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How Sellers Should Prepare For Amazon Q4 Sales

October is a month away and the holiday season is almost upon us. Before you know it, Black Friday and Cyber Monday will be on along with all the sales and pressure that comes along. As a seller, the coming months are going to be the golden period for you to cash in on this season and earn huge profits for your products. Ideally, you should have already started your Q4 preparations and placed orders with your supplier. If not, do not worry. It is never too late to start. This blog will help you prepare for Amazon Q4 sales in the best possible way. Do Holiday Specific Product Research and Source them ASAP To ensure initial success in Q4, it is important to line up your listing with all products that are usually in demand during the holiday season across all ages and demographics. Seasonal items like holiday decor, party items, toys and children’s games sell like hotcakes during the holiday season. Stocking up popular toys, action figures, and games will definitely increase your sales and make you a master of Q4. Don’t lose focus on other categories like clothing Clothes, a common gift choice, are the ones most sort after. You can follow fashion portals and magazines to know what styles and accessories are in demand. Based on these trends, you can stock your inventory with sufficient clothes. A major chunk of Q4 comprises profits earned by selling clothes and you should be smart enough to cash in on this opportunity. Make the switch to FBA People shopping at the last second during the holiday season would prefer to opt for the ones that give a two-day shipment by Amazon Prime. It makes sense that you as a seller start using the Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) option. FBA makes it easier for you to attract customers that buy your product, and it increases your chances to win the ‘Buy Box’ along with helping you take your Amazon business to the next level during the Q4 season. However, keep in mind that the Amazon FBA inventory storage and weight handling fee changes at the start of Q4. This adds up to your current budget and may have a serious potential to impact your sourcing plans. Optimize Your Listing While demand is going to skyrocket in Q4, it won’t make sense to just stock up on inventory and wait for sales to come your way. It is high time you paid attention to improving the quality of your product listing. Get a professional product photoshoot done and optimize your ASINs with the right target keywords by hiring an experienced e-commerce copywriter. Enhanced Brand Content (EBC) and A+ content also help in driving organic traffic and boosting the BSR of the product. Use a proficient tool like SellerApp to help you with keyword research, track PPC, and also analyze and reprice your product competitively. It is a good idea to make changes to listings right away so you can build traffic and reviews before the start of the season. Work on Building Brand Value Apart from having Prime shipping and a perfect listing, a game changer when it comes to converting buyers is reviews. Reviews are deal breakers. Make sure you have a decent number of reviews before the holiday season peaks. By this, we don’t mean that you buy out fake reviews in order to get a 4+ star rating. There are legit ways to earn reviews. Use an effective and reliable tool like FeedbackFive to automate the review management process. Request for seller feedback and respond to negative reviews promptly to build trust among buyers. Also, this is the right time to get active on social media and spread the word while driving external traffic. Outsource to Reap More You can achieve a higher than anticipated growth during Q4 by working smartly and outsourcing most of your tasks. You can consider outsourcing to Amazon human resources or freelancers who are trained to handle the crazy Amazon holiday season sale rush. Outsourcing not only protects you from burning out due to the immense pressure of Q4 but is also safe play as you shouldn’t take chances learning and experimenting at this crucial period. Amazon Q4 is definitely a eureka moment for all sellers with vast opportunities to increase the profit margins. At the same time, cutthroat competition and massive work pressure during Q4 can take the fun out of the holiday season. It is important that you chalk out a concrete and profitable sales strategy and find the right resource to help you emerge a hero at the conclusion of Q4.

