Category: eCommerce

 

Posted by: | on March 18, 2017

Getting Quality Amazon Verified Reviews

Getting Reviews and Sales Post Amazon TOS Change

Amazon once again changed their Terms of Service, this time about giving discounted or free products in exchange for reviews. Notice of this change caused quite a panic when it was first released on October 3 last year. Many sellers depended on the system of incentivized reviews, and could not see a way around it or a way to make up for the loss. Below we outline what this change means and what you can do to get reviews and boost sales without soliciting reviews.

Amazon TOS Change on Incentivized Reviews

Soliciting reviews is now prohibited by Amazon, with the exception of books and reviews that are run through Amazon Vine. Amazon has allowed the release of advance copies of books for review since the beginning, and this practice will continue. The limitation on the Amazon Vine program is that it applies to new and pre-release products only. Moreover, Amazon controls this program, so vendors and sellers cannot do more than wait for Amazon to invite people to review.

The language in the revised Amazon TOS clearly states that sellers and vendors are now prohibited from soliciting incentivized reviews of any kind. This includes providing incentives indirectly through a third party review service or other similar service. Vendors and sellers are also prohibited from making any kind of connection between discounted products and reviews. In connection, certain advertising and promotions regarding products is also prohibited, such as URLs with affiliate links. Amazon explained in their update announcement that the change is part of the company’s continuing efforts to improve reviews. Amazon has been working on stricter review policies and has penalized thousands of accounts for trying to manipulate reviews.

Per the Amazon Community Guidelines, the updated policy on reviews went into effect the same day that it was announced. Violators may get their accounts suspended or get all their Amazon privileges revoked. Amazon will also be removing solicited reviews that came in before the policy change if they are deemed excessive. Amazon did not give any details on this.

Moving Forward

Without the ability to offer discounts and free products to get more reviews, vendors and sellers will need to try different avenues for encouraging reviews, or other means altogether for increasing conversions. Vendors may try Amazon Vine, but the program is expensive and has limitations on the type and number of products that can be entered. Below are a few adjustments that you can adopt to make up for the loss of incentivized reviews.

1.      Re-assess Review Volume

Even if you have not done incentivized reviews before, you should have a pretty good idea of how many reviews you need to make your sales targets. To make sure that you are still getting enough reviews to maintain and increase conversions for your products, take another look at the numbers and plan for how much you will need to work on your organic reviews to compensate.

2.      Discounts and Promotions

Continue running your discounts and promotions, but make sure to remove any reference to leaving a review in exchange for the deal. Update these campaigns as well to allow access to these deals without requiring a review. Properly organized and managed campaigns of this type will still make customers happy, which will lead to organic reviews, even if not as many as if they were required.

3.      Respond to Existing Reviews

You may have decided in the past not to spend your valuable time responding to reviews. It may be wise to rethink this at this time, especially with regard to negative reviews. Shoppers will tend to look at star ratings and read reviews before buying your product but they may not care about leaving their own, positive review unless they are super impressed. When they see that you are actively engaging with their fellow shoppers, however, they will be more inclined to contribute. Improving your listings and service in other areas will help a lot as well.

Note here that the updated terms also prohibit vendors and sellers from posting and answering questions or other content about their own or their competitors’ products.

4.      Follow-Up Emails

Put some energy into creating or optimizing an existing feedback system. Reviews are a vital component of the Amazon sales process, and organic reviews are the only safe way to go moving forward. The simple fact is that if you sell on Amazon, you are highly dependent on reviews. Having a system of following up with your customers and building a relationship with them is going to be crucial to your success in getting reviews.

Invest a little more in crafting nicely worded and laid out emails to impress your customers. Remember, however, that these emails should never be all about getting reviews. Amazon may consider such abuse of the Buyer-Seller messaging system as a manipulation of reviews, which is punishable under the new terms. A/B test your new email formats to get an accurate idea of which emails are working to get customers to review your products.

