You’ve launched your product, had some sales, and now you’re looking to scale by using Amazon Sponsored Product Ads to drive traffic to your listings.
Now What?
A lot of newer sellers make the mistake of running PPC Ads to every product they have. One of the most important components to consider when deciding which product to advertise is the concept of Retail Readiness.
Retail Ready Product
You should consider a product to be retail ready if it meets the following criteria:
- Product title which is 50 to 100 characters and includes your most important keywords
- Description which includes bullet points and important keywords people would use to find your product
- High Quality images on a white background showing your products
- Star Rating
- Your star rating should be at least 3.5 (aim for 4+ stars)
- Reviews
- Your Products should have at least 15 customer reviews.
- The product should be in stock and you should own the Buy Box
Product Title
Your product should have a title that is clear, descriptive and has your most relevant keywords. To find your keywords, use something like https://keywordtool.io/amazon
Product Description
Your product should have a description which is clear, concise and accurately explains your product. It should also include your most relevant keywords, as well as different search terms that someone might use to find your product.
This description of the Echo is a good example of well formatted, and properly researched description.
High Quality Images
Your main image should be on a simple, white background showcasing only your product. You should also use all available image spaces to show different angles, product use etc. A video of your product being used can also be very helpful.
Star Rating
The most important part of product retail readiness. Your star rating on Amazon can be the difference between massive success, or colossal failure. According to Amazon, if your product has under 3.5 stars you should not run ads to it.
In reality, if you have under 4 stars, running ads to that product is a very aggressive advertising strategy that may result in a higher ACoS than usual. However, it is also a good way to kick-start more sales and bump your product rating up.
Customer Reviews
The second most important part of retail readiness. If you have poor reviews, they should be diluted by other favorable reviews. The type of poor review is also important. Someone using your product for months and then having it stop working is “bad,” but not as bad as a product that didn’t work out of the box. Try to make it up to the reviews and handle the poor reviews with professionalism.
Note on competitors leaving poor reviews: Inevitably, when your store becomes big enough, you will attract the attention of unscrupulous competitors who will buy your product in order to leave a bad review. Amazon is pretty good at figuring out when this has occurred, but they aren’t perfect. If you suspect this is what has happened to you, report it to Amazon and they will investigate further.
Product Availability and Buy Box
It goes without saying that your product should be in stock and that you should own the buy box. If you are the brand owner in Amazon’s Brand Registry (which I highly suggest you to be if you’re selling your own product), you can report all listings that infringe on your brand and make it fairly easy to be the sole seller (something that guarantees you the buy box).