With competition getting hotter every day, how can you increase your sales on Amazon, and take your business to the next level?
First, some good news. Despite competition going up, the share of sales available to sellers on the Amazon marketplace is getting bigger and bigger. Amazon’s revenue is growing at a huge rate, and so is the percentage of sales from third-party sellers.
More good news! Most sellers still have room to grow. Things like poorly written listings, low-quality images and ineffective marketing are all opportunities to boost your sales on the Amazon marketplace. Acting on these opportunities will allow you to overtake lazy or inexperienced sellers.
Read on for our roundup of 15 actionable ways you can increase your Amazon sales in 2022.
15 Ways to Increase Your Amazon Sales
- Off-Amazon Promotions (External Traffic)
- Retargeting
- On-Amazon Promotions
- Optimize Your Listing for Sales
- Do More Keyword Research
- Better Product Images
- Get Your Pricing Right
- Split Test
- Use FBA (Fulfilled By Amazon)
- Win the Buy Box
- Run & Optimize PPC Campaigns
- Build an Email List
- Get More Reviews
- Use Amazon’s Brand-Building Tools
- Optimize Inventory and Profits
#1: Off-Amazon Promotions (External Traffic)
The best way to increase your sales right now is to run a promotion outside Amazon.
Off-Amazon traffic channels (what we call external traffic) are a way to tap into a new audience of people who aren’t actively searching for products on Amazon.
Commonly used traffic channels include:
- Facebook/Instagram
- TikTok
- Blogs
- Influencers (on social media, YouTube, etc)
- Email marketing
The best way to drive sales for your product from these channels is to offer an exclusive, single-use promo code to potential customers.
A money-off discount is a surefire way to get more people to buy your product. And the spike of sales you get from running a promotion will often result in momentum that carries over to organic, full-priced sales.
Bottom line: Facebook, Google, TikTok, and other social platforms are an untapped traffic source for many Amazon sellers. If you want to increase your sales, but can’t find any opportunities to do so on Amazon, try running promotions outside of Amazon.
Want to start using external traffic channels to boost your sales? Do it with LandingCube promo pages. Build a landing page that’s clean and conversion-optimized in just 2 minutes.
#2: Retargeting
When you’re introducing your product to a brand-new audience, not everyone will go and buy it straight away. Even if you offer them a discount code.
Great marketers know that you need to retarget people who have shown interest in your brand, with multiple steps that eventually get them to make a purchase.
If you run external traffic marketing campaigns, you can run follow-up campaigns to people who have clicked through or interacted with the initial marketing material. A retargeting audience will almost always convert at a much better rate than a plain, cold audience.
To do this, make sure you send people through a landing page, or a shortened URL, where you can embed a pixel. This lets you track the people who interacted with the first ad, and thus allows you to run marketing campaign specifically for them.
This post gives a deeper guide on how to do retargeting for your Amazon store.
Bottom line: retarget people who have shown interest in your brand. Maybe they clicked on one of your ads, or interacted with your brand on social media. Sending follow-up marketing campaigns to these people has a high ROI and delivers better results than targeting people who are completely new to your brand.
#3: On-Amazon Promotions
Along with running external traffic promotions, on-Amazon promotions are a simple thing you can do to increase sales on Amazon.
There are a few different types of promotions you can run. These include Lightning Deals, 7-Day Deals, and Amazon Coupons.
Most deals you can set up on Amazon appear on your product listing, on the search results page, and on Amazon’s showcase pages. This allows you to attract more visibility and more sales on conversions from people who find your product.
Some showcase deals, such as Lightning Deals can be quite competitive, and thus cost a bit of money to run. However, it’s a great way to increase sales velocity and create some momentum for your product to rank higher.
Bottom line: promotions are an effective way of driving more sales for your product in a short time. Consider adding coupons on your listing or running a Lightning Deal to get a boost in sales. The momentum from your promotion can often lead to an increase in organic rankings & sales after your deal is over, too.
