HOW TO INCREASE SALES ON AMAZON – 14 PRO TIPS FOR 2024

Amazon’s marketplace is getting more cut-throat by the day. With increased competition, it’s getting harder to take your slice of the pie.

So, with competition getting hotter every day, how can you increase your sales on Amazon, and take your business to the next level?

The good news is, despite competition going up, the share of sales available to sellers on the Amazon marketplace is getting bigger and bigger. Amazon’s revenue is growing at a huge rate, and so is the percentage of sales from third-party sellers.

More good news! Many sellers still aren’t running their businesses as efficiently as they could be. There are still a ton of sellers with poorly written listings, low-quality images, not running effective promotions, which presents an opportunity for you.

Boosting sales on the Amazon marketplace is easier than you might think. It’s about finding opportunities to improve your product listings and acquire more customers and, bit by bit, start overtaking lazy or inexperienced sellers.

Here’s our roundup of 14 actionable ways you can increase your Amazon sales in 2022.

14 Ways to Increase Your Amazon Sales

#1: Optimize Your Listing for Sales

Bad product listings cost a lot of Amazon sellers money.

It takes a lot of work to get people to click through to your listing. So it’s amazing how many detail pages squander this with poor copywriting and basic mistakes in product descriptions. Browse our partner-sponsored Glasses, with a variety of options to suit every taste and budget, available to buy online

The quickest and easiest thing you can do to increase sales is checking for basic errors in your listing copy:

• Spelling mistakes
• Grammar errors
• Sentences that don’t make sense

Try to eliminate big walls of text, and make sure your listing is easy to read. Shoppers should be able to scan your listing quickly, finding the benefits of your product and why they should buy it.

Don’t be afraid to use HTML in your product description (e.g. bold text). And use CAPS to highlight key selling points of your product.

Most people think that listing optimization is all about keywords, but if your listing is not optimized to convert viewers into buyers, it doesn’t matter where you show up in the search results.

Another part that many people overlook is mobile optimization.

Mobile is becoming a bigger factor every year in all forms of online business, especially retail. If you’re not considering mobile users, you may be missing out on additional sales.

When creating your listing, think about how it will appear on mobile, not just desktop. On the Amazon mobile app, all that shows above the fold is your title and pictures. This makes it super important to show the value, features, benefits, and use cases of your product in your secondary pictures.

#2: Do More Keyword Research

Many sellers are missing opportunities when it comes to keywords. Even though you may have hundreds of keywords you’ve researched and are ranking for, there’s often more to find.

Look for as many variations of your keywords as you can. Find different uses of your keyword, such as “[keyword] for …” and mentions of sizing in customer searches.

These “long-tail” keywords are extremely valuable, as they drive high-intent traffic to your listing, despite not having that much search volume.

Once you find potential opportunities you’re not ranking for, try and incorporate these into your listing somewhere (while keeping your copy sales-focused).

Use a keyword tool to find additional long-tail keyword opportunities, such as Jungle Scout, Helium10 or ZonGuru This will help you attract more customers on Amazon and as a result, increase your total sales.

#3: Better Product Images

Photos play a huge role in converting impressions into sales, as well as attracting clicks from the search results.

We consume visual content much easier than written content. It’s the role of your images to grab customers’ attention and get them to fall in love with your product.

Low-quality images reflect poorly on your product. Images that don’t fully show your product and what it can do create doubt in shoppers’ minds. It’s your job to give the customer all the information they need to make a confident decision to buy your product.

Unclear images can even lead to bad reviews, when the product that arrives is different from what a customer was expecting.

#4: Get Your Pricing Right

With how much competition there is on Amazon, pricing plays a huge factor in customers’ buying decisions.

Think about it from a shopper’s point of view – we all want to get the best price possible. If a customer is weighing up your product versus another, price can easily be the determining factor.

This is especially true if you’re selling against multiple sellers on the same listing. When selling the exact same product, 99% of the time, the customer will choose the lower-priced item. The chances that you have a better seller feedback profile and that convinces someone to pick you is pretty small.

In this case, it might be worth investing in an automated repricing tool to adjust your pricing and stay ahead of the competition.

While it’s most common to lose out by pricing your products too high, the opposite can also cost you money.

You don’t want to sell your products for too cheap. Many people sell their products much cheaper than the competition when they could get the same number of sales (and more revenue) by raising the price slightly.

That’s why you need to price competitively. Too far above or below the price point of similar products will cost you money.

#5: Split Test

Small details, such as your title or the order of your images or bullet points, can end up making a big difference.

But it’s hard to know what works and what doesn’t without testing.

Online business models let you test everything. Titles, images, pricing, email subject lines… you should be continually testing and optimizing, finding out what works and what doesn’t.

