7 Expert Tips to Maximize Amazon FBA Profits and Cashflow

Amazon FBA brands use the same Amazon strategies like everyone else, but with FBA some things are a little… different. Fulfillment by Amazon, or FBA, has its own special rules and regulations, so Amazon FBA brands need to change up their approach if they want to maximize their profits.

But how, exactly? Below, we share 7 expert tips for Amazon FBA brands on how to improve sales and cut costs. If you’re thinking of switching your Amazon seller account to FBA, consider these techniques.

1. Sell small and lightweight products

Amazon FBA brands have concerns that other Amazon sellers don’t, and perhaps the biggest is Amazon storage fees. When using FBA, sellers store their goods in Amazon fulfillment centers, where Amazon’s team handles the shipping. While this gives sellers one less thing to worry about, it’s not a free service; Amazon FBA brands have to pay extra fees, including fees for both storage space and product weight.

When you factor in Amazon FBA storage fees, you see that certain products cost much less: small products (items that don’t take up much floor space) and lightweight products (items with a low shipping weight). To maximize profits with FBA, you want to minimize storage costs; if you’re selling large and heavy items, use the  FBA revenue calculator to see how viable it is for you.

2. Research profitable products

Amazon success depends on demand. Aside from selling evergreen products, it’s always best to research what products are trending before you add new lines or expand your range. That goes double for Amazon FBA brands; products that don’t move quickly accrue more storage fees that cut into profits.

We recommend using keyword research to see what people are searching for when they go on Amazon. Paid tools like Helium or Jungle Scout can help with the data, but if you don’t want to spend extra money, you can always do it yourself. Simply experiment with different keywords and product names in Amazon’s search function to see what comes up—keep your eyes peeled for market openings or opportunities to undercut competitors’ pricing.

3. Avoid seasonal and slow-moving products

Amazon FBA brands avoid seasonal products for the same reason they favor small and lightweight items: storage fees. Selling seasonal goods can be an effective sales strategy, but for Amazon FBA brands it means that most of the year the products are just taking up space, and in an FBA facility, space is money.

Likewise, selling high-ticket items can yield a profit with just a handful of sales, but if those sales come infrequently the storage fees are going to cancel it out. Instead, Amazon FBA brands should focus on fast-paced sales: quick to sell, quick to restock. That’s the best way to mitigate those storage fees.

4. Optimize product listings

A well-made product listing impresses not only shoppers, but also the Amazon search algorithm. Optimized product listings appear higher on search results pages, and more frequently. So one of the best ways to increase sales on Amazon, even if you’re using FBA, is to improve your product listings.

There’s a lot of nuance and technical detail to creating the perfect product listing. You must understand sales strategies, SEO techniques, persuasive copywriting, and to some extent graphic design. If that sounds overwhelming, don’t worry—a lot of serious and full-time sellers use an Amazon Listing Optimization service to let the experts handle it for them.

5. Improve product photography

Even before shoppers arrive at your product pages, a top-tier product photo thumbnail alone can inspire a sale—while a low-quality one will keep them scrolling! Amazon product photography is essential to making it in ecommerce, where shoppers rely on images alone to gauge how a product will look, function, or fit.

Like optimizing a product page, Amazon product photography is also an isolated skillset. Even if you know your way around a camera, Amazon product photography in particular is a specialized field that requires expertise in both sales photography and Amazon’s special requirements. For that reason, many Amazon FBA brands opt instead to hire an Amazon Product Photography service for the best possible pictures.

6. Tighten your PPC campaigns

Advertising on Amazon can get fairly intricate, drawing on SEO keyword research and settling on the perfect bid. But with a little extra effort and knowing what to watch out for, you can give a significant boost in exposure and traffic to your most in-need products.

The key is to choose keywords that are high in search queries but low in competition. https://waldofleamarket.com/ phentermine online clinic This is no easy feat, as most of the popular keywords are already oversaturated with advertising bids. Still, by dedicating extra time and resources to keyword research, not to mention understanding how your particular shopper niche uses the search bar, you can effectively increase sales through advertising alone. If that still seems like too much, feel free to hire an Amazon PPC Management service.