#4: Optimize Your Listing for Sales
Many Amazon listings are poorly written, and made only with keywords in mind. They have poor copywriting, basic mistakes, and aren’t optimized to convince the reader to buy the product.
The quickest and easiest thing you can do to increase sales is checking for basic errors in your listing copy:
- Spelling mistakes
- Grammar errors
- Sentences that don’t make sense
Try to eliminate big walls of text, and make sure your listing is easy to read. Shoppers should be able to scan your listing quickly, finding the benefits of your product and why they should buy it.
Keywords are important, but if your listing is not optimized to convert viewers into buyers, it doesn’t matter where you show up in the search results.
BONUS: MOBILE OPTIMIZATION
Also make sure your page is optimized for mobile.
Most consumers today are mobile-first. If you’re not considering mobile users, you may be missing out on additional sales.
Think about how your listing will appear on mobile, not just desktop. On the Amazon mobile app, all that shows above the fold is your title and pictures. This makes it vital to show the value, features, benefits, and use cases of your product in your secondary pictures.
Bottom line: your listing should convince people to buy your product. Make it easy to read, emphasize the benefits of your product, and eliminate mistakes with spelling and grammar. And don’t forget to optimize for mobile users.
#5: Do More Keyword Research
Many sellers are missing opportunities when it comes to keywords. Even though you may have hundreds of keywords you’ve researched and are ranking for, there’s often more to find.
Look for as many variations of your keywords as you can. Find different uses of your keyword, such as “[keyword] for …” and mentions of sizing in customer searches.
These “long-tail” keywords are extremely valuable, as they drive high-intent traffic to your listing, despite not having that much search volume.
Once you find potential opportunities you’re not ranking for, try and incorporate these into your listing somewhere (while keeping your copy sales-focused).
Use a keyword tool to find additional long-tail keyword opportunities, such as Jungle Scout, Helium10 or ZonGuru This will help you attract more customers on Amazon and as a result, increase your total sales.
Bottom line: look for more keyword opportunities, particularly long-tail variations of your main keywords. The more relevant keywords you’re ranking for, the more organic traffic you can get through Amazon SEO.
#6: Better Product Images
Photos play a huge role in converting impressions into sales, as well as attracting clicks from the search results.
We consume visual content much easier than written content. It’s the role of your images to grab customers’ attention and get them to fall in love with your product.
Low-quality images reflect poorly on your product. Images that don’t fully show your product and what it can do create doubt in shoppers’ minds. It’s your job to give the customer all the information they need to make a confident decision to buy your product.
Unclear images can even lead to negative reviews, when the product that arrives is different from what a customer was expecting.
Bottom line: images play a huge part in driving sales on Amazon. Review your images, and don’t be shy about investing in a service that specializes in product photography. It’s well worth the expense.
#7: Get Your Pricing Right
With how much competition there is on Amazon, pricing plays a huge factor in customers’ buying decisions.
Think about it from a shopper’s point of view. Everyone wants the best price. If a customer is weighing up your product versus another, price is often the determining factor.
This is especially true if you’re selling against multiple sellers on the same listing. When selling the exact same product, 99% of the time, the customer will choose the lower-priced item. The chances that you can convince someone to pick you because you have a better seller feedback profile is pretty small.
In this case, it might be worth investing in an automated repricing tool to adjust your pricing and stay ahead of the competition.
While it’s most common to lose out by pricing your products too high, the opposite can also cost you money.
You don’t want to sell your products too cheap. Many people sell their products much cheaper than the competition when they could get the same number of sales (and more revenue) by raising the price.
That’s why you need to price competitively. Too far above or below the price point of similar products will cost you money.
Bottom line: you may be missing out on sales by pricing your products too high. Check up regularly and make sure your pricing is competitive. Be careful of pricing your products too low, too, as this can be another way you’re losing money.
#8: Split Test
Small details, such as your title or the order of your images or bullet points, can end up making a big difference.
But it’s hard to know what works and what doesn’t without testing.
Online business models let you test everything. Titles, images, pricing, email subject lines… you should be continually testing and optimizing, finding out what works and what doesn’t.