To split test (also known as AB testing), run two identical versions of the same thing (say, a website landing page or an Amazon follow-up email), changing only one variable.

If there’s a significant difference in results between the two versions, you can chalk that up to the variable you changed.

A tool like Splitly helps you AB test features on your product listing, automating everything to save you time.

Even a small improvement, such as an increase in impressions or conversions by a few percent, will lead to a significant increase in your Amazon sales over time.

#6: Use FBA (Fulfilled By Amazon)

Amazon’s fulfillment service, FBA, doesn’t just make storage and shipping easier for you. It’s also a way to boost your sales!

Amazon Prime is the reason that FBA helps increase sales. The Amazon Prime badge is something shoppers trust. When someone sees Amazon Prime attached to your product, it helps take away some of the doubt involved in the purchasing decision.

The main benefit of Amazon Prime is shipping. A survey found 79.8% of people in the US gave “fast, free shipping” as the reason they shop on Amazon.

When we buy something online, we want it fast, and we don’t want to pay for shipping.

#7: Win the Buy Box

The Buy Box is probably the biggest difference-maker in terms of sales on Amazon. If you don’t own the Buy Box, you’re missing out on a lot of a product’s sales.

This is the section on the right side of a product listing with the big “Add to Cart” button.

Whichever seller “owns” the Buy Box gets the orders from customers who click on this button. All other sellers of this product are listed below, under the “Other Sellers on Amazon” heading.

You’d assume that most customers would click on the Buy Box to make a purchase, and that would be correct. A massive 82% of sales on Amazon come from the Buy Box.

That means, if you’re competing with other sellers on a listing, the number one thing you can do to increase your sales is to own the Buy Box.

It’s obviously easier said than done, but there may be some things you can do to improve your chance of owning the Buy Box.

Some of the factors that go into this include:

• Fulfillment method (FBA products have a higher chance of winning the Buy Box)
• Price (Amazon prefers a lower price, including shipping & handling fees)
• Price consistency (big swings in price may result in losing the Buy Box)
• Account health (seller feedback, order defect rate, and many other seller metrics)
• Number of products in stock (you probably won’t get the Buy Box if you have 1 unit in stock and another seller has a lot more)

There are more factors that come into play, but these are the biggest. Take a look if anything here applies to you, and if so, try to rectify it.

Being buried in the “Other Sellers on Amazon” section is just as bad as being buried on page 9 of the search results.

#8: Run & Optimize PPC Campaigns

Amazon search is becoming more and more of a “pay to play” game. Organic search results are getting pushed down, in favor of sponsored (paid) results.

PPC is a proven and effective way to increase your overall Amazon sales, by pumping money in to push your product above organic results. You’ll get more visibility, more clicks, and more sales.

A lot of sellers are running PPC, but not as effectively as they could. You should constantly be tracking and optimizing your PPC campaigns to improve results.

Optimizations may include putting more of your budget into more profitable search terms, and less budget for search terms that don’t give you a good ACOS.

Investing in PPC is just about a must in today’s Amazon landscape. If you’re not running PPC yet, this is a big opportunity to increase your sales.

#9: On-Amazon Promotions

Who doesn’t love a deal??

Amazon customers sure do. So, if you want to increase sales on Amazon, a promotion is one of the best and quickest ways to do it.

There are a few different types of promotions you can run on Amazon. These include Lightning Deals, 7-Day Deals, and Amazon Coupons.

Most deals you can set up on Amazon will appear on your product listing, on the search results page, and on Amazon’s showcase pages. This allows you to attract more visibility and more sales on conversions from people who find your product.

Some showcase deals, such as Lightning Deals can be quite competitive, and thus cost a bit of money to run. However, it’s a great way to increase sales velocity and create some momentum for your product to rank higher.

#10: Off-Amazon Promotions (External Traffic)

External promotions are powerful because you have the potential to tap into a whole new audience and get ahead of your competition on Amazon.

In the previous sections, we mentioned Amazon PPC and on-Amazon promotions, which maximize the sales you get from people already shopping on Amazon.

External traffic promotions are the opposite. With this method of promotion, you will go out and get in front of potential customers yourself, when they aren’t on Amazon looking for something to buy.

This lets you cast a much wider net and increase your brand’s exposure – A LOT.

Channels like Facebook Ads, Google Ads, and other social platforms give you a huge audience to advertise to. There are literally millions of potential customers you can reach with these channels.

You can run promotions (such as offering an exclusive promo code) on off-Amazon ad platforms to generate a significant increase in sales. Better, yet, most Amazon sellers never tried (or never perfected) external traffic funnels, which means there’s a big opportunity to get ahead of the competition.