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How To Prepare Your Products For FBA Shipment

Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) is a great way of outsourcing all your backend operations to Amazon. Amazon does all the warehousing, fulfilling, shipping and customer service, leaving you with enough time to spend on marketing and promotional activities. FBA simplifies business operations in many ways, however, it is not easy to prepare your products for an FBA shipment. Let us take a detailed look at how to prepare for the Amazon warehouse. 1. Convert to FBA If you are already on Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM), you need to change it to Fulfillment by Amazon in Seller Central. For this, go to “Inventory” and “Manage Inventory”. In the “Actions,” drop-down menu, select “Change to Fulfillment by Amazon”. Note – You need not necessarily include all the SKUs in FBA. You can choose to have some in FBA and others in FBM as per your convenience and logistics requirements. 2. Choosing Your Preferences Right Once the products are set to FBA in “Manage Inventory”, you need to set your preferences – either FBA Prep Service or the Stickerless Commingled Inventory. FBA Prep Service – This will be the best choice if you don’t have the manpower to prep and label your products on your own. Of course, Amazon will take a small fee per unit prepared. But it will free up a lot of time on manual work which you can alternatively spend on ranking your products better. Stickerless Commingled Inventory – Opt for this if you are fine with inventory mixing with the goods of other sellers who sell the same product. This is not an option for Private Label sellers. The only advantage of this option is to spread out inventory across different warehouses to enable faster picking and shipping of your products from the closest fulfilment centre to the customer. 3. Creating a Shipping Plan The next step is to create a shipping plan for items that you are planning to send to Amazon’s warehouse for this particular shipment. The shipping plan asks for the “Ship from” address – the address from where you will be sending your goods to the warehouse. It also asks for the packing type. There are two options for the packing type: individual products and case-packed products. Case packed is to be chosen if you are selling a bulk number of units packed as a whole in a single case rather than selling individual units. 4. Labeling Products After creating your shipment plan, the next step is to print the labels to be applied to the product. Every label contains the barcode and the SKU title that is being prepared for shipment. Once you select “Prep by merchant”, you may click on the “Print labels for this page” which will automatically generate a PDF with all the barcodes for the number of labels that are printed. These barcodes are unique and specific to your shipment. These are used to track your products and shipment by Amazon. Print these labels on stick-on paper in order to easily affix them on the product boxes or bags. 5. Preparing Your Products Here comes the most important and tedious manual job. Getting products to be FBA-ready is the most important task because if you have not packed them as per Amazon FBA standards, they will be turned away and you need to bear the cost involved in shipping them back and repackaging them. Here are guidelines for getting it right the first time. • It is mandatory to have a visible and scannable barcode/ label pasted on the exterior of every unit. • Labels/ printed barcodes are to be covered by the Amazon printed label. • A unique SKU number on every label is needed. • If the product has multiple parts, everything has to be put together inside a single package with a single unique label and not in different packages. There are also different guidelines to pack different types of products. Loose products: Loose products can be bagged in a poly bag and secured with non-adhesive tape. Sets: If your product contains bundles or sets, it is best to put them in a case together or marked assets with a label reading “Sold as set. Do not separate”. Boxes: If your product comes in a box, it doesn’t need any additional packaging. Just ensure the box is secured well on all 6 sides to pass the 3-foot drop test and doesn’t collapse. If it does, then it has to be put in a poly bag to be extra secure. Poly Bag: Poly bags are mostly used for loose products. Make sure your poly bag is: • Transparent • Sealed • At least 1.5 mils thick • Has a scannable barcode sticker on the exterior • Not more than 3” past the dimensions of the product Case-Packed: This is when you are selling a large quantity of the same type of product together as a single unit as opposed to selling individual units. Here are guidelines for case-packed products: • Matching SKUs and labels are mandatory for all products in the box. • There should not be more than 150 units per case. • Every case-packed box in a shipment must contain the same number of units inside. Now that you have prepared your FBA shipment, drop off the package at your nearby UPS store and keep your fingers crossed while you wait for Amazon to receive it. It will take anywhere between 1-2 weeks for Amazon to receive your package and acknowledge you with an email confirmation. Once it is in Amazon’s warehouse, your products will go live and are eligible for Prime. Write to us in the comment section if you need any more information on this. Good luck and Happy selling!