5.      Amazon Advertising

If you are launching new products and the Vine program is not an option for you, you can turn to Product Ads or Sponsored Products. These ads can do a lot to help get the word out by making your new products more visible. Ads can also help you to test out new keywords to see how they convert for you. Running ads has also proven effective in increasing organic rankings, so if you are able to run them for longer you can reap that added benefit as well.

The road ahead is going to be a little tougher, but these changes in no way mean that Amazon is not going to continue to be an awesome platform to sell on. More work will need to go into getting reviews to help products rank better, but this is a good thing over the long haul. The change was made to encourage honest, organic reviews. Vendors and sellers are not going to have to worry so much about unscrupulous competitors who manipulate reviews at every turn to try to keep good businesses down.

If you are looking for hands on help with your listings, account management, PPC set up and management, or building a strategy for more sales and reviews, please contact us for setting a meeting.

Posted in Amazon, eCommerce | Comments Off on Getting Quality Amazon Verified Reviews

Posted by: | on February 17, 2017

Smooth Stock Management

Managing inventory can be a real pain when a business is just getting off the ground. Sometimes, tracking and sourcing can continue to plague even seasoned sellers. From underestimating sales to forgetting to check inventory to dried out supplies, there are several things that can go wrong, leaving you out of stock and out of luck. Your business may be based on a stellar concept and have all the support it needs to thrive, but if you do not have an effective ordering system in place, you are going to find your profit gears all mucked up before you can get up high. Fortunately, we have all the technology today to help get that system in place and keep it running smoothly without too much fuss.

From start to finish, here are the basic areas that need to be kept under control for effective inventory management that facilitates the smooth flow of lucrative orders and happy customers.

Open Supply Options

It is always good to have a trusted supplier who has been able to provide you with the product you need when you need it. A good relationship with a supplier is gold. It is always better, though, to not get stuck with a single supplier who may at some point fail to come through for you. Cherish your best supplier, but maintain at least one or two others to whom you can run just in case things with your main man go south.

Balance Your Stock

Two main stock issues are overstocking and running out of stock. Balancing stocks very early on is essential to maximizing your potential for profit and business growth. After a business has experienced running short on stock, there is a tendency to go overboard and order too much the next time around. This can result in huge losses if the items are perishable, easily degrade over time, or might quickly become unpopular or outdated. Even if they can be kept long-term, however, you can still lose out because of increased warehousing costs and a lack of capital needed to purchase other stock items or new product to add to your inventory.

If you find yourself out of stock on certain items, it is important to take the time to immediately reevaluate. Do a quick investigation and note the reasons why this happened. The aim here is always to look for ways to improve, and not to beat yourself – or anyone else – up over the issue. It does not have to be a huge drama if you can act on it right away.

If the problem rests in not having enough financial resources to reorder, consider working out a deal with your long-term supplier, or even a new one. Either way, they will probably be willing to cut you some slack. Once the pressing issue is resolved, don’t forget to trace your steps so it doesn’t happen again. Rethink and rework your sales so you can avoid overstocking slow-moving items and be able to better fund your best sellers.

If the issue is the result of an increase in demand, figure out whether you were unaware because of a failure in your tracking system or because it happened suddenly. If the former, rectify the supply issue then sit down with your team to make adjustments to better keep an eye on things. Communication is essential to the smooth flow from supplier to warehouse to sales to shipping.

If your problem stems from inaccurate estimates for peak seasons or a lack of research into buying habits, you will find your backup suppliers very handy. Peak season will often mean that supplies are running low because your competition has stocked up. If you are not able to make late orders for additional stock, you may have to accept the lost opportunity. You can take this time, however, to do a thorough analysis of your individual products, how they have moved in the past – not only from your experience but as you can observe from other sellers – and which ones are likely to be in high demand during different times of the year. This way, you can also plan to distribute your capital accordingly so that you don’t miss out on holiday fever again.

Leverage Technology

Many problems with managing inventory stem from an inadequate system. Tracking is really the bulk of the work when it comes to maintaining proper stock levels. Once you get the supply, warehousing and logistics worked out, you will need to track at a high level to make sure that none of these links break down. Remember that a break anywhere along the line will often mean that business is going to stall.

