Getting to grips with the nuances of Vendor Central is no easy feat. It’s a complex platform with hyper-specific data points and terminology. Failing to understand how Vendor Central functions will negatively impact your brand’s relationship with Amazon, the integrity of your catalog on the marketplace, as well as your channel profitability, market share and revenue.
As a top Amazon agency (according to Business Insider), Bobsled has been smashing sales targets and maintaining operational excellence on Vendor Central for years. In this tutorial series, we’re going to walk you through all the different aspects of Vendor Central.
There’s a lot to cover, so we’ve broken our analysis into installments. Over the last few weeks, we discussed:
Find our breakdown of Analytics and Reports below. Next week we’ll be releasing the final installment on Payments & Settings.
Be sure to subscribe to the Bobsled newsletter if you want
to be notified when each new installment is live.
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Reports > Analytics
The Analytics dashboard is divided into three main sections:
- Sales and Traffic
- Operations
- Consumer Behavior
Sales Diagnostic
Use the Diagnostics page to quickly identify opportunities by determining what is contributing to sales performance. This page offers a summary and detailed view (by product).
Sales Performance Trends
Stay on top of your sales performance by viewing trends and identify key factors driving sales. KPIs observed in this report include revenue, units sold, average selling price, glance views and conversion rate change.
Check out How to Effectively Manage your Amazon
Vendor Central Account
Geographic Sales Insights
View sales performance by geography; quickly identify and respond to key geographical trends. The report gives information on the state, city and ZIP where your products got shipped.
Net PPM
Quickly identify what products are contributing to profitability by viewing:
a) Net PPM (Net Pure Product Margin – margin after cost of goods sold and various agreed services such as damage allowance are deducted. Note: any sales discounts are not factored in)
b) percentage of total
c) prior period
d) previous year
Pre-Orders
Effectively manage new product releases by closely monitoring pre-order performance.
Check out Switching From Vendor Central To Seller Central:
Case Study From A Bobsled Client, Little Seed Farm
Traffic Diagnostic
Quickly identify changes in glance views and conversion by viewing prior period, previous year, and industry benchmark.
Real Time Sales
Enter ASIN to display real time sales data over the last 24 hours.
Forecast and Inventory Planning
Prevent replenishable out of stock revenue losses with data-driven inventory planning that shows how much inventory Amazon will be ordering in the upcoming period. There are 4 types of forecast:
- Mean Forecast: Amazon’s best estimate of customer demand
- P70 Forecast: Means there is a 70% chance Amazon will purchase the level of demand indicated or less and a 30% chance they will purchase more.
- P80 Forecast: Means there is a 80% chance Amazon will purchase the level of demand indicated or less and a 20% chance they will purchase more.
- P90 Forecast: Means there is a 90% chance Amazon will purchase the level of demand indicated or less and a 10% chance they will purchase more.
Inventory Health
Monitor the inventory health of your products through weekly updates – this allows you to quickly identify and respond to unfavorable trends. The most important KPIs to analyze include Sell-Through Rate, Sellable On Hand Inventory and Open Purchase Order Quantity.
Amazon Search Terms
Discover what products are winning the most clicks and conversions for important search terms. Assess the impact of your marketing campaigns by monitoring trends.
Repeat Purchase Behavior
Shows the number of orders from unique vs. repeat customers. This data can help you improve your marketing campaigns to simultaneously drive repeat purchases and acquire new customers.
Market Basket Analysis
Identify cross-selling and bundling opportunities by gaining insight on products that are being purchased together by your customers.
Check out Amazon DSP Retargeting – The First 30 Days
Item Comparison and Alternate Purchase Behavior
Improve your competitive intelligence by gaining insight on the products that are most frequently viewed together with yours, as well as products customers purchased after viewing your products.
Demographics
Data from the Demographics report can help brands connect with their target audience more effectively or identify customization opportunities. Data points include Age, Household Income, Education, Gender and Marital Status.
Customer Reviews
The Customer Reviews helps brands stay on top of customer experience by monitoring customer ratings and feedback.
Operational Performance
Here you can track any issues on the operational side that may have occurred whilst your inventory was in transit to Amazon’s FCs. If any part of the Purchase Order fulfillment process has not been up to Amazon’s standards (or Amazon themselves have made errors processing your inventory), you may experience issues with the metrics.
Chargebacks are very common. If chargebacks are ‘waived’ this means Amazon will not ding you – consider a waived chargeback merely a notification that you should keep an eye on the waived metrics. See the ‘View Defect List’’ in the top right corner of the page to review the details of any processed chargebacks. You can dispute a chargeback if you believe that you have been wrongly charged.
Check out Understanding Vendor Chargebacks and Their
Impact on Your Profit Margins on Amazon
Part 1 – Orders
Part 2 – Items
Part 3 – Advertising & Merchandising
Part 4 – Analytics & Reports
Part 5 – Payments & Settings
Need Strategic Support?
Understanding your Vendor Central account is the first step towards success as a vendor on Amazon. For more insight, book a consultation with a Bobsled expert below.
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