7. Aim for products between $20 and $50

Between $20 and $50 is the golden price range for Amazon and ecommerce. People are more likely to buy low-cost items, but anything under $20 is difficult to profit from. The $20-$50 range appeals to a good mix of shoppers:  impulse buyers, bargain hunters, and people who just don’t want to spend a lot of money.

When it comes to Amazon FBA brands, this price range is especially important. For one thing, products in this range tend to be small and lightweight, fitting with our first tip. Moreover, because items in this price range are easier to sell, they don’t spend too long in storage, cutting down your FBA fees. Add to that the customer satisfaction of having the product they want at an affordable cost, and you can see why this pricing range is so common.

What Amazon FBA Brands Need Most

Amazon FBA offers sellers a hassle-free way to store and ship goods, reducing a lot of the headaches associated with ecommerce. However, the trade off comes at a cost, literally—Amazon FBA brands are subject to extra fees, which means they have to sell more to break even.

All in all, to succeed with Amazon FBA requires a firm knowledge of both general ecommerce and the inner workings of the Amazon marketplace. For these you need time and experience, so if you’re new to Amazon, expect a learning curve.

On the bright side, if you don’t want to break in alone, you can always work with an Amazon service provider like us to help you learn the ropes. We offer general services like full account management, or specialized services like product photography, PPC campaign management, listing optimization, keyword ranking, and more. Schedule a free consultation now and we’ll answer any questions you might have. If you’re interested and want to hear a quote, schedule a free consultation call now, up to 60 minutes. We’ll answer all your questions and explain how we can help! 

Amazon PPC Campaigns | Dynamic Bidding & Bids Placement – 2022

The rules have changed yet again as Amazon recently introduced new Amazon PPC features and spiced up the dynamics. Setting up a PPC campaign was pretty simple earlier as you just needed to be mindful of running an automatic or a manual campaign based on your strategy for the product. Amazon has broken down the variables and made the game definitely more complex, intriguing for some leaving the rest perturbed. Love it or leave it, that’s Amazon! For those of you excited and want to learn the next game-changing PPC features that can act as sales catalysts, this one is for you.

Read More:- Amazon PPC : All You Need To Know About Amazon PPC Campaigns

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Let’s Begin

The campaign bidding strategy section is available for both automatic and manual campaigns. The explanation by Amazon is sufficient and self-explanatory but we will still paraphrase it for the benefit of all readers. This is where changes begin:

Dynamic Bids – Down Only

By selecting this option, you are essentially instructing Amazon to cap your bid to the value you insert as a default bid and if need be, when there are fewer chances of conversion, reduce it in the descending order to zero. As stated clearly in their description that experienced sellers were using this option as a default option earlier. Therefore, the majority of the content regarding guidance for PPC available on the internet and youtube videos pertain to this.

Dynamic Bids – Up and Down

This is where the new stuff begins. You are not only allowing Amazon to lower the bid price but also to double your default bid i.e. up to 100% if they sense a conversion. It’s as simple as that. So you are prescribing a range for Amazon to operate within whereby authorizing them to increase to the maximum or decrease it to the minimum.

Here is an illustration that will cover an arbitrary range of bidding.

Fixed Bid

You set the default bid and Amazon will not change it based on the likelihood of conversion. This has no strings attached so your bids will remain the same, you will be hit by the bid price fair and square.

Ad Placement

Sellers will no doubt become more powerful and in control of the placement of their product ad by this second chance. This will give enormous leverage to established sellers who are always anxious to get that extra bite. You have 2 more options related to your product Ad Placement now and you can use any based on your strategy for the product as both have their unique advantages. You now have the option of applying the weightage of your ad, meaning you can assign percentages up to 900%. First, let’s have a look at the options and then decipher what these percentages mean.

Top of Search (First Page).

Your Ad will be placed at the topmost row on the first page of search results. This will give you extra visibility for sure but that comes with an extra cost. We will elaborate that further later with the help of an example.