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How To Impress Your Customers in five Seconds

Customer acquisition and retention are two of the biggest problems that any online retailer faces in today’s e-commerce world. Studies have shown that websites now have less than five seconds to impress a customer and push them to buy a product. With rapidly changing technology and customer attitude, it takes a buyer less than a minute to judge your company, your products, or your services. With this limitation in mind, it is only those who strike the chord right who wins the game. This blog will give you winning tips to impress your customers in less than five seconds and make them shop. 1. An Attractive Online Store The first place a customer looks at is the website – how beautiful it is and how fast it loads. A simple, easy-to-navigate, attractive website is the first step towards making a customer stay on your page. If your site is too heavy and takes a longer time to load, chances are your customer will move on. Loading time is the most critical function of all web design functionalities as nobody has the patience to sit on a sluggish website. Easy navigation, clear call-to-action buttons, a reliable payment gateway, and most importantly, a mobile-optimized site will help to ensure your website passes the five-second test. 2. Professional Product Images I can’t insist on the importance of having good product images. Until a few years back, people were reluctant to buy stuff that they didn’t get to see, touch, and feel. It was a realistic and professionally taken product image that changed their mindset. Having a great product and an amazing website is not enough if your images fail to make an impression. The images should speak details of the product and do the selling. There is a well-equipped professional e-commerce photographer behind every attractive and compelling product image that converts a casual visitor to an impulsive shopper almost instantly. 3. Accurate And Detailed Description The customers would love it if you have accurate and detailed product descriptions to help them compare and make a decision quickly. There is a direct correlation between the quality of product description and conversion rate as content helps in building trust and boosting sales. An informative headline that aptly describes the product and content in an easy-to-digest language will definitely make an impression. A poor product description is an easy problem to rectify and it will help you in the long run as it not only drives sales but also helps cut down returns and refunds. 4. Free/ Fast Shipping In e-commerce, delivery matters most. Free shipping or fast shipping is still a topic to debate. Shoppers these days are pampered with the one-day or two days Prime deliveries that it is easy to make you believe that you have to match up to the speed of Amazon. However, it is not always feasible for any ordinary online retailer as they don’t have the logistics that Amazon has. It is true that buyers hesitate to order a product which would take a long time to deliver. But cost always trumps speed. A recent survey conducted by Deloitte and Bizrate Insights shows that 74% of customers prefer low or no delivery charges over fast delivery. There are more studies and surveys to show that cost always takes an upper hand over speed even in this age of instant gratification. That doesn’t mean a two weeks delivery window is acceptable. As a retailer, it is important to find a middle ground and provide shipping at a reasonable window with a low shipping charge if you want to be competitive. 5. Good Reviews Reviews help in building trust between your brand and the customers. Studies say that 63% of online customers are more likely to purchase from a site if it has an unbiased product rating and review system in place. Reviews allow buyers to see you as someone genuine, reliable, and one who gives importance to exceptional customer experience. Bottom Line As you can see, you need not spend a million bucks to impress your customers. All you need to do is do things differently and strategically. Other than the points stated above, it is also important to have a good digital footprint and unmatched customer care support to build credibility and promote your brand value. First impressions last and if you want to set it right, it doesn’t hurt to seek professional help. Consult with BIE for designing that magical web page to impress your customers and help you drive significantly higher conversions.

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How To Manage Your Amazon Human Resources

