protective software. 

Monitoring Your Own Listings

Monitoring your own listings makes sense from a fiscal standpoint, but the real drawback is time and effort. You’ll have to essentially check the status, searchability, and product page of all of your products — every day for optimal reaction time or once every few days for more leisurely security. 

This works fine for small Amazon sellers with only a handful of products; they will most likely have tighter budgets as well. But for serious Amazon sellers with a lot of products, this could be a massive time drain. 

Use Protective Software

The act of checking for changes in listings is a mechanical task, making it perfect for automation software. Third-party Amazon software will monitor your listings in real-time and send you notifications the moment anything suspicious happens. This lets you rectify the situation as soon as possible. 

Different software monitors different aspects of your Amazon listings, so find one that does everything instead of relying on multiple software simultaneously. For example, eComEngine’s SellerPulse alerts you for:

• search suppression 
• hijacking
• suspicious Buy Box behavior
• status changes
• listing changes (including titles, images, and brand names)
• “adult” category changes

SellerPulse is the complete package for Amazon protection, and it’s more affordable than you might expect, starting at $19/month. Test it yourself by starting a free trial now. 

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About the Author:

Matt Ellis is a freelance online content creator specializing in eCommerce, content marketing, branding, and web design. He’s been sharing his industry knowledge through eBooks, website copy, and blog posts for over a decade. You can learn more about his work on his website.

However, expanding your business in the EU comes with its own set of challenges. In this post, we explore the main considerations for any online seller or e-commerce business when planning an EU expansion.

The Benefits of an EU Business Expansion

The EU e-commerce industry is expected to reach US$730.30bn in 2023, making it the ideal time to pursue a business expansion. Here are a few more reasons why selling your products or services in Europe is a good idea:

1. Large and Diverse Market

The EU is a massive market with a population of over 450 million people. By expanding into the EU, you gain access to a broad customer base with diverse preferences and purchasing power. This presents significant opportunities for growth and increased sales.

2. Single Market and Free Movement of Goods

The EU operates as a single market, allowing for the free movement of goods and services among member states. This means that once you establish your business in one EU country, you can easily expand and sell your products across the entire EU without facing trade barriers, customs duties, or complex regulations.

3. Strong Purchasing Power

EU consumers have relatively high disposable incomes and a strong appetite for online shopping. By tapping into this market, you can target consumers who are willing to spend on quality products and services. This can potentially lead to higher average order values and increased revenue.

4. Cross-Border Logistics and Infrastructure

The EU has a well-developed logistics infrastructure, including efficient transportation networks and reliable delivery services. This facilitates the movement of goods across borders, ensuring that your products can reach customers quickly and cost-effectively.

How to Grow Your Business in the EU

So, you know you want to expand into the EU, but you’re not quite sure how to go about it. Here are a few things to consider that will help you get your EU business expansion off the ground.

1. Understand the EU Single Market

Before getting your business expansion underway, it’s crucial to gain a deep understanding of the EU single market and its diverse consumer preferences. The EU is comprised of 27 member states, each with its own cultural nuances, languages, and consumer behaviors. Conducting market research and analysis will help you identify target markets, understand local regulations, and tailor your marketing strategies accordingly.

2. Adhere to EU Regulations

The EU has implemented comprehensive regulations to protect consumers and ensure fair competition. If you’re going to be doing business in the EU, you must familiarize yourself with these regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Consumer Rights Directive. By making sure your e-commerce business complies with these EU regulations, you build trust with customers and avoid potential legal issues.

3. Localize Your Website and Content

Another important step when attempting to break into the EU market is localization. You should localize your website and its content to better cater to the language and cultural preferences of different member states. Translating your website into multiple languages and adapting your content to target local holidays and events, for example, will enhance the user experience and increase your chances of connecting with your audience.

4. Logistics and Fulfillment

The EU market demands reliable and timely delivery of products. Partnering with local fulfillment centers, such as those offered by Fulfilled by Amazon, or establishing a network of distribution centers across the EU can significantly improve your shipping capabilities and reduce delivery times. If you’re already an Amazon or eBay seller, then the logistics of your EU expansion will be a lot simpler.

5. Payment and Currency Options

Offering multiple payment and currency options is crucial for successful e-commerce operations. Supporting popular payment methods such as credit cards, digital wallets, and local payment systems like iDEAL (Netherlands) or SOFORT (Germany) will instill confidence in your customers and improve conversion rates. Implementing secure and seamless payment gateways that comply with EU payment regulations will improve the overall shopping experience.

