Amazon Stores
The concept of a personalised shopfront on Amazon isn’t a new thing. The Amazon pages feature was introduced back in 2012, however this feature has now been discontinued and has been replaced by the new Amazon Stores feature. This new offering from Amazon is more flexible and allows you to add video content & slideshows amongst other things. With a personalised amazon.co.uk/brandname URL it really allows you to create a personalised offering that is in line with your branding and your current ecommerce offering.
Benefits of Amazon Stores
Easy to build – Using Amazon’s Widget system, you can create an online store which allows you to offer both a route to drive sales for certain products, whilst brand building too. The drag and drop nature of Amazon Stores means you can lay out the store like your own website.
Allows Rich Content – Rich content widgets mean you can get the balance right between product offerings and brand content. The inclusion of videos allows you to add quality content to really enhance your brand image
Personalised URL – The Amazon stores feature allows you a personalised URL which will help with SEO to get your store ranked in Google. If you are a smaller seller without your own website, you could also use this on marketing materials to drive people to your store.
Build Multiple Layers – A multi layer system means you can build up to three layers of content. This is perfect for building category landing pages for product types which you can drive traffic to with AMS.
How to set up your Amazon Store
Layout – When thinking about laying out your new Amazon store, traditional ecommerce is a good starting point, and then tweak it for Amazon. With a headline banner and navigation near the top, allowing you to split out categories, you make it easier for users to navigate. Follow that with key products – a mixture of best sellers and products you want to promote, such as NPD is a good place to start. Making sure featured products have good reviews, helps reinforce positive feelings about your brand. Further down the page you can add rich content such as video to capture the imagination and blocks of text to aid SEO and increase traffic.
Amazon Store Manager – When setting up your Amazon stores there are 4 sections that will be of use to you;
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Page Manager– This is your CMS, to help you build all of the page levels and arrange them accordingly.
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Tile Manager– When creating your tiles (widgets) this section helps you manage what goes where.
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Preview Window– Used to test the store in real time to see what the user experience is like.
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Status Bar– Allows you to see whether your submission has been approved and any error messages should it be rejected.
General Tips
Content – Ensure all images are of a high resolution so they are clear and there is no pixelization. Check all spelling for mistakes and ensure that text is punchy, sells the product / brand and offers some SEO benefit.
Mobile optimisation – with more and more users doing their shopping on mobile devices, make sure your store is mobile friendly. You can check how it looks in the preview tool.
Driving traffic – When driving traffic to your Amazon store using AMS, make sure you are utilising category pages you have created. Directing people to specific products they are looking for and not just to the general store will increase conversion.
Expert Edge can help you with all the things above if you don’t have the time or resources to do it yourself. Our team is made up of former Amazon employees, vendors and sellers, who are both knowledgeable & personable. We have experience in doing this for multi-million dollar/pound brands as well as smaller startup brands. Find out more about our Amazon Consulting services and how we can help you.