Several professional software and online systems exist that can help you keep accurate records and automate many of the processes involved in managing stock. Using specially designed software instead of manual counts and spreadsheets can greatly reduce errors in receipts, fulfillment, and stock damage that can throw a big monkey wrench into everything. It is a great help for bookkeeping as well, since you can easily export and send monthly reports to your accountant. Backups are very important, and you can easily schedule them for security or download them manually anytime you need them.

This kind of system is also designed for multiple users so that you can reduce the number of problems caused by people getting out of sync. The system will furthermore keep you and everybody else concerned properly informed. For instance, even if someone still has the guts to steal from you with so many eyes on and such pristine records, you will notice it right away. It can take a while to move everything over to a new system, so prioritize you’re a item – usually 20% of the total – and your problem items, slowly adding a manageable volume at a time so things don’t get out of hand.

If you need help sorting out warehousing, shipping, logistics, labeling, or any other aspect of working the kinks out of your business, contact us today. Add to Cart Consultants can work with you to get your business running like a well-oiled machine so you can jet to the next level.

Posted in eCommerce, Shipping, Warehousing | Comments Off on Smooth Stock Management

Posted by: | on February 17, 2017

How Facebook Ads Help Your eCommerce Store

Facebook has an average of 1.86 billion monthly active users worldwide, and this number grows 17% every year. That’s 1.23 billion people logging into Facebook every day. This is a huge pool of potential customers that no business owner should ignore. You will also be able to reach a balanced audience on this platform since there are almost as many male as there are female users. With an average 152% ROI, you should be starting your Facebook ad campaign right now and we are here to help if you need social media consulting.

Without further ado, here are several ways you can grow your customer base by boosting relevant traffic, increasing conversions and encouraging repeat sales with properly optimized Facebook ads.

Daily Targeted Reach

As a seller, you will often want to target people between the ages of 25 and 34. On Facebook, there are an average of 1.2 million of these users on Facebook each day, which means that you can reach over 365 million per month with an effective campaign. If you set up your ad so that it can appear to users on a daily basis, you can reach a maximum potential of these users.

Set and Track Goals

Once you have outlined what you want to achieve from your Facebook campaign – gaining brand recognition, driving traffic to your website or listing, expanding your audience, increasing engagement, increasing overall sales for your products – you can take advantage of the platform’s internal analytics to track how your ads are performing. Facebook Insights offers a wide range of statistics on ad performance that will help you test and revise your ads to ensure optimal performance.

You will also want to get down to the specifics when planning goals, and possibly explore other tools to measure your success. Facebook’s internal analytics is a good place to start, but there are also several other tools you can search for online and test out to see how they fit your goals and style. One of these is a code called a conversion-tracking pixel that tracks user behavior so Facebook can optimize your campaigns by using its powerful algorithm to create a lookalike audience that you can follow to adjust ad targeting. Using this code on your checkout page, you can also track what users do after they click on your Facebook ad.

Proven Content Format

Before you start running ads, you probably already have a basic format that reflects your brand. Your Facebook ad format can incorporate these elements, but needs a very simple tried and tested format to be effective:  relevance, visual appeal, value, and a call to action.

If you choose your audience settings wisely to target the users with the highest chance of converting, you will save time and money. You can also track and improve these ads as you go along using Facebook’s relevance score to show you how your visuals, text and links are performing on the platform.

Image and video are preferred by Facebook users and rank higher in the platform’s algorithm. The more appealing your visuals are, the better your chances are that people will like and share them, and be interested enough to click through and remember you. Note that video is the best option, but you should be careful to create a video that can be understood without sound since 85% of users watch without sound. You should also have a screen capture to show first that aptly summarizes your pitch. When using images, make sure you have them sized properly – optimally 1200×628 pixels – so they don’t get cropped and look funny.

