Product &
Product Strategy
Every product is
special and has its own market destiny. Just like the uniqueness of each
product, the ‘go-to-market strategy for each will also be unique. Any
product can be a success if the right strategy is adopted.
New vs
Experienced Sellers
New sellers are either
too frisky or are too risk-averse whenever they are required to take a
progressive decision. Based on your circumstances, a balance is required on the
sea-saw of risk. However, we are jotting down some pointers for you that will
act as a guiding path, just to keep you on the safe side. This guide is for
those who are either starting or have started but are struggling at the moment.
Some are either thinking to quit altogether or want to restart selling in a
different manner.
Some experienced sellers
usually search for a product with exact precision and treat every decision
mathematically after using market intelligence tools which is not a correct
approach as well. You need data analysis in your right hand, unbiased judgment
on the left and then join your hands together to make the best decision.
1. High
Demand & Low Competition
It’s absolutely mandatory
for you to find a product that has a high or even medium demand. What does that
mean? Demand will determine how much time your product will take to sell off
once it is up for sale on your Amazon storefront.
Consider demand as the flow of a river and that every product niche has a
distinctive flow. You would want to enjoy a canoe ride where the pace of the
water is extraordinary, enough to take you to your destination quickly without
toppling you over on the way.
We will also be looking
at our competition and the number of competitors in total to analyze if this
will be the right market for us to dive into. The number of competitors can
reasonably be compared with the depth of the river. The more the competitors,
the more the depth of the river and the more chances for your product to drown.
So your product would have to swim more in order to come to the surface level
for visibility.
AMZ
One Step Tip. So ideally speaking, you would want to hunt for a product
that has a high sales velocity by default and less number of sellers for you to
shine among from easily. Whatever product you finalize, you will have to
develop a corresponding strategy to bring it up to the 1st page. Now let’s
address the elephant in the room, how do we ascertain the demand ‘exactly’? The
plain and simple answer is ‘we cannot’, we can only provide an estimate and
predict sensibly using different tools and get a feel on the level of demand
from multiple channels. The most famous tool recommended by all gurus out there
is Jungle Scout (JS) Chrome Extension. For those who are going to use it for
the first time or are in their initial stages, JS Extension provides row-wise
data for Amazon sellers along with an opportunity score.
Usually, it is
recommended for beginners to start with products having Opportunity Scores 6,
7, 8, 9 as they represent products in high or medium demand with medium or low
competition. You will also have to analyze the total revenue, price, reviews,
sales per day, etc. (we will cover these later in the blog).
Egrow is another emerging
tool in the market that delivers the same kind of results as Jungle Scout does
but of course with a different interface.
2. Keyword Search Volume
This should stand second on
your checklist in terms of its importance and relevance. You should always
treat keyword search volume exactly the same way as a Sales & Marketing
Professional looks at footfall in a mall or a marketplace. The more the people
enter the mall or in our case are searching for the keyword (broad or specific)
the more likely the product is going to sell and thus, be judged as high in
demand.
There are several tools
that are out there which share different types of data while showing keywords.
We always recommend our readers to use ‘authentic’ tools and advise them to
investigate how different tools are acquiring their data. What do we mean by
‘authentic’? In a layman’s language, you should work with a tool that is
accurate, make unnecessarily complicated projections, and does not exaggerate
results. You can go through our detailed blog on this topic by clicking here.
Our team of professionals and our satisfied clients use AMZ Wordspy, a premium
tool that will help you throughout your Amazon journey i.e. Product Hunting,
Backend Keywords, PPC Campaigns & Bidding, Product Title, Product Features,
etc. It has a 30-day free trial, does not have any hidden charges, and can be
used for the USA, UK, Canada & Indian markets. It looks like this:
3.
Seasonality
The product that we
select should not be a hot selling item for just one season or is in demand
once a year. The product demand trend can easily be checked using Google Trends
by punching in the product keywords. Products with low seasonality will first
of all be unpredictable wrt their sales and secondly will only deliver for a
specific duration. So, it’s a no-go area for the new sellers especially because
it will only be a battleground for factories or whole sellers in these
categories.
4.
Monitoring the Consistency of Product Behavior
Demand, Keyword Search,
Seasonality, checking their results once it is like taking a snapshot of the
situation for that particular moment. You need to keep in your mind that
whatever results you get are for that specific time only. So you need to set a
specific time, spanning from weeks to a month or maybe more than that based on
the product, just for monitoring the product behavior and see whether it is
behaving consistently over a period of time. Using Keepa will also be helpful
here to see the age of your competitors and the selling price patterns over
time. Its results look like this:
5.
Product Title
When using Jungle Scout
or AMZ Wordspy, you should not make a mistake by using the product
title but you should use the main keywords while analyzing the product being
investigated. It’s a common rookie mistake to get excited with JS Opportunity
Scores or AMZ Wordspy ratings
by using incorrect terms.
6.
Healthy Margins
This is quite often a
pitfall for newbies. They get excited looking at product results erroneously
and finalizing a product declaring it to be a hot seller. What they fail to
take into account is the fact that how much will they be able to source the product for and
how much are they going to sell it for. You are putting so much time, effort,
and money not to earn cents but dollars and lots of them. So we recommend that
the selling price of the product should be between $15 – $40 (at least for
newbies). In order to check margins and have a reasonable idea, you can check
the FBA calculator by clicking here. You can also check our
blog on Sourcing Platforms Other than Alibaba to
make well-informed sourcing decisions and reduce purchase costs.