Remote workers are an asset to entrepreneurs and start-up companies as they don’t take up office space, do not consume electrical and electronic resources, can work in different time zones (which means getting the work done while you are sleeping), and can be more agile and quick to solve problems. Remote employees are fast becoming the new normal and it is no surprise because there is a pool of talent across the globe that you should not miss out on. The output, however, is largely based on how efficiently the manager coordinates and motivates his remote workers. If you develop the right talent management strategy and an effective work structure, it is a breeze to manage your Amazon Human Resources. If you are a business owner, this blog will help you choose the right remote worker and give you insight into how to manage them efficiently and effectively. What Should You Look For in an Amazon Human Resource? When you manage a team from a remote location, every component, right from talent search to training and building a smooth work process, is important. Hiring the right candidate will solve half your problems. Determine the number of Amazon Human Resources you need, their skill set, and their level of competence before you get on to the actual hiring process. Here are some of the qualities that you should look for while hiring an Amazon Human Resource : • They need to be tech-savvy • Are responsive and alert • Pay attention to the details • Discretion with no hand holding How To Manage Resources Managing resources is a cakewalk if you have done step one right-hire the right candidate. You still need some talent management strategies in place to get the most out of your employees. Be Descriptive Since there is no face-to-face interaction, there is a high chance that the person on the other end can misunderstand your requirements. Be descriptive and define tasks clearly. Tell them what you need, how you need it, and when you need it. A responsible Amazon Human Resource will get all of their doubts cleared before starting a particular task or job. You can assist them with prioritizing things and helping them manage their time. You can help by tracking their time on various projects in an online tracker and by keeping them on track. Get On the Cloud It is the responsibility of a business owner to set up a comfortable workspace for remote workers in the cloud and give them access to all advanced tools. When you work with people from all over the globe, keeping all documents in the cloud is extremely important as it gives you the luxury of working from anywhere. There is a range of software which most successful business owners use to keep their workspace organized. • Skype – For general office communication. You can form different chat rooms for different teams and have discussions over voice/ video calls often. • Dropbox or Google Drive – To save all work-related files on the cloud. • Trello – To organize and prioritize your projects. • Asana – For teams to track their work. Don’t Be Too Bossy Employers who micro-manage their teams are never successful. It is important for a business owner to have the right degree of control towards his team. It is annoying for anyone if you ping them every few minutes asking for the status of a task. Treat your remote workers with respect and give them time to breathe. Set up clear expectations before you hand over the task and define the deadlines clearly and reasonably, so as to avoid disappointments later on. It will be a good idea to have a to-do list and practice the ritual of collecting daily reports from Amazon Human Resources to know what they accomplished and what they have planned for the next day. This will also help in the long run to assess the performance of the employee during the appraisal. Schedule Regular Meetings Scheduling regular meetings once or twice a week helps you understand where the team is and what their pain points are. It is the responsibility of the employer to address problems and provide solutions to help them get over them. Also, when you have everyone on the call, it gets easier to discuss the progress of projects and set goals. Summing up It is easy to build a cohesive and well-coordinated team if you trust your Amazon Human Resources and ensure accountability. The use of smartphones and all modern apps will help you to a great extent and make you feel liberated to have a team working for you remotely. You have landed in the right place if you’re looking for remote assistance. Contact us and we would be glad to assist you.

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Amazon Is Blocking Australian Buyers From Overseas Sites. And It Is Not For What You Think!

