If you are considering Amazon to be a big sales channel for you, then get ready to hire additional specialist resources to make your plans a success
Amazon is a wonderful opportunity for any business, small or big, to be able to reach out to end consumers and to sell its products.
As we know, ecommerce is no longer a secondary sales channel for many brands and in fact for many is the only channel of sales especially for direct to consumer brands.
Given that the internet has opportunities for selling products and that setting up an online store is relatively easy with the advent of platforms like Shopify, it is even more important for sellers and brands to be laser focussed on the opportunities that online shopping presents to them.
Selling on Amazon:
No doubt for many countries in which Amazon is present, the channel presents a huge opportunity for brands to sell their products to a plethora of consumers within that country.
Amazon also has a cross-border ecommerce system whereby it enables the sellers to sell their products in multiple countries especially in those countries where Amazon is operating the business.
This further increases the opportunities for entrepreneurs, brands and businesses to go global.
Distribution and Selling Structure
If you are a USA business that is selling on Amazon.com, you may have adopted one of the following models
1. Appointed a distributor who further sells on Amazon
2. Appointed an internal team that sells on Amazon
3. Appointed a third party services provider who manages your Amazon account and sells products under your account to end consumers
How to sell
Selling on Amazon seems to be an easy task that consists of the following:
1. Create your Amazon seller central account (this is a very easy process and takes very little time)
2. Create ASINS (Amazon Standard Identification Number) for your products, if ASINS already do not exist
3. List your products along with their content and pricing and other relevant information
4. Make inventory available to consumers either through your own warehouse and fulfilment centre or through FBA (fulfilled by Amazon)
5. Start promoting your products using the various marketing tools that Amazon provides you – some free and some at a cost
6. Participate in various promotions on Amazon including the special days on which Amazon runs promotions
7. Ensure the health of your account by providing timely responses to consumer questions, replying to reviews posted by customers, solving customer problems on time, having good quality products with minimal complaints, selling products that are genuine and not copies.
8. Extract more out of your Amazon account by using the business and advertising reports that gives a lot of insights into consumer behaviour on Amazon specially with respect to your products
9. Continuously monitor and improve your best seller ranking using various techniques
10. Continuously look at enhancing the level of product availability and assortments so that you have a wider range for consumers to select from
11. Explore selling in overseas markets that Amazon operates
As a business owner or brand that is selling on Amazon, it would help you to get deep into the Amazon selling process and to understand its capabilities and the opportunities that it presents to you.
Find additional resources
Since a lot of activities on Amazon may require time specially in the case of responding to consumer inquiries and replying to consumer reviews, you may consider finding a third party partner who can help you supplement your Amazon selling team with additional team members who are specialists and will be focused on various tasks relating to your Amazon sales process.
You may find some of this talent within your country but since Amazon operates in multiple countries such talent is also available in those countries where Amazon operates.
Consider using Tiger Pug resources
One such country is India where Amazon has a significant presence and a large number of sellers and brands selling on Amazon. You may find good quality resources in India who can help you with various tasks and support your Amazon selling team in the US.
The advantages are as follows:
1. Your company will get additional expertise for all your processes relating to selling on Amazon
2. Due to the time difference with India being ahead of the US, you get a time advantage whereby process can be undertaken at your night time, India day time so that you would have processes completed by the next morning US time. For example, responding to consumer feedback or questions would be done on an accelerated basis due to such time difference
3. You can use the team in India to work on analytics and reports for your management so that you can save time and also get pre-digested data and insights for you to take action
4. There is also a cost advantage which can be leveraged and you can use the savings towards marketing and management investments that can yield higher return on investments.
To know more about how you can supplement your Amazon selling team and increase your productivity and return on investment by deploying a team with Tiger Pug, please do write to contact@tigerpug.com
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