I was happy to welcome my friend Shannon Roddy, Founder of Marketplace Seller Courses, to a webinar just before Black Friday to discuss tactics that can help brands achieve more sales now, and to set you up for better success in Q1.

We covered:

  • Winning the Buy Box
  • Your seller reputation
  • Being customer obsessed
  • Inventory contingency plans
  • Advertising for better sales

I’ll recap Shannon’s points briefly and point you to the sections of the video that are relevant.

Winning the Buy Box

Even if you’re the only seller of a product, and even if it’s YOUR product, that doesn’t mean you’re going to win the Buy Box. The Buy Box is the “Featured Offer” – and you have a better chance of winning it when you monitor your sales performance. Shannon gives you some tips at 6:30.

Shannon recommends AMZ Alert to monitor your listings.

Product Reviews and Seller Feedback

Everybody knows that positive reviews help your listings get seen on Amazon. But keep in mind that a healthy seller feedback score is also essential to success. Proactive feedback solicitation gives brands a much better chance of keeping their feedback score up, and getting product reviews. You can hear more at 21:07.

Shannon recommends FeedbackFive, by eComEngine, to monitor and boost your seller reputation.

Customer Service

“Create customer service experiences that create word of mouth opportunities.” says Shannon. Amazon is a customer-centric organization, and expects its third party sellers to be too. Shannon says that you should respond to customer questions within 24 hours. Make sure to mark a message as “no response needed” if you don’t plan to respond. He gives more tips at 29:56.

Shannon recommends SellerSmile if you want to outsource your customer service to a company that gets it. 

Dual Fulfilment

2020 is a year like no other, but even in normal holiday times, sellers can run into hiccups with FBA. Marketplace Seller Courses recommends that you should always have a fulfillment backup, in case there are issues at FBA. Tips on setting up merchant fulfilled (MF) listings are at 35:52.

If you need help setting up MF listings, contact Marketplace Seller Courses

Amazon Advertising

You should always monitor your ad spend, and make sure your campaign structure and keywords are solid. Shannon recommends avoiding account-wide budget caps, and advertising for profitability or organic ranking. He gives more pro tips at 44:44.

Shannon recommends Teikametrics – and can help you learn how to manage Flywheel. Sign up for a free trial and see what we can do, together, to help you succeed right now.