Australia welcomed the world’s largest retailer, Amazon, in December last year and there has been a little unrest since then in the Australian market among shoppers and brick-and-mortar retailers. While Australian sellers are struggling to gain momentum, Amazon announced that it is blocking Australians shopping from overseas sites starting from the 1st of July 2018. This has left many sellers and shoppers in shock. What is this change all about? Australians have been shopping from Amazon US for many years now. However, from the 1st of July, they will be redirected to Amazon’s Australia website as the company announced that it will no longer be shipping any goods to Australian addresses. Wondering Why? You must think that Amazon is making a smart move to expand and establish its Australian market. The reason is quite different though. With the start of the new financial year, there comes with it the new GST collection law, which puts a strain on online retailers, to apply GST on all purchases that are made overseas. Currently, there is a 10% GST applied to purchases made over $1000. However, from the 1st of July, GST must be applied to all purchases irrespective of the price. What is the impact on buying-selling? Apparently, once the change is rolled out, all Australian shoppers will automatically be redirected to their Australian marketplace – which pretty much looks similar to the US website except for the fact that Amazon Australia doesn’t have a wide range of products like its US counterparts. This is a huge disappointment for Aussie shoppers but this gives more opportunity for local sellers to plunge in and sell items that are not sold in the Australian marketplace. Also, Amazon is planning to launch its next big venture – an international platform called “The Amazon Global Store” in Australia very soon, which will host more than 4 million items that were available exclusively on its US website. This will help Australians get easy hassle-free access to imported goods. Is there a workaround to bypass the ban?? If you are desperate to shop from the overseas market, yes, there is a way. Although Amazon won’t entertain Australians in any of its overseas marketplaces, you can still get items shipped to Australia if you have the time and money. While the ban is only for Amazon’s websites, overseas parcel shipping services from the United States are free to provide their services as before. So, give a local US delivery address for all the purchases and get it re-shipped to your Australian address through a parcel service. A Deal-breaker? People have different opinions regarding Amazon’s move. It is certainly going to lose business and pave way for competitors as shoppers would eventually buy from eBay and Alibaba if they are restricted on Amazon. This is only a small proportion of shoppers and hopefully, they will bounce back once Amazon Australia has set its foot strong enough. Let us wait and watch for the change to roll out and see what impact it has.

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Amazon Review Management: How To Handle Negative Reviews

Successful Amazon sellers know that apart from having a well-optimised keyword-stuffed listing and great product images, there is so much more to getting that ‘Best Seller’ tag or winning the ‘Buy Box’. 61% of online shoppers read reviews before they move an item to the cart. It has been proved time and again that user reviews increase conversion to a great extent. Consumer reviews are treasured digital testimonials and are trusted 12 times more than the manufacturer’s detailed product descriptions. However, if you are selling on Amazon, negative reviews are inevitable, and you are bound to get them. A not-so-great feedback is not the end of the world if you know the knicks and knacks of ‘Amazon Review Management’. Bad Reviews Are Good Too Negative reviews are not all that bad. Some bad reviews are good too. Why? Because it makes it look real. People get suspicious if all they see are 4 or 5-star ratings. Online buyers have the maturity to understand that there is no single product that can please everyone. A recent survey conducted by Revoo shows that negative reviews actually help improve conversions by 67%. So, don’t fret over bad reviews too much. Just make sure you have a ton of good reviews as well to balance it all out. Watch Your Listing Regularly It is believed that customers develop a good impression and take down or update negative feedback if the seller acknowledges their problem within 48 hours. How do you know when you get a negative review? Amazon won’t send you any notifications and the only way to stay informed is to watch your listings like a hawk every day. Of course, that will eat up a lot of your time especially if your listing is big. There are a lot of feedback monitoring tools available in the market that track product reviews and send an automatic email response. Better yet, you can hire our expert Customer Service Virtual Assistants to give a personalized touch to emails that are sent and offer solutions to customers in a professional way. Best Practices We have compiled a list of the best practices to deal with negative reviews. • Be quick in responding to negative feedback. Setting up a fixed time every day is a good idea to ensure that the customer is happy. • Acknowledge the buyer’s problems and admit them. If the item is broken or damaged during shipping or transit, you need to be able to be of help to the customer that has paid money for your product. • Don’t be defensive and try to be polite and helpful. • Apologize, even if it is no fault of your own. • Watch your words as other potential customers will be reading your comments before they purchase your product. • When all is done, give your contact information (email or phone number) to the buyer so they can reach out to you. Offer replacement or refund if needed. Follow up once in a while till the issue is resolved and request the customer to remove or update the feedback. How To Contact The Buyer? 1. Contact buyer from your Orders This is the most common way of reaching out to those who have left bad reviews. Go to the “Manage orders” section and go to that particular order where you got the negative review. 2. Comments Section Click on the comments section and write an open message there. The comments section is meant for customers to interact with each other about the product. There are no hard rules that the seller shouldn’t write to the buyer there. You can write your reply right here in this box. Keep in mind that all eyes are on you. Going public means that you are prone to be watched by other sellers and prospective buyers. It is important to maintain a polite tone in offering a solution. This will help you gain the trust of other potential buyers. Requesting Amazon To Remove A Review Amazon doesn’t always remove a negative review unless there is a solid reason for it. As a seller, if you feel offended, and feel that it is no mistake of yours or you smell something fishy, you can always report it to Seller Support and request they take it down. Here are a few valid reasons for which you can request a removal: • The review has cuss words or inappropriate language • The complaint is not product related • Designed to promote a competitor’s product • Reviews posted intentionally by another seller Bottom Line There is no escaping negative reviews no matter how good your product is. You can only damage control and turn the stone in your favor by following best practices and responding promptly. If you need professional help with your Amazon store management, do get in touch with us. BIE is a Vancouver, British Columbia-based agency providing human resources to manage all things Amazon.

