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Your Amazon Business & Marketing Q&A #3

Your Amazon Business & Marketing Q&A #3

Welcome to the third edition of ‘Your Amazon Business & Marketing Questions & Answers.’ For the next couple of weeks, this is going to be a bi-weekly Q&A series where we answer questions from our Amazon sellers. If you have any specific biz question don't hesitate to write us at [email protected].

In this post we're going to answer:

Let’s get right to it.

What is the difference between a hijacker and someone looking to break into a competitive product market?

When entering a competitive market, a lot of the keywords you will be using to describe your product will already be in use by established sellers. It can be easy to think that by using these, you create very similar titles and therefore become a hijacker.

This is not the case.

Hijackers are clearly trying to just steal sales. They will do this by copying an existing listing like for like with the only change they make being a lower priced product. Because the product is cheaper, they usually win the sale. Learn how to fight them.

Create a unique listing that doesn’t blatantly do what a previous listing has done. Of course, you may end up doing a lot of similar product descriptions etc but this just comes with the competitive space.

This does not apply however to stores that operate a dropshipping business model that sells unbranded products and gets their inventory from places like AliExpress.

Other stores can advertise the exact same product as you and sell it. In fact, Amazon likes it when this happens because it streamlines the shopping experience.

This can be really annoying if you have found a product and market that takes off really well but someone else notices and helps themselves to your profits.

To avoid this, stay away from products that have no distinguishable logos. Items that have brands cannot be copied meaning if they are then you can get Amazon to remove them.

What percentage of customers usually leave feedback? Do I have a good conversion?

If you look around at the forums you will find that most sellers say that get around the 10% mark for people leaving feedback.

If your store is getting above this then whatever you are doing, keep it up, you are doing a fantastic job at keeping customers satisfied!

For those of you that are not getting these kind of numbers, there are a few things you can do to increase the number of customers leaving a review on your products.

We have dedicated a MONSTER article on how to increase reviews on Amazon.

For the time constrained...

Most of the time, people will leave a review commenting on the quality of the customer service. By fulfilling an order as quickly as possible, including shipping and confirming delivery, customers will be impressed that you got the product to them swiftly and increases your chance of leaving a review.

Customers also leave reviews about the quality of the product they recieve.

This means that you should be sending the product in appropriate packaging that not only protects it well but suits the product.

For example, if you are selling shoes, make sure they are delivered in a shoe box AND outer packaging. Keep it professional. Don’t just send them loose in a bag to the customer.

This also applies to the item itself. Make sure it is clean and comes exactly how it is described on your store.

Don't forget that there is also seller feedback along with product reviews.

When my product has variations on Amazon and I stop selling the original SKU, will I lose the reviews I have accumulated?

When you create a new product listing on Amazon, you are required to provide a SKU before they give it an ASIN. Once the ASIN has been assigned to the product, it becomes a permanent fixture in their catalogue.

If you proceed to delete the original SKU to create the product or the SKU that is used to create an offer of some kind, the ASIN will delete the data.

The data it deletes unfortunately does include the reviews you have worked hard to get.

Instead of deleting the SKU, you should just stop using it. That way, you will keep your reviews.

You should actually be more worried about the product ASIN and ensure it has the correct UPC.

How can I protect my product photos from being hijacked?

This is an interesting question and there are various methods you can use.

The first way to fight back against hijackers is to just to keep an eye on your product listing. Especially for private label products, you need to have a peace in mind and keep up to date with any updates to competitors’ listings. If any changes are made that change their product photo to yours, you will be able to tell straight away it’s been hijacked.

You should also look getting your brand registered with Amazon themselves. You can register your brand on Amazon via their registry program but in order to get the product registered it needs to be trademarked. This is a long term protection method in the sense that a) it can take a while to get the patent in place and b) the brand will be secured forever.

Having the picture clearly showing your brand and product protects your product. Private labels can take advantage of making listings as secure as possible by adding a separate photo on the listing that clearly shows the product displaying the brand.

Bear in mind, you’re not supposed to put any type of graphics or logos, or a stamp or a web url or anything on the picture.

So again, have your logo on the product (try to have it in every image) and then in the picture have that on there. So, now if someone is selling that same product or a similar product and they don’t have the markings on theirs they can’t use that image.

So, that would be a clear give away to Amazon. You would say to Amazon, “Listen I’m the owner, the manufacturer of this product, my logo is stamped right in the mode or it’s right on the packaging”.

These are simple methods you can do inside of Amazon to protect the listing’s photo.

Amazon buyer didn't receive a package. What's next?

This is all dependent on your customer service policies which will have been produced when setting up your store on Amazon. There are a few options that you should be looking into.

Firstly, you can always send the customer a replacement product free of charge. This will show that you are dedicated to get them the product one way or another.

If at any point their original order turns up and gets delivered, you should contact the buyer and inform them that you will be cancelling the order for the replacement product.

By being proactive in resolving the issue, you decrease the chances that the customer will file an A-Z claim, improving your reputation as a reputable seller.

The key to this question is communication with the customer and listen to what they want.

If it the package doesn’t arrive, they might just request a refund. You will mostly be aware of the product’s whereabouts as most packages will require a signature upon delivery so you won’t need to worry about getting scammed.

How do you change the shipping price in Amazon Seller Central?

This can all be done on you Amazon account. Here is a step by step process to change shipping prices.

Step 1. Simply login into you Amazon Seller Central account

Step 2. Head to ‘Settings’ and select the ‘Your info and Policies’ section

Step 3. From here there should be an option to select ‘Shipping’. This page will enable to alter your shipping configurations.

Step 4. Change the shipping rates to whatever you think is best. There will be an ‘Edit’ button which will allow you to make your necessary changes.

Step 5. Click ‘Save’ for your new shipping prices to apply your changes.

Each time you wish to make any further changes to shipping prices for any product, repeat steps 1 through 5 and you will find it incredibly simple.


And that about wraps up this week’s Q&A session. If you have any queries of your own, be sure to let us know.

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