6. Taxation and VAT Compliance

Navigating the complex EU tax landscape is vital to avoid financial penalties and maintain VAT compliance. Each member state has its own value-added tax (VAT) regulations, and understanding these rules is essential for your e-commerce business. Consider consulting with tax professionals who specialize in EU tax laws to ensure your business is correctly registered for VAT and that you comply with all the relevant rules and regulations.

7. Marketing and Customer Engagement

Creating a strong brand presence and engaging with your EU customers are critical for expanding your e-commerce business. Tailor your marketing strategies to focus on specific member states and leverage local advertising platforms, social media channels, and influencers. Build trust and credibility by incorporating customer reviews and ratings. Offering localized customer support through multiple channels, including email, live chat, and phone, will foster customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Start Your EU Single Market Expansion Today

Expanding your e-commerce business in the EU can be a rewarding endeavor if approached strategically and with careful consideration of the unique challenges and opportunities it presents. If you plan well and seek the advice of specialists where necessary, there’s no reason why your EU business expansion shouldn’t be a success.

For help with your business expansion, get in touch with the VAT compliance experts. Book a call with Taxually to find out more.

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About the Author:

Jenny Longmuir is a copywriter at Taxually.com, a specialist in VAT compliance technology. She has over 10 years of experience in content creation for a number of industries.

Over the past few years, shipping has been one of the main struggles with online shopping. Even though more customers want to receive their products within 24 hours, it’s common to deal with long shipping times.

How can the e-commerce industry satisfy customer demands while offering the convenience of online shopping?

More e-commerce marketplaces have been offering buying options to local customers. With Amazon Local Selling, buyers can shop for products in their area. They can either schedule fast local delivery or onsite pickup.

What is Amazon Local Selling?

Amazon launched Local Selling in October 2021 for merchants who wish to offer fast deliveries to customers living close to a brand’s physical store for in-store products.

Sellers can rely on Amazon Local Selling to deliver products within a 25-mile radius of their shops and warehouses. Customers living within said area will get the local delivery option on Amazon.

It’s a unique way to optimize multichannel deliveries for local businesses.

Any local, regional, or national seller can enroll in Local Selling. However, you must register as an Amazon Pro Seller before enrolling. Although the Pro Seller plan costs $39.99 per month, Local Selling does charge any extra fees.

Interested brands should also own a warehouse or physical store with API integration. This will enable you to receive notices when customers wish to use the service.

Benefits of Amazon Local Selling

Online retail stores will experience many advantages in reaching local customers. Local selling is convenient and fast, and Amazon offers all the tools for local retailers.

Fast and Convenient

As all e-commerce retail stores know, selling products to consumers across the country isn’t easy. You have to worry about long shipping times, lost packages, and damaged goods.

This is why many e-commerce businesses like the idea of selling products to local consumers but opening a brick-and-mortar store may also not be feasible.

Amazon Local selling combines online shopping with the convenience of shopping locally. With multiple delivery options, customers can receive their products in one or two days. Some store pickup options are ready in as little as one hour.

Expand Product Selection

One of the biggest perks of local selling is the ability to offer different products than you did before.

It’s common for e-commerce companies to only sell certain products online. For example, maybe some items are too bulky for shipping, or didn’t want to sell products that expire quickly. With local selling, you can offer perishables or bulky items to customers in your region.

Plus, you can also offer additional services, such as installation and assembly. These add-ons can be a deciding factor for certain customers and will choose your brand for convenience.

Seller Support

One of the many reasons why so many e-commerce stores sell on Amazon is the support they receive. Seller support is available in real-time and in the store’s time zone.

Stores can still receive support outside of typical business hours, which includes weekends, evenings, and even holidays.

Even with Amazon Local selling, you still receive different support communication methods. This includes chat and email.

Plus, Amazon will still handle customer communication on its end. If there’s an issue with an order, Amazon will contact you via email.

Flexible Fulfillment

Amazon sellers still have flexible fulfillment options when choosing Amazon Local selling. If you have a brick-and-mortar location, you can offer different store pickup and shopping options.

But if your business is still based online, you can use Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) or your own warehouse for delivery and pickups.