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5 Tasks High-Volume E-Commerce Sellers Are Outsourcing

Running an e-commerce business can be a bit like juggling. The more successful you become, the more things you have to juggle. High-volume e-commerce sellers have to stay on top of all their operations in order to succeed. From dealing with suppliers and manufacturers to managing inventory, from advertising campaigns to customer service, being an e-commerce seller, can be full of challenges and surprises. Many sellers have turned to outsource as a solution to streamlining their operations and maximizing their own contributions to the business. Outsourcing guarantees that essential tasks will be completed while freeing up sellers to focus on areas where they can make the most significant impact. Here are tasks that high-volume sellers outsource to improve their business and make their lives just that much easier. 1) Fulfillment and Inventory Management When you first start out, it may be easy to do everything yourself, but as your sales increase and your business grows, it becomes almost impossible to perform every task related to order fulfilment and inventory management. When it comes to selling on Amazon, you can use the Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) service to make sure that orders get shipped quickly and arrive without any trouble. You will have to package and prepare your inventory before sending it to Amazon’s Fulfillment Centers and doing this can save you a great deal of time instead of trying to get each parcel ready as orders come in. This method will also help reduce stress and potential shipping errors. Even when not selling through Amazon, outsourcing fulfilment tasks can help ensure all orders are shipped completely and as promised. Having a person dedicated to this task will reduce mistakes and increase customer satisfaction. The busier you become and/ or the more products you have in your line, the more complicated it can be to manage inventory. Human Resources can help track inventory levels across all products, making it easy to know not only what products are selling, but also when they need to be reordered from your supplier or manufacturer. Running out of stock can be a disaster for e-commerce sellers and should be avoided whenever possible. Today’s consumers expect to get what they want and when they want it. If you are not able to meet their needs, you can bet they will find another seller who can. 2) Content Writing In an online space, content is everything. People are more likely to buy from you if they are familiar with your brand. One way to create this type of relationship is by producing quality content. Blogs are a great way to reach your customer base. You can provide them with interesting updates about your industry or offer educational tips and tricks that help solve common problems they may be facing. You could write blogs that simply entertain. The problem is, for content to be most impactful, it should be added to your site on a frequent basis. Many people find it difficult to carve out enough time in their week to write regular posts. Outsourcing your content writing will solve this problem. Content writers will be able to produce high-quality material that will improve your SEO and establish you as an industry leader, making your site a place consumers turn to when looking for news and information. If blog content is currently not a part of your strategy (although it should be!), you can hire writers to help create and improve your product listings. The right listing can go a long way in improving sales numbers. Email campaigns are among the most effective ways to market to your customers. If you find that writing newsletters or sales pitches is time-consuming and complicated, this task can also be outsourced. Establishing a relationship with your audience is a crucial part of developing your brand and creating a sustainable business. Content allows you to do this. 3) Social Media Management Social media can be an incredibly time-consuming marketing tool for most brands. It is believed that posting at least twice a day across social platforms will help you increase traffic and build trust in your brand. Unfortunately, posting twice a day can be time-consuming. Posting on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and even Snapchat takes time. As with all other points of contact, you want to be sure you are sharing quality material that matches the brand’s messaging. Hiring someone to manage your social media accounts will grow your audience while providing you with important insights into their interests and purchasing preferences. Remember, your social media channels are not just a place to post and share news and information but are also the perfect place to interact with customers in a more human way. Staying on top of your social media profiles is a significant way to stay ahead of the competition. 4) Ad Management While platforms like Amazon, Facebook, and Google have made it “easy” to create ads, it does not mean that it is easy to create “good” ads. Most people running an e-commerce store are not trained in advertising or marketing. To make the most of your advertising opportunities and avoid wasting money and effort, it makes sense to outsource this task to someone who knows what they are doing. Someone trained in this department can produce ads that will reach as many people as possible and increase your conversion rates. 5) Customer Service Interacting with customers in a timely and friendly manner is an essential part of any successful e-commerce business. Finding the time to respond to questions, comments, or concerns can be nearly impossible when you are swamped by all other demands of your operations. Again, customer service can be outsourced so things do not pile up and customers are always happy. Whether you hire a virtual assistant or an in-house customer service rep, task this individual with monitoring and responding to product reviews, answering questions, and following up with customers after a purchase. All of these steps will help your brand build a good reputation. Dealing