Your text can be very short, focusing on a value proposition that highlights the benefits and why they should click through to learn more about your product. This can be a discount, free shipping, or social proof from a review. Don’t forget a smashing CTA that your readers will not be able to ignore. Creating a sense of urgency immediately after proving your value will encourage them to click to find out, for instance, just how much they can save, and when the offer will expire.

Prime Positioning

Facebook offers two basic ad formats, which appear either in the right column of the desktop interface or the news feed. There is also a mobile friendly format of the news feed ad.

The original Facebook ad, on the right column, is the standard Facebook ad. It is not as costly as the news feed format, but does not see as many clickthroughs. To succeed with this format, you must work hard on your visual appeal and relevance to catch users’ attention, and have a strong value propositions and call to action.

The news feed format will appear directly within targeted users’ feeds, which accounts for much of why they rank higher in terms of engagement. Users see them as soon as they open Facebook, as opposed to the right column which some users tend to ignore. When using this format, be careful to follow Facebook’s policies on organic posts. The mobile format is essentially the same as the news feed ad version as it displays in the mobile news feed like organic posts do and must comply with Facebook best practices.

Unique Ad Types

You can group multiple products on a single ad via the Facebook Power Editor. This multi-product ad feature allows you to target multiple users by adding a range of products (or services) to a single ad. Users can then scroll through them and click on the one that grabs them. When using this option, consider how you will group your products for relevance and visual appeal so you don’t lose any potentials who don’t find the first few appealing or are not impressed by your color-coding.

If you are offering a discount of other offer that you want users to be able to redeem on Facebook, you can try the newer offer ad. Many users don’t want to have to get off Facebook to look at a product offer, which can hurt sales. With this type of ad, users are more likely to take you up on your offer. You can put all the information straight into the ad, but the downside of course is that you still won’t get hits to your webpage.

Dynamic Product Ads are a very high ROI strategy that can capture those users who are on the fence or who you want to come back. Retargeting users based on visits to your page can bring back triple the number of cart-abandoners. The process is easy with Facebook’s ad templates that can pull in essential product information – product name, images, pricing – and show them to people as single or multi-product ads. Just use the Facebook Business Manager to upload your catalog, and set up your audience and template. You can also use the Power Editor to select categories.

Build Relationships

Since Facebook is a social network, it is the best place to engage with people on a deeper level. You can connect on Facebook with daily non-sales posts, and you can also build relationships through a series of ads that tell the story of your brand. This strategy humanizes you and has a powerful emotional appeal that can increase your impact by up to 87%. Combine this with information from your audience analytics and you can build a strong fan base of targeted customers using the Custom Audience Tool to give special deals to your best followers. More than just dangling an item in front of their noses, you can build relationships with your prospects, turning them not only into customers, but loyal fans who can multiply your impact with their likes and shares.

Again, if you need help setting up, managing, or posting to your social media pages, please contact us to assist you with your social media needs.

Posted in eCommerce, Social Media | Comments Off on How Facebook Ads Help Your eCommerce Store

Posted by: | on February 17, 2017

eCommerce Selling Platforms

Since online shopping has become so popular, many platforms have sprung up where just about anyone with something to sell can advertise to get it off their hands. There are a multitude of opportunities to explore, ranging from the big names in eCommerce to newer and more specialized marketplaces. Some offer a wider customer base and a range of categories, while others present a targeted audience and affordable fees. Below we have outlined the basic criteria for online selling and which of these widely known platforms fill or fail them.

Global Platforms

  1. Amazon – undoubtedly one of the eCommerce giants and a household name, this is a great place to start selling if you have a variety of products or are planning to branch out in the near future.
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Amazon ranks high in the Ecommerce Bytes Sellers Choice Ratings most notably for Profitability and Ease of Use. Customer’s trust is also high, which has contributed much to expanding this site’s customer base and volume of returning customers. Since this platform offers a significantly larger customer base than most other online stores, competition is also fierce. With a variety of categories to target and an opportunity to optimize listings for search with the advanced Amazon algorithm, however, sellers can control the audience that they want to focus on to maximize their profits. Amazon is only relatively easy to use because it has so much to offer in terms of optimization and paid advertising. Sellers can list for free in exchange for a fee on top of Amazon’s percentage cut, which can reduce costs. They can also opt to sign on for vendor status if they can move enough product to cover the regular fees.