You can also seek help from a full-service e-commerce business. Customers can still choose to pick up their order at a locker or Hub Counter.

Do You Qualify?

Since Amazon Local selling has many delivery and pickup options, there are limits to what you can offer. If you want to offer local pickup, you’ll have to prove to Amazon that you have a store or warehouse where customers can retrieve their orders.

Fortunately, you can still offer delivery if you use FBA or another fulfillment option. Amazon can still handle order delivery with their partnered carriers and drop-off orders at the owner’s address, locker, or Hub Counter.

You’ll also have to apply to Amazon Local before setting up your store. You can click here to apply.

Delivery Options

One of the many benefits of Amazon Local selling is you have many delivery and pickup options, and you may be able to reach more customers. Keep in mind that these options are only available to consumers in a certain-mile radius of your store or warehouse zip code.

Local Delivery

Amazon Local selling offers ultrafast 1-2 day delivery options. All types of businesses, from grocery to electronics, can qualify for this option.

How does local delivery work? You can either handle your own delivery or use Amazon carriers to deliver items directly to your customer’s doorsteps. Amazon works with carriers from all over the country and even local delivery drivers with their Flex service so that you can guarantee fast delivery to your customers–even weekend and Sunday deliveries.

Buy Online, Pickup in Store

What is buy online, pickup in-store (BOPIS)? Buy Online, Pickup in Store (BOPIS) is a service that Amazon specifically offers to local sellers. With this option, shoppers can purchase their items online and pick them up at your storefront. You can offer in-store pickup as quickly as 90 minutes.

What are the BOPIS product options available? Technically, you can sell nearly any product with BOPIS. But BOPIS is most popular among consumers wanting to buy clothing, home products, groceries, and any item in the recreational and vocational categories.

Standalone Local Pickup

Standalone pickup is different from BOPIS. With this option, more customers can access the products that you don’t offer in-store, such as bulky items, perishables, and fragile products. Customers can still order these items and pick them up at your physical location.

Curbside Pickup

This option isn’t available yet. With curbside pickup you will soon be able to offer curbside pickup for Amazon customers. In this case, customers can drive up to the seller’s local store and park in a designated parking spot. A staff member will then bring out their order to the customer without them leaving the car.

Is the Amazon Local Selling Program Worth It?

With Amazon Local, you can reach customers located in specific zip codes. You can offer fast local delivery or offer pickup options.

Amazon Local is still very flexible. You can use the fulfillment you want and choose the delivery options that best fit your business. Plus, you still get the same perks from Amazon, such as seller support.

There are some best practices to know before using Amazon Local. First, you must apply to become an Amazon Local seller before listing any of your products. If you want to offer pickup, you must prove your storefront or warehouse is in a location where customers can claim their order.

Local selling is mainly a good idea for businesses that sell bulky, fragile, and perishable items. Sellers that want to offer additional services such as installation, and any company that wants to develop a deeper connection with local consumers.

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About the Author:

Stephanie Jensen has been writing e-commerce content for seven years, and her copy has helped numerous stores rank on Amazon. Follow her on LinkedIn for more insight into freelance writing and creating high-quality content.

Digital products simply refer to digital assets, media creations, that you can create once and sell infinitely, unlike physical products that need to be manufactured from scratch and have limited (often tiny) profit margins. Digital products are downloadable or streamable like mp3 files or pdfs or media files like png.

Digital products have an infinite supply and thus offer you several additional advantages making them all the more attractive as a business.

• Zero overheads: There’s no need to find a place to store clunky inventory as with physical products or worry about shipping fees that eat into your margins. Just list your products inside your online store

• High-profit margins: You don’t spend anything to reproduce the goods. No recurring costs translate to higher profit margins for your online business as you get to keep the majority of your sales when selling digital products online. You only need time and skills to create digital products to sell

• Automation potential: The orders are delivered automatically meaning there’s no heavy lifting for you in terms of fulfillment

• Digital products also give you a greater degree of freedom to offer free digital products to build your email list. You can also offer a monthly paid subscription that gives subscribers automatic access to the entire suite of your digital content. To sell digital products is to give your audience a licence to access your content

However, that doesn’t mean there’s no challenge involved in creating digital products to sell. It’s true that digital products don’t share the same challenges as physical products do but there are other things to be aware of:

• Your competition is against free content: To successfully sell digital products online you need to succeed against mushrooming sellers with similar alternatives, some of them free. At BrushGalaxy, they countered this by dedicating a section to free brushes and then another (more extensive) section to premium brushes inviting the best of both worlds.