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Cross-Border Trading – Expand Your Business To India

Ever since Amazon made its debut in the Indian market in 2013, it has been growing steadily and has attracted worldwide attention with its various announcements. Amazon’s 40% of sales come from its international markets and considering the size of the Indian population and the steady urbanization, the marketplace can bring in more revenue to the company in India. According to recent statistics, the market is valued at USD 3.3 billion and Amazon India reported over 105% revenue growth in FY 2017. Isn’t that enough reason for you to consider selling on Amazon India? If you are apprehensive about how it is going to work when you are on a different continent altogether, worry not! This blog is going to shed light on cross-border trading and how you can sell on Amazon India and other Indian marketplaces from a remote place. Why You Should Go The Cross-Border Way? Expanding your business into new cross-border markets is beneficial and appealing for obvious reasons: • Introducing your product range to an entirely new group of audience. • Being able to sell goods that are out-of-season in your country where the climate is more favorable for certain product ranges. • Expanding your business and establishing new relationships with people from other parts of the world. In fact, Amazon itself is pushing its merchants to sell on international markets to compete with its rivals like eBay and Alibaba. In 2017, sellers on Amazon made more than a quarter of their revenue from selling to other countries. That is, more than 50% from the previous year. Analysts estimate that it is between $50 to $75 billion. Finding The Right Market And Making The Right Move The next immediate question would be how to identify the right market to target. Look out for a country with affluent shoppers, internet users, and a welcoming e-commerce market. A simplistic answer would be India, for reasons stated at the start of the blog. When you have decided to take the next step, you need to understand that selling cross-border doesn’t mean being an international retailer. Cross-border trading always requires lots of work and focus. Setting up an Amazon store in a country that is totally alien to you is no joke. You need to have a good network and make multiple business trips to set things up locally. On the other hand, being an international retailer is easy with the Amazon FBA Export program but shipping charges and customs duties are entirely on the buyer. Return policies are complicated too. It is not as beneficial as cross-border trading especially when you are trying to take your brand name globally. To make things easy for you, BIE is inviting overseas sellers who are keen on expanding their Amazon business to India to sign up for its Cross-Border Trading program. With warehouse partners in nine different countries, BIE has experience in helping many sellers across the world to trade in a foreign land with ease. How We Can Help You? We help you fight major challenges with cross-border trading – International shipping of goods, customs clearance, and storage/ warehouse maintenance. Since we are based out of India and have an office locally, we have the right resources to personally receive products and handle all customs clearance without the need for you to be here physically. You can directly ship the units from your home country or the manufacturer (say, from China) to India and we will take care of the packing and shipping to Amazon Fulfillment centres for you. Isn’t that wonderful news? Well, we have more to offer. We do the end-to-end store and business management with our extremely skilled Amazon Human Resources and manage your multi-country inventory and order fulfilment promptly. Take Away “Make hay while the sun shines” With close to 500 million internet users, the Indian market is indeed a goldmine. While Amazon is doing great here, the world’s largest retailer, Walmart, has recognized the potential of the Indian market and is planning to launch by joining hands with Flipkart. With companies like eBay, Myntra, and Jabong giving tough competition to each other, e-commerce is flourishing in India like never before and cross-border trading is an effective way to expose your brand to a market as large as India. If you need any professional help with your Amazon store management, get in touch with us. BIE is a Vancouver, British Columbia-based agency providing human resources to manage all things Amazon.