Product Pages

Your Ad will be available on product detail pages, outside the search results or near the buy box. This will especially be helpful if you are targeting to place Ads near your competition.

So for example, if your default bid is $0.75 then if you assign 900% to either of the Top of Search or Product Pages then your bid will increase to $7.50. Whoa! That’s like 10 times your original bid just to place your Ad according to your wish and command. You don’t need to set the maximum 900%, you can increase the percentage step by step and work out the number delivering results best for you.

Watch Out For The Killer Combination

We will take an extreme instance to make a point here just for awareness and to make you watch your steps. Imagine if Amazon stretches your bid to 100% when you select “Dynamic Bids – Up and Down” and you apply 900% on “Top of Search/Product Pages” as well. What will be the results? You will for sure get the best placement but let’s take your cost into account here. If your default bid was $0.75 then Dynamic Bids – Up and Down got doubled i.e. $1.50 and since you applied 900% for Ad Placement then this $1.50 will become $15. This needs to sink in so we reiterate, that just cost you $15 for a single click! A click that only God knows if it had the fate to convert into a unit sale. Again this was an extreme example and a worst-case scenario just to show you the financial impact.

Word of Advice & Caution

  • This is undoubtedly exciting at the same time unpredictable at least for now since there is no precedence or available case studies. Sellers are in their experimentation phase and no one can concretely point fingers in the right direction.
  • Since several variables have been introduced you will have to change them, give 2 weeks’ time to see a definite trend and make adjustments accordingly. You will have to control the test by changing one variable independently while keeping others constant.
  • Its Beta! So Amazon will be gathering feedback and looking at it closely as this will require a lot of testing.
  • We are relying heavily on Amazon’s ‘Judgement’ hereby allowing them to move bidding Up and Down. No one knows the exact mechanics of how the bids move up and down.
  • If you have decided to use any of the options then our advice is to monitor your CTR, Conversions and ACOS closely at short intervals.
  • Set small amounts of campaign budgets not exceeding $30 just to minimize chances of burning up your kitty unnecessarily.
  • Its tricky and can be a bit slippery so start with your existing product listings that are performing well where you know the current trends to compare results.
  • It is recommended for rookies and newbies to begin with Dynamic Bidding – Down only as a safe option and then move up the ladder.
Concluding Remarks

Dynamic bidding has indeed become ‘dynamic’ in its true sense. Without any doubt, sellers have gained control over their Ad Placement and the bidding war has become more intense. As fabulous as it sounds do not pounce on this opportunity without completing homework on your numbers. You just need to be mindful of the financial repercussions as the fall can be a steep one.

Check out our Amazon Product listing optimization services.

Everything You Need To Know About Amazon PPC

Amazon Pay per Click (PPC) Campaigns: Everything you need to know!

Amazon pay per click campaigns are the most effective way to get more sales. Amazon PPC Campaign generates more sales and that helps you rank organically on Amazon. There are a few things you need to manage in your campaigns like ACoS, impressions, keywords, manual/automatic targeting, etc.

How PPC works?

When you advertise your private label product, Amazon shows your ad to potential buyers depending on keywords and your product category. Sellers bid on keywords and pay per click. The higher the bid more impressions your listing gets. More impressions lead to more sales.

If you are bidding lower than the suggested amount by Amazon then your ad may not show up on the front page of the search term. All ads have a sponsored sign below the title of the listing.

Automatic Campaign means when amazon chooses keywords from your listing and advertises those keywords. Amazon also shows your ad on your competitor’s listing as well.

Step: 1 – Click on the Advertising from home page tab.
Step: 2 – Click on Campaign Manager.
Step: 3 – Click on Create Campaign
Step: 4 – Choose campaign name, set a daily budget, select start and end date, select the automatic campaign and click on continue to next step.
Step: 5 – Select the product you want to advertise.
Step: 6 – Select default bid and click save and finish.

A manual Campaign means you provide Amazon with all keywords you want to advertise on. Make sure the keywords you are providing are relevant otherwise you will not get impressions on that keyword.