Anyone who came looking for free brushes stayed around long enough and more often than not, was impressed by the quality of digital products and went for the premium options.

To summarize, to be successful, consider the market you’re selling to. Provide premium value when selling digital products, always invent new product ideas, list them on your own website, use creative promotional tactics, and work really hard at developing your brand from the bottom up.

Image Source

• You are at open risk of piracy: You need the right tools to protect your digital products, online courses, and other materials against piracy as there will always be someone looking to make a quick buck by copying your digital product.

• Limited options to advertise: Not every channel is open for selling. Facebook or Instagram only allows you to sell physical products through its platforms.

3 Apps for Selling Digital Products

There are many tools that you can use to sell digital products.

• Digital Downloads –It’s a Shopify app that gives your customers an option to download the file when you sell online and get a link to their email showing the product they purchased.

• Sendowl – Sendowl is a great tool with automation built in like expiring links or auto-generated keys when you sell digital products.

• Sky Pilot – This gives you the option to create a membership program that helps you sell files and video streams to customers.

Dropship Education Products like Ebooks or Courses

It isn’t always fun to create detailed content guidelines with massive amounts of textual and video input for an educational digital product that you sell online. You need to spend a lot of time creating presentations, not to say recording, re-recording, and editing videos all while chasing the elusive goal of a successful information product. To create online courses, start with the learner. What do students want to learn with your online course or once they’re done with the online course? Maybe even offer a free trial of your course first.

Use interactive exercises, quizzes, and tests to break down your material making the online courses even more engaging.

You can always package your expertise into valuable content in the form of videos and PDFs and dropship it to others who are interested when you sell digital products online. How? Start by posting tons of tutorials or blog posts about the subject you want to teach to scale your digital product business. Don’t try to sell digital products; instead, sell the consumer’s ability to effectively use the product post-purchase. This presents your idea in a customer-centric light rather than a sales-centric light. As counter-intuitive as it sounds, this alone can result in more conversions.

You can either leverage your expertise to gain exposure for products or you can start from scratch and offer content to increase awareness and leads in order for selling digital products.

Dropshipping Allows you to Use your Digital Assets

Creatives can post digital assets that are licensable worldwide for others to use in their works, including stock images, video recordings, and music.

By offering licenses to companies and individuals, you can charge for the use of your photos, videos, and music. Remember that in exchange for the exposure they give you, some marketplaces can charge up to 50% commission on each sale. There are free tools that help you create digital asset destinations.

Think backward when building such assets. Always ask yourself what content people will want to use.

Membership for Exclusive Digital Items

Creating recurring income is easy if you go about smartly selling digital products online. One smart way I’ve seen a lot of people become successful is product bundling. It’s simple as all you need to do is bundle different products together and then charge a recurring subscription fee from your online store. Bundling immediately increases the value proposition of your digital product in the customer’s minds. If you are selling online courses, bundle different online courses together to sell more of them.

This is a fantastic way to keep a growing library with a small group of dedicated members. Paid digital subscriptions also offer you a way to make money from content marketing efforts. You create more content, and subscribers see value in that and choose to stay on.

You can protect your content behind a paywall providing exclusive access to subscribers-only. Having a dedicated community helps you win chargebacks or completely avoid them.

Dropship Digital Templates and Tools

Digital items can also take the form of tools that allows someone to do tasks that require a lot of time. These act as solutions that address the pain points of specific audiences. You can host these digital product ideas on your own website.

Here are a few examples of digital products to sell:

• Enterprise files product mockups
• Resume templates for job seekers
• Enterprise level software
• Video editor plugins
• Procreate brushes
• Icons, fonts, or UX kits for designers

You can turn your skills and knowledge into digital products that generate a passive revenue stream for several years to come.

Sell any Type of Music or Painting

You may already know about ways to generate money from music or artwork. Digital goods can range from t-shirt designs to canvas prints.

Are you a musician? If so, you can also dropship ringtones or caller tunes that feature popular songs. Are you an artist? As an artist, you can create digital art and repurpose them as wallpapers for PCs or phones. There’s plenty of demand for that.