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Understanding Amazon Sponsored Brands (Headline Search Ads) – And The Best Ways To Use Them

The topmost portion of the Amazon search results page is prime real estate and Sponsored Brands (Previously known as Headline Search Ads), as the name suggests, are a smart way to feature your brand on top of the SERP to drive more traffic and sales. Amazon Marketing Services offers Sponsored Brands for all 1P and 3P sellers with Brand registry and are quite different from sponsored ads as they are focused on promoting products right on top of search results. Let us see what they are and how they can be put to the best use to increase traffic and brand awareness of your products. How do they work? Sponsored Brands (Or HSA) can be the most beneficial tool for driving sales if you understand how it works. • These are keyword-targeted banner ads. • Ads appear on top of the search engine results page. • Each banner ad can feature up to three ASINs. • Sellers can customize their headline and a customized landing page can also be linked to it. Choose the Right Keywords As stated earlier, Sponsored Brands are keyword-targeted ads and their success lies solely on targeting the right keywords. As an advertiser, you need to select keywords relevant to your product and then bid on those competing with other Amazon sellers in order to display your ad. These keywords can either be a single word, such as “Denim”, or multiple words like “Men’s Denim Jacket”. Research on Traffic Volume When you enter keywords for your campaign, AMS will give you a list of suggested keywords which pop up automatically with a search volume indicator. Based on the amount of traffic that the keyword gets and the relevance of the ASINS in your advertising campaign, the indicator will show high, medium, or low, for you to choose the right one. Choose the Keywords that fit your budget Sponsored Brands are ads that work on an auction-based pricing model and when you win the auction, your ads will be displayed. That means, if you want to win the high-traffic keywords, you must bid competitively. Too low a bid, chances are other sellers’ ads will appear. In that case, you must increase your bid to win more impressions. Keep in mind that you do not need very high traffic to make a high conversion. The right keywords to target the right shoppers for your products will do. Use Reporting Tools Amazon Marketing Services keeps track of your ad campaign and shows you metrics on how many clicks you have got, the money spent, and the conversion made. Here are a few metrics to watch out for: • Average Cost of Sales (ACOS) – Total cost spent on the campaign divided by the number of sales. • Detail Page Views (DPV) – The number of shoppers who clicked your custom landing page and reached your product’s detail page. These metrics give you an insight into how well your ads are performing and help you make the right decision. Try, Test And Repeat Sponsored Brands Ads give you the flexibility to customize the ad creative. It would be smart if you invest time and resources in testing the custom ad headline and the banner image. You can also play around with the order, number, and combination of ASINs that you would like to feature in the ad. Here are some best practices to follow: • Set up multiple campaigns with different keywords simultaneously. • Run the test campaign for a minimum of 2 weeks. • Try changing one variable at a time and rerun the campaign for another 2 weeks. • Figure out what is working and not working based on the metrics and test set-up. Considering the fact that it gets a prominent place in the Search Engine Results Page and the money that needs to be invested in doing so, it would be wise to get professional help for choosing the right keywords and setting up the banner. Get in touch with us if you would like to hire professionals from Big Internet Ecommerce to do a winning campaign for you.

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