Amazon Seller Conference 2008 - Understanding Seller Performance Management
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Joseph Sirosh, VP of Transaction Risk Management Services at Amazon, is responsible for all aspects of trust and safety on the site. He manages the five teams responsible for this area: Buyer Fraud Prevention, ID Theft and Merchant Fraud, Feedback, A-Z Guarantee and Merchant Performance Management with the single goal of protecting all Amazon customers: sellers, buyers and shareholders. Read more
Amazon Seller Conference 2008 - Sebastian Gunningham keynote on Amazon’s Roadmap
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I am attending the Amazon Seller Conference in Seattle and Day 2 is solely focused on updates by Amazon management to the approx. 150-200 sellers present. Yesterday was mostly operations-type of presentations on marketing, taxes, logistics to help 3P Amazon sellers with running their businesses.
First up, Sebastian Gunningham, SVP of Amazon Services and chief over everything third-party selling, is focusing on the buying side of Amazon as “we’re going to see seller-centric presentations throughout the day”. Read more
Amazon has announced that it is testing a new Product Detail Page layout that will let consumers compare alternative offers from “Buy Box-eligible merchants” without navigating away from the main product detail page (compare this to the existing layout here).
Being an active Amazon shopper I find navigating between the Product Listing Page (”X New and Used”) to view other offers and the “main offer” (how they compare around shipping and feedback) annoying. This first test may show Amazon just how much conversions can improve if you show competing offers right on the main page (and reduce clicks).
Amazon Seller Conference
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Two weeks ago I attended eBay Live! in Chicago, eBay’s annual seller conference with a focus on education and third-party solutions that can help online retailers sell more profitably. eBay is fortunately retooling this annual eBay fest with attendance noticeably down this year (6,000?) and rumor has it that it may offer more targeted events similar to its annual e-Commerce Forum in January that is focused on the top sellers in each of the main categories (great format and attendance).
Since more and more eBay sellers are expanding to Amazon, I was asked several times at eBay Live! if Amazon is offering a seller conference, and if it could help grow sales on this channel?
Few noteworthy events / articles around Amazon from the last 2 weeks (yes — I am THAT behind).
- Amazon announced the acquisition of Fabric.com, a “leading online fabric store that offers custom measured and cut fabrics, as well as patterns, sewing tools and accessories.” Amazon did not disclose how much it paid for the site or its strategy behind it. Fabric.com which attracts about 200K unique monthly visitors (according to Compete.com), will continue to operate as a stand-alone operation although I assume that “leverage Amazon’s technology and Customer Service expertise” means that most of its infrastructure will move to AWS (to immediately cut costs). Buying a well-established niche site with loyal customers for probably a very reasonable price seems like a smart move.
- Announced in late 2007, it appears that the new payment kid on the block, Bill Me Later, is now available on Amazon as a payment option. Bill Me Later even added an Amazon Featured Store on its site. The company has grown rapidly and this new option should incrementally drive revenue in 2008 (which means more sales for you, Mr. Third-Party Amazon Seller).
- Jeff Bezos invests in Twitter, the fast-growing micro-blogging platform. There’s no revenue model - yet. Amazon does support UPC-based price look-up via SMS (which really hasn’t made a big splash) but maybe make it easier to Twitter about my Amazon purchases?
- Thanks to an Amazonite, last week I held for the first time a Kindle in my hands — I was quite impressed with the “readability” of the content (easy on the eyes). But not everyone’s convinced Amazon should be in the hardware business and for me it’s not a core competency or big revenue driver (not buying additional shares as a result).
- Investor’s Business Daily published a silly article late last week on the painful Amazon Toys R Us “breakup” as Border’s separates its ties with Amazon to go it alone. While no official numbers are available, I think Amazon - in hindsight - is probably happy about no longer needing to comply with TRU-mandated category restrictions (mention this at Amazon and watch eyes roll around …).
- In response to questions from online retailers that I get in my role at ChannelAdvisor, I checked with Amazon if there are any plans to give 3P sellers more visibility into Amazon’s fraud queue (either via Seller Central or the API). Meaning, will it be possible for Amazon to indicate if an order is being reviewed to help with customer communication. In short, the answer is “no”. I am hoping that PayPal’s increasing openess (with its new PayPal Payment Review feature) will put some “market pressure” on Amazon since I hear about this a good deal. Anyway, I tried.
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Amazon Video Games category restricted
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Amazon implemented restrictions on the best-selling video games and consoles to provide the best shopping experience possible for these products (high rate of fraud?). Games include the great Rock Band, Guitar Hero and Meta Gear Solid 4.
There are also hints that Amazon may soon close off again the Toys category in preparation for the holiday business. Amazon needs enough business history (few months) to determine if you are a worth seller that can provide the best customer experience possible before any foul apples create havoc during Christmas. If you’re not yet on Toys but have been planning to sell on Amazon, I would start right now.
| 3.2 |
Amazon Global Product Imaging
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Getting images right on Amazon is one of the most important requirements for selling successfully on this channel. A sometimes painful lesson to learn for merchants expanding from eBay to Amazon (note that I didn’t say “migrate” since they each site has its own unique strengths and benefits) where you get away with your products displayed on your pink shaggy carpet in very low light.
Amazon is focused on ensuring a consistent and easy shopping experience that mandates that products are merchandised “clean”. In that spirit they employ an Amazon Global Product Imaging team that encourages merchants to comply with this policy (see below). Read more
The largest share of third-party sellers on Amazon offer media (books / music / video). For new merchants joining this category it’s a right-of-passage to discover, puzzle and complain over merchants that offer their media products for $0.01. Here are a few good examples:
“Selling on the River” - The eBay’s sellers guide to Amazon
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Expanding from eBay to Amazon can be daunting especially for entrepreneurs that got their start on the “world’s greatest business incubator” (eBay). Auction vs. Fixed-Price, Free-For-All merchandising vs. strict catalog requirements, listing fees vs. Final-Value-Fee-only.
Steve Lindhorst, a former eBay employee and national eBay University instructor, wrote a book to help eBay merchants with this transition. “Selling on the River - The eBay’s sellers guide to Amazon” calls out key differences between the two leading U.S. marketplaces and pitfalls to watch out for.
I recently spoke to Steve about his book and his plans to expand his line of guides to other channels (add his blog at ww.genuineseller.com to your reading list).
Amazon the new eBay?
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One strategy that is definitely not recommended if you’re interested in selling on Amazon are exuberant shipping fees. In an Amazon message board thread titled “Amazon the new eBay“, third-party sellers exposed an Amazon Seller Central merchant that appears to have charged $60 shipping for a $2 media product - a strategy that eBay has long been known for (but is successfully eradicating on its site thanks to Detailed Seller Rating, Best Match and other improvements).