Amazon is a powerhouse in the e-commerce world, and establishing a strong presence on this platform can be a game-changer for your brand. In many cases, brand owners are missing out on pieces of their own pie due to the number of resellers in the marketplace. However, standing out among millions of sellers requires strategic planning and execution. Here, we’ll explore six fundamental steps you can take to help you dominate your brand's presence on Amazon.

Step 1) Optimize Your Listings

Your product listings are the first touchpoint between your brand and potential customers on Amazon. Optimizing these listings is crucial to improving your visibility and your conversion rates on the platform. By conducting keyword research, you'll be able to identify the terms your target audience is using most and incorporate these keywords naturally into your product titles, bullet points, and descriptions. On top of this, it's important your listings have professional, high-resolution images that showcase your product from multiple angles and include lifestyle images to help customers visualize the product in use. Don't forget to highlight the key features and benefits of your products in easy-to-read bullet points, focusing on what makes your product unique and how it solves a problem for the customer. To top it all off, provide detailed product descriptions that answer common customer questions and include additional keywords to further improve your products visibility in Amazon's A9 Algorithm.

Step 2) Add A+ Content

A+ Content allows you to enhance your product listings with rich media, detailed descriptions, and comparison charts. This not only improves the visual appeal of your listings, but also provides valuable information to potential buyers, leading to higher conversion rates. To gain access to this content, you'll need to go ahead and register your brand's trademark with Amazon Brand Registry.  Be sure to use A+ Content to expand on your product details, highlighting features, benefits, and uses beyond just that of your base level descriptions and info. You can also help customers make informed decisions by comparing your product with others in your lineup through comparison charts. When it's all said and done, Amazon states that A+ Content can increase sales by up to 8%, while Premium A+ Content can boost sales by up to 20% overall.

Step 3) Build Out an Amazon Brand Store

An Amazon Brand Store is a customized storefront that showcases your entire product line in one place. Think of it like your own mini-website on the Amazon platform. Brand Stores are an excellent way to boost brand awareness and drive sales by further building out your branding on the platform. Design your store with a custom layout that reflects your brand’s identity and organize products into categories for easy navigation. This will enrich your customer's shopping experience on Amazon, further developing their awareness and loyalty to your brand. Have a look here to see an example of a high performing brand store in action!

Step 4) Administer and Enforce a 3P/MAP Policy

A 3P (Third-Party) / MAP (Minimum Advertised Price) policy helps maintain price consistency and protect your brand’s value in the marketplace. Instead of selling wholesale to buyers and allowing them to price freely with no regulation, these policies state that the buying relationships will be terminated if the rules are not abided by. Often times on Amazon, product listings can be diminished and killed by resellers bidding the price down until the profitability on the product is completely tapped. Not only will this lower your customer's expectations for what prices they can and should be buying your products at, but it will also strain your business's ability to tap into retail profits that would have otherwise been available. Establish clear policies and communicate them to all retailers/distributors at the time of new wholesale orders and enforce them by monitoring the marketplace with the various software tools available on the market.  From here, contact sellers who violate the terms and (if necessary) involve Amazon’s Brand Registry team to assist in removing non-compliant listings.

Step 5) Add Your Own FBA Fulfillment Channel

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) allows you to leverage Amazon’s logistics network to store, pack, and ship your products in volume. Products fulfilled by Amazon are eligible for Prime, attracting a larger customer base than traditional means of fulfilling orders yourself (also known as Fulfilled by Merchant - FBM). Think of selling your products via FBA as preparing them with specific packaging and labeling, and sending them off to Amazon to handle customer service and returns, effectively freeing up your time and resources. If you want to grab hold of the Buy Box and tap the retail profits available for your products on Amazon, the path of least resistance currently sits within the FBA fulfillment channel!

Step 6) Remove Resellers from the Platform

If you really want to dominate your brand's presence on Amazon, you should strongly consider removing resellers from your listings. Unauthorized resellers can harm your brand’s reputation and pricing strategy. All harm aside, by leaving resellers on your listings, you'll be competing with resellers to make sales. Why compete to make sales on your own products with other sellers selling your products!?

Removing resellers requires a proactive approach to ensure continued success. By enrolling in Amazon’s Brand Registry, you'll gain access to tools like the Transparency Program that help you protect your brand. Regularly monitor your listings for unauthorized sellers to report any violations to Amazon through the Brand Registry portal. While legal action can be taken against sellers that sell your products in violation of your policies, in many cases you can knock these sellers out of the picture by cutting them off at the point of your distribution. Keep in mind, many of your distributors value the relationship they have built with your brand too. It's not uncommon for these distributors to help you enforce your 3P/MAP policies at their point of sale.

Putting It All Into Play:

Dominating your brand's presence on Amazon involves a multifaceted approach. By optimizing your listings, adding A+ Content, building out an Amazon Brand Store, enforcing a 3P/MAP policy, utilizing FBA, and removing unauthorized resellers, you can create a strong, consistent, and appealing presence that attracts and retains customers over the long run. Stay proactive, hire the proper personnel, leverage the tools available to you in the market, and continuously refine your strategy to stay ahead of the competition on this ever-evolving (and increasingly dominant) Amazon platform.