Lessons Learned at Amazon Accelerate [2021]
Amazon recently hosted their second annual Amazon Accelerate conference. This entirely virtual event consists of keynote sessions, breakout sessions, and “networking huddles.” In Amazon’s own words:
Amazon Accelerate is an annual seller conference hosted by Amazon, open to the Amazon seller community, including anyone interested in or currently selling on Amazon. Amazon Accelerate features general session announcements, leadership and seller panels, daily networking opportunities, and so much more.
In a nutshell, Amazon Accelerate is a way for Amazon to connect with sellers and/or potential sellers in order to communicate with them about what all Amazon is doing to help sellers sell better. If you don’t believe us, of their approximately 72 speakers for the 2021 event, 63 of them are employed by Amazon. This also means that Amazon is debuting a variety of new features and functionality available for sellers, which is where we come in.
Features Announced at Amazon Accelerate 2021
Search Analytics Dashboard
Requirement: Brand Registry
For years and years, Amazon sellers have struggled with visibility into shopper trends and search behavior. Yes, there are ways to extrapolate data from advertising campaigns or make assumptions using third-party tools like Google Search Console or Google Trends, but there was never any visibility into how shoppers search on Amazon.
The new Search Analytics Dashboard will become part of the existing Brand Analytics suite of data reports. There are two parts to this new dashboard:
- Catalog Performance Dashboard: This tool’s goal is to help sellers find conversion issues in their sales funnel at a product or ASIN level. Beyond funnel reports, sellers will also get insight to how their price stacks up against the competition.
- Query Performance Dashboard: This is where the money is! This new dashboard will show sellers search terms associated with their products (which can help with advertising campaigns and listing optimization).
Product Opportunity Explorer
Requirement: None! Currently in a beta program, and will roll out to all sellers in 2022.
Did we ever think that Amazon would create a tool to help sellers locate new products to sell? No. Does it absolutely make sense? Yes.
The Product Opportunity Explorer has been created with the goal of cutting down the time and guesswork that goes into sourcing new products to sell. Sellers will have access to niche data, including sales history, pricing trends and search volume.
Global Selling
Requirement: None. Available to all Amazon sellers where there is product demand.
With fulfilment centers all over the world, and an engaged customer base in more than 185 countries, selling internationally through Amazon’s system seems a no-brainer. In an effort to help sellers expand beyond international borders with ease, Amazon is releasing a suite of tools and services:
- Marketplace Product Guidelines: These guidelines will help identify products with high potential, as well as products that adhere to global standards.
- Global Inventory Viewer: This is advertised as a “one-stop experience” for you to see supply and demand across all stores. Integrated with Send to Amazon, you can also ensure that you don’t stockout.
- Customer Service by Amazon: This is a new feature for merchant-fulfilled (or even 3PL) sellers. This allows Amazon to handle all customer service related to orders, like customer inquiries, refunds, and returns. Depending on the volume of customer contact, this service could be available to you for free.
- Global Listing: List a product once and it can be sold globally. Just a few clicks will help you replicate your product listing across multiple marketplaces. Note: This feature is currently in beta and will be available in 2022.
Local Selling
Requirement: Sellers must apply to be included.
In an effort to help retailers, Amazon has created Local Selling. More well-recognized (as the program starts) businesses can list products on the Amazon marketplace for local delivery or in-store pickup. Some of the initial retailers in this project include Best Buy, Mavis Discount Tire, and World Wide Stereo.
This is a big move for Amazon, with the goal of helping local shoppers support local businesses through Amazon’s well-trusted platform.
Amazon Accelerate’s Emphasis on Brands
At Amazon Accelerate, the platform announced that over 100,000 new brands have joined the US marketplace in 2021. That’s more than 10,000 brands every month.
Brand Registry was just the start of Amazon’s emphasis on the growth of brands (rather than resellers). Since the “new” form of Brand Registry launched, it has expanded to offer a full suite of tools and promotional options. In fact, it’s changing the landscape of Amazon, allowing businesses to truly build a brand rather than just sell some items.
In addition to the benefits that Brand Registry opens doors to, like Virtual Bundles, Posts, A+ Content, and Amazon Stores, the platform has also rolled out the following:
- Brand Follow: Like social media, but for Amazon! Shoppers can follow a brand and receive updates for new products or even promotions.
- Customer Review Resolution: If a customer leaves a negative product review, sellers are enabled to offer support and a courtesy refund if desired.
- Amazon Brand Referral Bonus: Amazon is now rewarding you for driving external traffic back to product detail pages and storefronts. Sellers can receive up to 10% of the purchase price of any/all of the brand’s products ordered within two weeks of the initial click.
- Amazon Customer Engagement: You can use Amazon’s email marketing system to promote and notify interested parties of new products in your store.
- Manage Your Experiments: Sellers can run A/B tests on product listings to ensure that all listings are optimized for search, and optimal for buyers.
Selling on Amazon doesn’t have to be intimidating. Seller Labs has a team of experts standing by to help with everything from advertising to A+ Content to listing optimization. Start a conversation today.