To split test (also known as AB testing), run two identical versions of the same thing (i.e. a website landing page or an Amazon follow-up email), and change only one variable.
If there’s a significant difference in results between the two versions, you can chalk that up to the variable you changed.
Even a small improvement, such as an increase in impressions or conversions by a few percent, will lead to a significant increase in your Amazon sales over time.
Bottom line: test as many variables as you can (one test at a time), to find changes you can make to improve performance and increase sales. A number of small improvements will add up and result in a lot of extra sales over time.
#9: Use FBA (Fulfilled By Amazon)
Amazon’s fulfillment service, FBA, doesn’t just make storage and shipping easier for you. It’s also a way to boost your sales!
Amazon Prime is the reason that FBA helps increase sales. The Amazon Prime badge is something shoppers trust. When someone sees Amazon Prime attached to your product, it helps take away some of the doubt involved in the purchasing decision.
The main benefit of Amazon Prime is shipping. A survey found 79.8% of people in the US gave “fast, free shipping” as the reason they shop on Amazon.
When we buy something online, we want it fast, and we don’t want to pay for shipping.
Bottom line: offering fast and free shipping with Amazon Prime is a great way to drive more sales. Use FBA to ensure your products get the Prime label, and thus a higher share of sales.
#10: Win the Buy Box
The Buy Box is probably the biggest difference-maker in terms of sales on Amazon. If you don’t own the Buy Box, you’re missing out on a lot of a product’s sales.
This is the section on the right side of a product listing with the big “Add to Cart” button.
Whichever seller “owns” the Buy Box gets the orders from customers who click on this button. All other sellers of this product are listed below, under the “Other Sellers on Amazon” heading.
You’d assume that most customers would click on the Buy Box to make a purchase, and that would be correct. A massive 82% of sales on Amazon come from the Buy Box.
That means, if you’re competing with other sellers on a listing, the number one thing you can do to increase your sales is to own the Buy Box.
Some of the factors that decides who wins the Buy Box are:
- Fulfillment method (FBA products have a higher chance of winning the Buy Box)
- Price (Amazon prefers a lower price, including shipping & handling fees)
- Price consistency (big swings in price may result in losing the Buy Box)
- Account health (seller feedback, order defect rate, and many other seller metrics)
- Number of products in stock (you probably won’t get the Buy Box if you have 1 unit in stock and another seller has a lot more)
There are more factors that come into play, but these are the biggest. Take a look if anything here applies to you, and if so, try to fix it.
Being buried in the “Other Sellers on Amazon” section is just as bad as being buried on page 9 of the search results.
Bottom line: the difference between owning the Buy Box and not is massive. Price your products lower than the competition, avoid big swings in price, use FBA and keep your account health in good standing to increase the chances of winning the Buy Box.
#11: Run & Optimize PPC Campaigns
Amazon search is becoming more and more “pay to play”. Organic search results are getting pushed down, in favor of sponsored (paid) results.
PPC is a proven and effective way to increase your overall Amazon sales, by pumping money in to push your product above organic results. You’ll get more visibility, more clicks, and more sales.
A lot of sellers are running PPC, but not as effectively as they could. You should constantly be tracking and optimizing your PPC campaigns to improve results.
Optimizations may include putting more of your budget into more profitable search terms, and less budget for search terms that don’t give you a good ACOS.
Investing in PPC is just about a must in today’s Amazon landscape. If you’re not running PPC yet, this is a big opportunity to increase your sales.
Bottom line: start running Amazon PPC ads to get more eyeballs on your product and more sales. If you’re already running PPC, make sure you consistently optimize your campaigns, putting more of your budget into profitable search terms and ads.
#12: Build an Email List
Email marketing generates a return of $38 for every $1 spent. It’s one of the oldest and most effective online marketing channels. Thus, building a list and utilizing email marketing can lead to a big increase in Amazon sales.
To do this, you’ll need to start running external traffic promotions, as in the previous section. This is because you can’t email customers who already bought from you on Amazon. You need to get them onto your list before they get to Amazon.
