Amazon Account Management

For many, it’s a difficult, if not impossible, question to answer. According to Amazon, “Sellers on Amazon worldwide used capital from Amazon Lending loans to grow sales by an estimated $4 billion.” That’s an impressive number, and, for many brands, getting cash through Amazon is an appealing and unique alternative to traditional lending through a bank.

Have you ever noticed a seasonal element to your sales on Amazon? Maybe you’ve seen significant growth in your sales during the final quarter of the year or a really dramatic drop in certain months. Actually, seasonality has an effect in most product categories, which means we can study its rhythms and figure out how to take advantage of it.

Everyone who’s been selling on Amazon for at least a month knows the importance of effective inventory management. While we’ve spent a lot of time on the Bobsled blog discussing things like listing optimization, ads optimization, squatter management, and other aspects of optimizing your Amazon presence to boost sales, these things pale in comparison to the importance of managing your inventory. When you run out of stock…well, there’s nothing to optimize.

At first glance, it seems like joining the Exclusives Program is a sure bet toward growing your brand’s sales on Amazon, but like all major decisions, the step should only be taken if you’re fully aware of what both you and Amazon get out of the collaboration.

Managing and removing the other sellers that will list against product pages is a multi-step process, and while reducing unauthorized/counterfeit sellers is the goal; it’s important to note that completely eliminating them from listings is usually not possible.

Amazon’s Vendor Program comes with perks and downsides. For some brands, selling wholesale directly to Amazon can help to grow revenue and reach new customers with potentially less fuss than on Seller Central. Once you start using Vendor Central you also get access to AMS (Amazon Marketing Services), an advertising platform which offers more advanced paid search placements than Seller Central.

There’s a lot that goes into the successful maintenance of an Amazon account, even for brands on Vendor Central (VC). In fact, keeping your VC account in good health and performing at its best is a continual process. Although you’ve got Amazon handling a lot of aspects for you, like sales, shipping, pricing, customer services and even returns, this doesn’t mean there’s nothing left for you to do.

In our last post on Lightning Deals, we discussed what they are, how to create one, and the pros and cons of doing so. Today we’ll look more closely at what you should consider before taking the leap, and why Lightning Deals are worth a test run for your products.

Amazon’s near-infinite product library is an incredible resource for buyers, but it can also make it incredibly difficult for brands to stand out from the crowd. You need to be appealing not only to potential customers but also to Amazon’s Search Rank algorithm, which are two entirely different critics.

In this week’s article, Stefan Jordev, PPC Manager at Bobsled Marketing, explains the four common situations why ad campaigns are not ranking to their full potential. He dives deep into the most common factors which may be responsible for slow performant ads.

One of the most common questions we get at Bobsled Marketing from companies located outside the US is around the tax implications of selling their products on Amazon. Companies which are established outside the US need to know whether they are required to pay US federal income tax, state income taxes, and state sales taxes. And a lot of the information out there is conflicting or confusing.