Dropship Expertise or Services

Services tend to limit what you can earn primarily because your inventory is limited to the number of hours you can accommodate in a day.

Customers often get digital products along with other services as part of their purchase. Designers provide the logo. It doesn’t end there. Next, you need a strategy where you position your services as a package and pair them with digital products.

You can offer consultation for a fixed hourly rate and then sell your customers other products or services. You could also offer a free download tool that will help you generate leads for your email lists, which is a common tactic used by many online businesses. This enables you to sell online. Another good idea is to create a listicle and include several valuable options for your customers.

You can always outsource some parts of your service that are simple but valuable for the end user.

Ideas to Sell Digital Products

It can be difficult to wait for the right moment, but finding a great business idea that you can sell as digital products by following a process is possible. The most important steps of the process are brainstorming, followed by validation.

Brainstorming

Begin with general digital product ideas. Be open to any criticism at this stage as bad ideas can always lead to good ideas for selling online.

You think you can educate people on how to use a product. Let’s say you sell mittens online. You might be able to land more bookings if you can create a course on knitting techniques. This course complements something you already do and builds on your expertise.

Conversely, you can create a fitness tracker for your clients as a digital product, if you’re teaching yoga online. Consider the values that drive your business. What related topics do you want to consider and brainstorm new ideas based on that?

You can teach others to do exceptional photography if your own skills are exceptional.

Research

Research is a fantastic way to generate new ideas and add them to your list.

When you conduct research that shows you a new way to find paint points that customers associated with your business, its principles, and the company.

These are some great places to get your work started.

Facebook Groups for Digital Sellers

You can learn a lot about hobbies and interests of your industry by being part of forums. There are both forums dedicated to selling physical products and to sell digital products.

Compare reviews on other online stores to get ideas about products and see that against your competition. These reviews could be either product reviews or stand-alone reviews posted on different blogs or sites.

Commentaries and blog articles. To develop the idea further, read blog content that your audience reads. Also, read the comments to further develop the idea.

Validating your Digital Product Idea

Before you invest time into an idea, validate the idea. You don’t want to invest too much time or money into ventures that would eventually fizzle out. However, there’s an opportunity for you to validate your idea in different ways:

Keyword Research

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Use the keyword research tool to discover the number of people searching for your subject. This presents you with additional ideas you may have never thought of initially.

Another place is Google Trends. With Google Trends, you can find topics that are growing in search. This shows the opportunities will continue to grow.

Requesting Reviews

Get in touch with clients by email or social media. Conducting a survey is a fantastic way to solicit feedback.

A smaller version of content may be better than a larger one. This helps you validate your ideas.

Digital Dropshipping Products You can Start Selling Today

1. eBooks

eBooks are some of the most profitable digital products to sell online that both creators and customers love equally. They are simple to produce and require a little more than written text and some images. eBooks are in another way online courses without video lectures.

An additional benefit is, eBooks are easy to distribute on large marketplaces or online stores. They’re easy to access as people can read them on e-readers, tablets, computers, or even phones.

Ebooks allow you to share anything you are passionate about on any creative market like Amazon KDP or your own online store. You can educate, advise, and curate existing content within an eBook and sell them on your own site or store.

2. Software

The software industry is pretty big and growing and holds the key to passive income. That affords us many opportunities. Selling a piece of software is far more difficult than selling physical products.

The global software market is projected to be worth over USD 1 trillion.

People use computers almost every single day, and apps and codes speed up daily tasks in their personal and business lives. Software is one of the most profitable digital products there is and is an example of a best-selling digital product.

Starting from large companies to small businesses, these are a few examples of types of software products to make and sell.

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• WordPress plugins and themes
• Project management tools
• Mobile apps
• Mac apps
• Linux apps
• Android apps
• Web-based SaaS tools

You can turn your code into cold-hard cash.

3. Web-based Applications (SaaS)

SaaS products unlike software products aren’t downloaded from the web and installed on your computer. It’s run inside a browser and these aren’t digital products in every sense of the word but are sold in the same way.

If you run an eCommerce business and want to create a handy application for your customers, you can either turn to the eCommerce app dev company or work with creators directly to buy their digital products.

The number of SaaS tools and apps is huge. Here are some examples of SaaS products you may be familiar with.