Almost anyone with anything to sell can turn a profit on Amazon as long as prices are competitive with enough of a margin to compensate for any fees. Choosing the right product or the right volume is key.

Add to Cart Consultants offers many levels of consulting for an Amazon business. Contact Add to Cart for more information.

2. Shopify – more than just a page on Amazon, you can build your own store here to sell a variety of items. With freedom to design your storefront with over 100 templates, you can get a quality website for much less than building your own.

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Shopify is smaller than Amazon, making for easier competition with a fair range of categories. The fees can get quite steep – up to $ 179 per month compared to Amazon’s $ 39.99 for a Professional account – but sellers can leverage additional outlets such as Facebook and MailChimp to boost sales. Shopify also has its own analytics suite where sellers can check sales performance, but sellers are responsible for managing their own listings, shipping and customer service.

Add to Cart Consultants have the knowledge and experience to help you setup your very own shopify store. Be sure to ask us how we can help you start selling on your very own website.

  1. Bigcommerce – this platform also offers customized sites plus extensive marketing support and secure eCommerce tools.
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Bigcommerce now offers free themes, and has recently updated their selection to compete with Shopify, but still has less variety and remains the pricier option. The advantage with this platform is the support offered, which includes coupon codes, an abandoned cart saver, social media integration, and secure hosted e-commerce tools to boost customer trust.

Honorable mention:

While not a global site since sellers are limited to the local market, Craigslist deserves a mention for its expansion to all seven continents. Craigslist is the original sell anything site, this is more of an online classified ad space than a selling platform, but its massive size and variety of categories makes up for the parts that may not benefit a seller.

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Craigslist does not rank high overall in the Ecommerce Bytes Sellers Choice Ratings, but has a good rank for Ease of Use. Competition is high, but the location selector narrows this down for sellers who want to target local markets. Craigslist is especially great for selling used items or things that are difficult to ship.

It is completely free to post and sell products on Craigslist, but this means that there is little protection for both sides. This pulls customer’s trust down, but many sellers have succeeded in making a good living off this site by applying a few careful policies and practices. Because it is a free classifieds site, the seller is responsible for all aspects from the listing to after-service.

Auction Style Platforms

  1. eBay – the oldest and most well-known online selling platform in the world. eBay is over 20 years old and has an awesome shipping system, but has become less popular in recent years because of certain changes to their policies. Still, it has expanded to include fixed-price items as well as the traditional auction-style listings.
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eBay ranks the highest overall in the EcommerceBytes Sellers Choice Ratings, with particularly high ratings for Profitability, Customer Service, Communication and Ease of Use. Competition is tight on the site because of its wide global reach and huge range of available products. There are free accounts available, but sellers have to pay per listing no matter how it performs and eBay’s share is 10% of every sale. Monthly fees reduce the listing fees, but these range from $19.95 to $299.95.

Sellers are free to list almost any kind of item on eBay, but rare, vintage and branded items sell best. The refined logistics of this platform make it ideal for sellers who cater to people all over the world. Selling many types of products here, however, can get costly. It is important to also note that seller protection on the site has declined.

  1. eBid – this is a less-known marketplace and therefore lower-cost, a good testing area for getting a feel for the market.
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eBid does not rank high in the Ecommerce Bytes Sellers Choice Ratings, but it is a platform to watch as it is still quite young. The low competition and low fees – free listings and 3% cut – make it a good place to test run new products to see how customers respond. Profits are not likely to be high on eBid, but it is a trusted marketplace and there is less risk involved because of the lower costs. Sellers are responsible for managing their own listings, promoting products off-site, generating traffic to boost sales, and taking care of shipping and customer service.

Customers selling precious metals will sell via single purchase or via silver subscription services.

Posted in eCommerce | Comments Off on eCommerce Selling Platforms