For brands who want to be closer to the point of consideration, comparison and purchase, Amazon Storefronts represent a great way of ‘being on Amazon’ in a more considered way that is relatively simple to get up and running.
In the past, selling your products on Amazon came with a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to product presentation, showcasing your range and telling a compelling story about your brand. Amazon has recognised this challenge and begun to provide
different ways for brands to merchandise their products.
One of the most useful of these is Amazon Stores. Although Stores has been around for a while, it’s now available free to registered, approved brands.
So, why build your own Amazon Store? Because it provides a branded ‘storefront’ for your brand and range of products within Amazon, and is close to the point of purchase.
Gives your brand a reputable, credible and stand-out presence on Amazon in a world of 3rd-party sellers
You have control over the structure, look and feel and content to best showcase your products and tell your brand story—from videos and slideshows to testimonials
Your Store gives you a unique Amazon URL to drive traffic to as well as improving the visibility of your brand or products outside Amazon (as keywords are indexed by Google)
Based on analytics or business needs, such as a product launch, your Store can be easily tweaked or updated to push a particular product
Getting started with your Amazon Store
Get registered
The first thing you will need to do is get your brand registered with the Amazon Brand Registry service, this will open up Amazon Stores for you whilst also allowing you to have some control over 3rd-party sellers who may
also be selling your product on Amazon.
Develop a portfolio plan for Amazon
From your range of products, which are your ‘hero’ products, do you have product bundles or accessories, what are your best-sellers? This will inform how best to organise your Store.
What’s your story?
Just as in any brand communications, spend some time developing the key messages and useful content for your Store. What will help a customer choose your product? Find the right balance between brand messaging and merchandising. Consider how this content
works with your product listing pages and any enhanced A+ content you may already have on your product pages.
Wireframes and designs
Create a set of wireframes using the available Amazon Store navigation, templates and modules. Just as in designing a website, it’s important to consider how a visitor to your Store will find the info they need to put your product in their basket.
Again, keep it simple, a visitor is on Amazon to buy.
Build and proof
You can use your wireframe and visual design to build your Store using the Store Builder tool and templates you will have access to as a registered Vendor or Seller, this can then be proofed internally before submitting to Amazon for approval.
Get it approved
Amazon has some strict content guidelines, especially around any claims you make for your products— this is especially important in certain sectors like healthcare. Approval for your Store will normally take around 72 hours.
Optimise your Store
You will have access to Stores Insights’ dashboard of stats, this will tell you daily visitors, page views, and sales generated from your Store. If you are driving traffic to your Store from other marketing activity
you can tag this to be able to track how effective those campaigns are in converting traffic to sales through your Store.
Note: This article is written by Patrick Furse, Digital Director, Bray Leino UK.