File storage services like Dropbox, iCloud, Google Drive

Spotify

Email marketing platforms like Drip or Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign

CRM apps like Salesforce

LMS membership sites like Kajabi

Pick a niche and there will be a SaaS tool built around it.

4. Graphics and Digital Art

As a graphic designer or artist, you can create a variety of both unique and valuable content to sell as digital goods. Digital art gives you access to an ever-growing customer base for your very own online business.

This is a great way to generate recurring passive income online and find lots of potential customers. There are plenty of graphic design tools and services you can offer on top of selling digital art.

You can make these digital goods in your online store:

• Logos
• Brand design kit
• Templates
• Photo templates
• Procreate brushes
• Artwork
• Stock icons
• Card designs
• Swipe files
• Brushes
• Backgrounds and more

6. Fonts

Fonts and typefaces are good examples of digital products that will remain popular. As customer preferences change and morph designers need new fonts. Fonts can be created for use on the web, for applications like Docs or Word, and for design work inside Adobe Photoshop.

7. Music and Audio

Both music and audio are powerful ways to communicate messages.

Audio products can include:

• Lectures
• Music
• Audiobooks
• Foreign language lessons
• Background noises
• Karaoke versions of popular songs
• Sound effects

8. Photography

It’s no secret that internet users often use copyrighted images illegally even without knowing that. However, brands know that they should buy the right to the imagery. Thus, high-quality, premium photos are a sought-after digital product. The biggest consumer of online photographs are bloggers as well as other website owners.

There are multiple photos you can sell:

• Stock photos
• AI-generated photos
• Event photos
• Backgrounds

Plus, you can sell photos on digital selling platforms like Adobe. Photography is crowded will many competitors that make it difficult to price your photos right. You hardly get paid for the skill and effort you put into the craft making it difficult to earn what you are worth.

However, you can use multiple strategies to build a successful business selling photos. Make it easy to buy photos. A good website is both critical to showcasing your portfolio as well as elevating your profile. The first thing you need to do is make it very easy to purchase photos. Consider whether you should sell photographs individually or provide unlimited downloads to subscribers. With fair pricing and a great selection of images, you can start to do really well selling both indeed or client-ordered photos on your site.

9. Video

Video is an extremely popular format to deliver quality information. Content can educate inform and entertain. You can create videos, package them inside a course, and sell them as online courses.

It’s more engaging than simple text. Some like watching videos at 1.5x to 2x speed.

Users love videos and are happy to pay for the same.

• Sell online courses
• Stock Footage
• Drone footage
• Special effect templates for motion graphics
• After effects templates
• Product reviews video gameplay

Conclusion

What do you think of the different ways to dropship digital products and earn a full-time income online?

You need to monitor your keywords and optimize your bids to make your ads run profitably. If you can automate all these processes, you can save a lot of time and effort, can’t you? 

Advertising automation can really help you streamline your Amazon ad management.

Besides, automating your campaign management will also give you precise results. 

This article tells you everything about how automation can benefit you as a marketer and helps you with techniques that can make you stand out in the competition. 

What to consider before beginning with automation

The problem with Amazon PPC campaigns is you constantly need to test and track them. But automation allows you to be productive and save a lot of time and effort – more about that later. 

You need to know all the aspects of your Amazon ad that you can automate. 

Here are the three key aspects of your Amazon campaign that you can automate:

• Bids
• Keywords
• Campaigns

Along with that, we’d suggest you track your campaign budgets so you can effectively automate your campaigns. 

Why should you automate your Amazon campaigns?

Amazon advances every day, and so does the competition. Therefore, any advertising efforts demand quick and precise results in an unprecedented way. And, automation helps you achieve just that. Besides, instead of monitoring and optimizing manually, you can focus on other activities, including product research, inventory management, and other activities of your business.  

Advertising automation can benefit Amazon sellers in multiple ways. 

Automation saves time

This is a no-brainer. Automation allows you to save time for engaging yourself in other productive activities that may help boost your business, apart from ad management. If you have a large portfolio of products and run multiple automatic and manual campaigns, you need to spend more time managing and optimizing ad campaigns. 

It reduces effort with built-in features

When you leverage automation and tools that can optimize your Amazon PPC campaigns, you can find insightful features that give you actionable data on existing campaigns. Let’s say these advanced Amazon optimization tools can suggest negative keywords depending on your target ACoS, help you find top-performing keywords from automatic campaigns, and suggest you take necessary actions. 