The extra sales you generate from these promotions are also a proven way to increase organic rankings, even more than from on-Amazon promotions.

#11: Build an Email List

Email marketing generates a return of $38 for every $1 spent. It’s one of the oldest and most effective online marketing channels. Thus, building a list and utilizing email marketing can lead to a big increase in Amazon sales.

To do this, you’ll need to start running external traffic promotions, as in the previous section. This is because you can’t email customers who already bought from you on Amazon. You need to get them onto your list before they get to Amazon.

The best way to build an email list is with a funnel like this:

Use a landing page in between the external traffic channel and your Amazon listing. This lets you build in an email opt-in – for example, offering a discount code in return for joining your list.

Once you have a list, you can start driving additional sales with up-sells, cross-sells (promoting other products), and seasonal promotions (such as Christmas and Black Friday).

Again, few Amazon sellers have and use an email list. This is your chance to do something your opposition is not doing.

#12: Get More Reviews

Product reviews are a vital part of selling online. They provide social proof, which is essential for getting past customer objections and making sales.

A lot of customers read product reviews before ultimately deciding to buy or not. And since review rating and total review count are visible in the search results screen, they play a big part in whether a customer clicks through to your listing or not.

A product with 500 reviews and an average rating of 4.5 gives a great impression to shoppers. If it’s up against a product with 20 reviews and an average rating of 3.0, every sale will go to the one with the higher rating and more reviews.

Getting more product reviews isn’t easy. And if you try to cut corners, by buying reviews or offering incentives, you’re almost certain to get your account banned or suspended.

But there are a lot of small things you can do to encourage more people to write reviews, which add up over time. These include:

• Using the “Request a Review” button
• Putting product inserts inside your packaging to ask for a review
• Improving your product (checking old reviews for common issues)
• Using your email list to ask for product reviews and feedback

If you build an email list, this also gives you the chance to build long-term relationships with your audience, which will have a positive effect on your reviews over time.

Learn more about how to get reviews on Amazon, safe and legally.

#13: Use Amazon’s Branding Tools

Amazon has some pretty powerful tools to help you sell more.

Amazon wants robust, recognizable brands selling on its platform. That’s why they’re giving these brands the tools to improve their customers’ shopping experience (and ultimately convert more shoppers into buyers).

To start with, enroll in Brand Registry to be eligible for these tools.

Once you’re in, you’ll be able to add A+ Content (formerly Enhanced Brand Content) to your product listings. This is a superb power-up for your listings, and a big differentiator between you and your competition (if they don’t have A+ Content).

Other tools include Amazon Storefronts, Amazon Attribution, Sponsored Brands and the Brand Dashboard. These tools help you increase visibility and recognition of your brand, which ultimately leads to an increase in sales.

#14 Optimize Inventory and Profits

Jeff Bezos famously said, “Your margin is my opportunity.” Said a bit differently by  many of the most successful marketers, “Whoever can afford to spend the most to acquire a new customer wins.”

The basic principle of this is to optimize your business systems so efficiently that you can operate on thinner margins, offer better prices, and even be able to spend more on marketing while still profiting more than your competition.

For example: If you can afford to spend $100  on ads to acquire a new customer and remain profitable, while your competition can only afford $75 in ads to acquire a new customer and stay profitable, you win – you’re going to make more sales.

One of the most practical ways to maximize profit margins is by optimizing your inventory practices.

1. Don’t run out of stock, which impact sales and rankings
2. Avoid over-ordering and dealing with extra storage fees
3. Avoid ordering too late and paying too much for air shipping

For instance, I talked with the team over at SoStocked, an Amazon inventory management software for Amazon sellers. SoStocked helped one of their customers dial in their inventory forecasting and management so that the customer could start shipping by boat instead of air. This lowered the Amazon seller’s per unit shipping costs from $1.20 by air down to around $0.45 by sea. A 63% reduction in shipping costs which amounted to a $27,000 saving per month.

Reinvesting those savings into advertising, or charging less, is a great way to increase sales.

How to Increase Your Amazon Sales – In Summary

Everyone wants more sales. That’s the point of doing business. The good news is, for most sellers, there are plenty of opportunities to increase your sales on Amazon.

More shoppers are coming to Amazon when they want to buy something online, which means there are more people to buy your product.

The list of sales tips in this post is not exhaustive – there are even more things you could do to drive more sales for your products, that we didn’t touch on.

Set up an integration with your Shopify or WooCommerce store to drive more sales. Hack the “frequently bought together” section on Amazon. Optimize your Amazon listing for Google SEO.

These are just a few more ideas, in the unlikely scenario you don’t find any opportunities in the initial list.

By following the tips in this post, you’re going to see a boost in sales, and the momentum you need to overtake the competition and crush it in 2022.