7.
Average Revenue & Average Monthly Unit Sales
As per experienced
sellers, the average revenue for the targeted product niche should be more than
$5,000. This is an indication of the sales volume, the total market in terms of
$ the product is currently operating within. The bigger the cake, the bigger a
slice that can be cut and the bigger the bite you can take. Similarly, another
indication of the sales volume is that the number of units, if 300 units of the
product are sold, there might be enough room for a new entrant to squeeze into.
8. Reviews
Reviews constitute social
proof, the more the merrier. Why is the number of reviews critical after all?
First of all, everyone knows that Amazon has laid a strict hand on reviews
lately and that raising reviews is one ‘helluva’ of a job itself. Unless you
are glued up to a product and that you have ample time & money on you, you
should avoid products with reviews in the bracket of 500 – 5,000. Put yourself
in the customer’s shoes, there is some sense of security and safety when you
see a number of reviews. ‘That figure of 2,500 reviews has gotta mean
something, I mean there might be some paid/fake reviews but they can’t be that
many, can they?’ These are some questions that usually cross by your mind.
AMZ One
Step Tip. Experienced sellers
usually profess about a formula that the product that you finalize should have
3 sellers in the top 10 should be below 50 in reviews and that if the top 3
players have more than 1,000 reviews it will be a tough market and you should
anticipate a significant amount of time/money to be spent. So for that reason,
it is a no-go area for new sellers.
9.
Small & Light Weight
Our advice is to choose a
product which is of less than 1 pound weight and does not have extraordinary
dimensions. Why do we suggest this? Sellers are extremely sensitive about their
expenses at least in the beginning and they usually get frustrated about
surprise costs that just uselessly pop up every now and then. Heavy and
large-sized products will increase the transportation cost which is computed
based on volume i.e. from supplier to Amazon
warehouse to the final customer. There will also be an
increased cost for Amazon to keep your product in
its warehouse. Their calculation is mostly based on the dimensions so we advise
you to keep a check on your product size and weight as you will eventually have
to increase the product cost to be charged to the final consumer.
10.
Seller’s Rank
Although no one except
Amazon truly knows exactly how the seller’s rank is calculated but based on
experience, we can define it as a number that denotes the popularity of a
product within its category. Highest the BSR of the product, higher the sales
volume (not talking about the competition).
Some examples of
categories with advised BSR ranges are below:
Home & Kitchen
Primary product BSR range 100 – 20,000
Competing product BSR range 250 – 20,000
Home Improvement Tools
Primary product BSR range 100 – 7,500
Competing product BSR range 250 – 80,000
Industrial
Primary product BSR range 100 – 2,500
Competing product BSR range 200 – 3,000
Health & Personal
Care
Primary product BSR range 800 – 7,000
11.
Margin for Improvement
You need to go through
the comments of new and established brands within your product category to see
any suggestions from customers or any improvement points they want the brand to
improve upon. Innovate the product, add value in the market place and provide a
solution to the customers.
12.
Stay Away Features
12.1.
Reviews >1,000
As elaborated earlier as
well, we need to stay away from products with more than 1,000 reviews. You
should either be mentally ready to face the music, develop strong patience levels
along with a long-term strategy.
12.2.
Amazon, Fulfilled by Merchant (FBM), Brands
You might have noticed
AMZ or FBM written on JS Extension results. Ideally speaking, consider their
absence from a product category as a blessing but if they are present and you
really feel optimistic about the product then they should not be in a
dominating position within the niche.
12.3.
Fragile, Glass, Ceramics Products
The product leaves the
warehouse, reaches the Amazon fulfillment center then is later dispatched to
the final customer, most likely you won’t be present at or during any of the
product commute. Products that have the tendency to break during transit should
be avoided as they are like a time bomb for you. You can easily earn a negative
review without any ill intentions on your part. If you are really passionate
about the product then take extra precautionary measures to ensure the safety
of the product at all costs.
12.4.
Products with Multi Parts, Chess, Letter Board
For instance, if there is
complexity in the assembly of parts of the product then there is an inherent
chance for things to mess up e.g. missing pieces, pieces not joining up
correctly, etc. This can leave an unhappy customer which will ultimately make
you unhappy.
12.5.
Gated Items
Some categories require
prior approval from Amazon like Health & Beauty Products & Grocery
items. Beginners should begin with unrestricted categories or commonly known as
ungated categories to avoid any unwanted speed breakers.
12.6.
Electronics & Battery Items
We advise you to stay
away from electronics and items that are battery operated especially in the
beginning. Since you have an acute margin for acceptable error allowed by
Amazon, you do not want a teeny tiny transistor ruining your Amazon selling
experience. We need to leave the electronics category to the factory or
wholesale suppliers that will remain unaffected as they are working on
humongous volumes and returns won’t inflict much harm to them. For battery
items, there are some changes in the Amazon policies, please see the Amazon FBA Policy
changes in 2019 by
12.7.
Patents & Legal Issues
Search on the internet or
higher a specialist’s services on Fiverr to dig up any legal limitations that you might
have to face unknowingly after your product has reached the warehouse.