Step: 1 – Click on the Advertising from home page tab.
Step: 2 – Click on Campaign Manager.
Step: 3 – Click on Create Campaign
Step: 4 – Choose campaign name, set a daily budget, select start, and end date, select the manual campaign and click on continue to next step.
Step: 5 – Select the product you want to advertise.
Step: 6 – Select default bid and choose keywords you want to advertise on. You can choose keywords suggested by Amazon or provide your own keywords. Click save and finish.

I have mixed opinions on both campaigns and I recommend starting both campaigns and proceeding with the one you are getting better results.

Some important metrics you should know:

Advertising cost of sales (ACoS): The advertising cost of sales can be calculated by dividing total ad spent by sales generated. For example, you spend $1 on ads and generate $5 of sales, your ACoS would be 20%. The lower the ACoS percentage the better it is.

Impressions: The number of times your ad was displayed is called impressions and it may take up to 3 days to remove invalid clicks from your reports.

Clicks: The number of times your ad was clicked by any buyer is called clicks. For accurate data, it may take up to 3 days.

Attributed Sales: Sales generated by your campaign are called attribute sales. If your sales amount exceeds attributes sales that means your remaining sales are organic. It may take up to two days to collect sales data.

How to optimize your PPC campaign?

Running a PPC campaign is very simple and easy but optimizing your campaign and getting more sales with less ad amount is a little bit tricky. Here are the few things you need to do for better results.

1. Find your Keywords: Whether it is a manual or automatic campaign, you should research and find all keywords related to your product. Enter all those keywords in your manual campaign and in your listing as well.

2. Understanding Budget and bids: Amazon suggests how much you should bid in order to get more impressions. For the beginning stages, I recommend bidding on the higher end and after you have successfully ranked your product on page one then you can bid on the lower side. Set your budget to at least 20 times more than your high bid and watch that for the next few days. Adjust if you need to.

3. Cutting down non-performing keywords: After a week of your PPC campaign, you can check data on your spending and sales. Raise your bid on keywords that are making you more sales and remove keywords from campaigns that are not giving you sales if you are not sure what to do then watch your campaign performance.
4. Reduce bids after Ranking: Amazon suggests the range of bids you should enter. A high bid means more impressions, if you have ranked your product on the first page then you should reduce bids because you are already getting enough impressions. Reducing bids will still help you get more impressions and works like fuel on the gas because you have ranked your product and organic sales are also coming.
5. Optimize your Listing: For the best PPC results, clicks will convert into sales only if your listing is optimized. Let’s say you have a visitor on your listing through PPC, you already spent money on that visit and you cannot afford to let that visitor go without a sale. So optimizing your listing is absolutely crucial when starting PPC.
Optimize your listing now.

How much you should spend on PPC?

It really depends on what your goal is. Here are three goals you can achieve PPC
1. Brand awareness.
2. More sales with low cost.
3. Product ranking.
Brand awareness may need a lot of budgets because you want to ensure that people recognize your brand and they may buy your products in the future. In this campaign strategy, you will be running advertisements whether you are making sales or not. You should spend anywhere between $100-$500 per day.
If you are looking to get more sales out of your campaign then optimize your listing and watch all your keywords performance every week. Try to keep your ACoS below 20%. Follow PPC optimizing steps mentioned above and I am sure you will get good sales at a low cost. $20-$50 per day is enough for this campaign.
If your goal is to rank product on the top page then optimize your listing and optimize your listing and spend near about $80-$100 a day.

These numbers are estimated for a competitive niche. You may not spend this much on your campaigns.

What are negative keywords?

Negative keywords are used to prevent showing your ad when those keywords are searched.

FAQs

When do you start PPC Campaigns?

I would start PPC as soon as the listing is optimized but for better ACoS results you can start after getting a few reviews.

When do you stop PPC?

I never stop PPC. I just reduce my budget and bids.

How many keywords should I include?

You should include as many as possible relevant to your product. Do not include non-relevant keywords because you may lose money or increase ACoS.

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