These built-in features help you launch, optimize, and scale your campaigns seamlessly.

Automation Improves scalability

The campaign’s scalability increases if you run and manage multiple campaigns without spending much effort and time. This would save you time in strategizing your advertising efforts.

It helps in documentation and data collection

Analyzing historical advertising data is helpful for creating campaigns. The search term report and targeting report are very helpful to advertisers. But, Amazon only allows access to advertising reports for 65 days and 90 days respectively. That means you should download all the data periodically or you will lose the historical data. 

On the flip side, if you use third-party advertising automation tools, you can access all your data from the time you sync your account to till date.

It operates based on a set of rules

There are two cases that arise if you change bids manually without automation. You lower the bid beyond a limit so that you no longer deal with many important keywords. The second case is where the bid goes higher than expected. In this scenario, the ACoS increases unimaginably.

When you automate the process of optimization, the system decreases or increases bids based on several pre-set rules. This helps you maintain an optimum ACoS and ensure that you do not omit relevant keywords. 

Optimizes round the clock

The automation mechanisms work round the clock without any break so that the reports and analyses are available at any time. 

Lowering the scope of human errors

When you are doing the PPC management manually, it is quite natural for mistakes to creep in. Unlike manual PPC management, automation does away with mistakes and false interpretations. 

Things to keep in mind before you automate Amazon ad campaigns

Before you automate the campaigns, there are certain steps you should follow to ensure your automation process runs smoothly. 

Fixing the goals

Setting a clear goal for your campaigns will help you create the right PPC strategies. These goals may include, increased brand visibility, more brand awareness, better organic ranking, improved market share, etc. 

Set the ad budget and closely watch the metrics

Keep in mind the budget. You also need to possess an understanding of the metrics you want to watch. Watching the metrics for some time will help you find what’s working for your campaign. This will lead to the refinement of your PPC strategies.  

Choose the right way to automate your campaigns

There are two ways in which you can automate your campaigns. 

Use an advertising tool like SellerApp to automate some of your PPC tasks. 

You can either optimize manually or go for automation. If you choose automation, you can also decide if you want to go with the defined rules or the machine learning algorithms. 

Difference between rule-based automation and machine-learning automation

A step-by-step guide to automating your Amazon PPC campaigns using SellerApp 

Now that you know the many benefits that automation brings to your Amazon ads, let’s see how to automate your PPC campaigns. Here is the step-by-step guide. 

SellerApp’s automation rules work based on pre-defined rule sets. You can automate your PPC using these rules. To begin with the automation, you need to:

• Log in to the Dashboard
• Navigate to “Advertising”
• Click “Automation”
• Select “Automation Blueprint”

You can either “Create from Blank” or “Choose from template”

Choose from Template

If you click “Automation Blueprint,” it will show three rule templates to choose from. They include:

• Increase visibility
• ACoS Optimization
• Budget Management

You can increase your product’s visibility by incorporating search terms that will gain you more impressions. You can use Keyword Harvester and ROI Optimizer to achieve this. 

ACoS optimization allows you to adjust your ad spending according to the performance of your keywords. It helps you boost your ROI while maintaining your ACoS. You can curb the wastage of money by optimizing negative keyword targets in your campaigns. You can use the feature called Money Saver to attain optimum ACoS. 

The third rule is Budget Management, which helps you use dayparting to optimize your campaign budgets. Dayparting helps you run your ads at the most optimal times of the day. You can use dayparting at the campaign and account levels. 

Create from Blank

Apart from choosing from the pre-set rule templates, you can also create your own rule from scratch. The “Create from Blank” option allows you to create your own rules or set different conditions for your campaign. 

Click “Create from blank” and add the relevant information about your new rule.

Final words

Automation minimizes your workload to a great extent. But you can not lean back imagining that automation will bring the desired results. It is always a good idea to review your campaigns at least once a week. Also, give the right suggestions to the automation system at the right time to gain maximum benefit. 

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About the Author:

Arishekar is a multi-faceted marketing professional with a proven track record of success in the highly competitive e-commerce industry. As the Senior Marketing Director at SellerApp, Arishekar has been instrumental in driving the growth and success of the company. With over ten years of experience in digital marketing, he has specialized in areas such as SEO, PPC, social media, and content marketing, making him a multifaceted marketing professional.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arishekar/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/arishekarn