Amazon Sellers: 6 Steps to Achieve Long-Term Growth

Being an online seller it’s easy to be distracted, lose focus or try to live the world's view of us — bathing in the sun on a beach with an iPad. But this post brings things back to perspective and earth.

The Reality — How to Win

The reality, something many sellers may already know, is that you have to work for it. While you can strike lucky with an ASIN or sector, it won’t last and you’ll finish riding the wave of success after a few months or (if you’re super lucky) a few years.

I want this post to encourage you, as the Christmas period approaches, to double down and ensure your account, listings and business are performing as well as possible. I take a lot of inspiration from GaryVee (you should check him out www.youtube.com/user/GaryVaynerchuk) so I’m going to use a few of his ideas to explain and boost this post.

Clouds & Dirt

This idea is that we must define and focus on our big vision, goals and culture etc AKA Clouds. But to get there we also need the ‘Dirt’ day-to-day, strategy and effort. Here I’ve written both for you, in relation to the focus and direction for your business and Amazon account , followed by practical ‘dirt’ tips for how to achieve this.

Clouds

1. Strengths Over Weaknesses — Look at you personally and your business, what are your strengths? Your USP? Focus on this area, grow your strength and disregard your weaknesses (unless your weakness is business in general or finance — you should probably work on that
2. Legacy > Currency — While online selling is impersonal and sometimes feels aggressive, ultimately outliving your competition isn’t just a battle of turnover or profit. Customers are loyal, will pay more for convenience, love good customer service and should be treated superbly. Overtime, good ethical decisions and practices should always benefit you long-term. Focus on long-term growth and sustainability, not quick return.
3. Hustle — The only factor you can truly control as a business owner or entrepreneur is your hustle, how much and how hard you work. If your competitor puts in a 10 hour work day, work 12 hours. If you’re unhappy with your account performance, learn to work smarter and work harder. There’s 24hours in day and 7 days in a week — How many of them are spent achieving your goals? With 8 hours sleep per night, there’s still 112 hours per week free!

That’s the clouds, the big focus and principles that if applied will propel you from average to exceptional.

Dirt

1. Get your customer service sorted. It’s a daily ritual that needs to be perfected and minimised. It’s crazy important to be great at replying to your emails quickly, professionally and personally, however it’s also a drain on time. I’d reccomend our service: WeKnow.Email for an affordable and time saving customer service solution. But for you it may just mean getting in a good rhythm or actually deciding on what your policy is for returns?! But before the sales go a bit Christmas / Black Friday crazy, get this sorted. You don’t want to be suspended at the business time of the year!
2. Pictures are gold. As a customer reads and scans any online page, especially an Amazon detail page, they start at the top left and read left to right. That means the first thing they see is your listing’s primary image. Make sure it’s really, really good. High resolution with bright colors, clearly showing the product and being 100% accurate to what you actually send. Download an Active Listing report from Seller Central and go through EVERY listing (remember the hustle I mentioned earlier?) checking the images and other details. Fix the problems now. Don’t come back to finish reading this until that’s completed.
3. Chat to someone for 30mins. While admittedly this seems like a straight up plug for eCommerce Geek (it is) it’s genuinely a very cheap way to clear your mind, brainstorm ideas and get valuable advice. There’s tons of potential on Amazon and it’s impossible to know everything. Invest a few dollars and find out where you should be focussed. Visit www.ecommerce-geek.com for more info on consultancy services.

I cannot send you enough good wishes as you embark towards likely the biggest Black Friday in history, followed by Cyber Monday, followed by Christmas gift buying, followed by January sales. There are billion of dollars about to be spent — how are you ensuring you can get involved and have some of the pie?

Joshua Price — Director @ eCommerce Geek