Now that Amazon is larger than ever, and more and more third party sellers are after their piece of the pie, taking the time to make small but impactful adjustments to your account and business practices is a key to success. Here are 5 things you can do now to make a lasting positive impact on your Amazon account performance.

 

    1. Clean up your listings and then optimize them for Amazon specifically. Ensure none of your listings are infringing on any intellectual property rights. Many sellers inadvertently violate intellectual rights by adding things like ‘compatible with Lego’ in their title. This infringes upon Lego’s rights, even if you didn’t directly claim you were selling a Lego item. And a company like Lego will surely pursue an infringement claim in this case. Your listings should perfectly reflect your actual stock and your descriptions should be thorough enough for customers to be clear on what they are purchasing. This will also help you avoid customer complaints such as ‘Not as Advertised’. Ensure that your title, bullet points, and product descriptions are complete, detailed, and accurate. Along with your written information, make sure you include plenty of item images, rather than just using one main picture. If your descriptions and images are thorough enough, you will likely avoid returns.

 

    1. Remove listings of inventory items that are problematic. Items that get frequent negative feedback or critical product reviews should be the first to go. Even if they are high selling items, it typically isn’t worth the risk of putting your account in danger. Lessening customer complaints is a sure fire way to improve your account metrics and performance quickly.

 

    1. Set up lower targets for your performance metrics than the ones imposed by Amazon. This will help you catch issues before they escalate and become a risk for suspension. Preventing notifications before they happen is much better than waiting to address issues because you receive a warning or violation. You should also address retroactive notifications, if any. Letting them stack up without addressing them according to Amazon’s policies is a quick route to suspension.

 

    1. Regularly download reports available in the Account Health section, for instance the Valid Tracking Rate report or the Delivered on Time report (Amazon keeps a close eye on these two), to see what’s not working well with your carriers and shipping. Are you not adding tracking numbers in time? Is the carrier not updating in time? Do packages get lost or delayed in certain areas only? Can you pinpoint a specific day when most problems occur? Address any performance issues you find there immediately. Depending on what you find, consider making changes to your carrier(s). There are a lot of sellers that opt for more expensive carriers during the holiday season to ensure good service during a time with such a rate of high orders.

 

    1. Analyze your feedback to see what’s predominant. Make sure you are addressing and replying to feedback and engaging with your customers. Sometimes, it’s possible to get them to retract negative feedback if you resolve the issue to their liking. Is it condition that causes most problems? Or shipping? Or even customer service practices? If this is at all an issue, consider being more customer oriented, especially at this time of the year, where 90% of the buyers get impatient about their orders and delivery times. Doing this work can give you good hints about what processes need improvement.

 

Remember, this is just a short checklist. The most seasoned and successful Amazon sellers know that staying hands on and aware of your account at all times is the best path to sustainability on this platform. Wishing you the best of luck and don’t hesitate to reach out to us if you have questions about optimizing your account performance.

SellerEngine has been providing software and services to Amazon sellers for over 15 years and counting. In 2002, we introduced the first automated repricing and inventory management tool for Amazon sellers. Since then, we’ve coached, supported, and learned from thousands of Amazon sellers. Watching your business grow beyond your expectations and solving frustrating problems is what keeps us coming back for more.

Our software is smart enough to understand how you want to run your business. And it’s powerful enough to run 24/7, on 7 global Amazon Marketplaces. But software can’t do everything.

If you want to reduce your shipping costs, enter a new international marketplace, sell in a gated product category, or anything else, reach out to us. We want to make you feel like selling on Amazon could be just as easy as buying on Amazon.

We are a friendly, knowledgeable, and worldly group of people. All together, we represent 9 nationalities, speak 13 languages, and work in 3 countries. We value relationships, respect, and making things easy.

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If you enjoyed this content, consider joining us at PROSPER Show, March 13-14, 2018 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. 
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