The best way to build an email list is with a funnel like this:
Use a landing page in between the external traffic channel and your Amazon listing. This lets you build in an email opt-in – for example, offering a discount code in return for joining your list.
Once you have a list, you can start driving additional sales with up-sells, cross-sells (promoting other products), and seasonal promotions (such as Christmas and Black Friday).
Very few Amazon sellers have and use an email list. This is your chance to do something your competitors are not.
Bottom line: email marketing is a low-cost way to drive extra sales to your products, if you have an email list. Combine this tip with the previous one, and create an email capture landing page funnel to build your list and start using email marketing.
Use LandingCube’s promo pages to build email opt-in funnels in minutes. This is the fastest way for Amazon sellers to build an email list, bar none.
#13: Get More Reviews
Product reviews are a vital part of selling online. They provide social proof, which is essential for getting past customer objections and making sales.
A lot of customers read product reviews before ultimately deciding to buy or not. And since review rating and total review count are visible in the search results screen, they play a big part in whether a customer clicks through to your listing or not.
A product with 500 reviews and an average rating of 4.5 gives a great impression to shoppers. If it’s up against a product with 20 reviews and an average rating of 3.0, every sale will go to the one with the higher rating and more reviews.
Getting more product reviews isn’t easy. And if you try to cut corners, by buying reviews or offering incentives, you’re almost certain to get your account banned or suspended.
But there are a lot of small things you can do to encourage more people to write reviews, which add up over time. These include:
- Using the “Request a Review” button
- Putting product inserts inside your packaging to ask for a review
- Improving your product (checking old reviews for common issues)
- Using your email list to ask for product reviews and feedback
If you build an email list, this also gives you the chance to build long-term relationships with your audience, which will have a positive effect on your reviews over time.
Learn more about how to get reviews on Amazon, safe and legally.
Bottom line: more reviews and a higher star rating will almost always lead to more sales. Try to encourage more reviews, by adding multiple small touch points where you can ask for a review, such as product inserts and email follow-ups.
#14: Use Amazon’s Brand-Building Tools
Amazon has some pretty powerful tools to help you sell more.
Amazon wants robust, recognizable brands selling on its platform. That’s why they’re giving these brands the tools to improve their customers’ shopping experience (and ultimately convert more shoppers into buyers).
To start with, enroll in Brand Registry to be eligible for these tools.
Once you’re in, you’ll be able to add A+ Content (formerly Enhanced Brand Content) to your product listings. This is a superb power-up for your listings, and a big differentiator between you and your competition (if they don’t have A+ Content).
Other tools include Amazon Storefronts, Amazon Attribution, Sponsored Brands and the Brand Dashboard. These tools help you increase visibility and recognition of your brand, which ultimately leads to an increase in sales.
Bottom line: enroll in Amazon Brand Registry and use tools like Amazon Storefronts, A+ Content and Sponsored Brands ads to grow your brand on Amazon, and increase sales for your products.
#15: Optimize Inventory and Profits
Jeff Bezos famously said, “Your margin is my opportunity.” Said a bit differently by many of the most successful marketers, “Whoever can afford to spend the most to acquire a new customer wins.”
You want to optimize so that you can operate on thinner margins, offer better prices, and be able to spend more on marketing while still profiting more than your competition.
For example: If you can afford to spend $100 on ads to acquire a new customer and remain profitable, while your competition can only afford $75 in ads to acquire a new customer and stay profitable, you win. And you’re going to make more sales.
One of the most practical ways to maximize profit margins is by optimizing your inventory practices.
- Don’t run out of stock, which impact sales and rankings
- Avoid over-ordering and dealing with extra storage fees
- Avoid ordering too late and paying too much for air shipping
For instance, I talked with the team over at SoStocked, an Amazon inventory management software for Amazon sellers. SoStocked helped one of their customers dial in their inventory forecasting and management so that the customer could start shipping by boat instead of air. This lowered the Amazon seller’s per unit shipping costs from $1.20 by air down to around $0.45 by sea. A 63% reduction in shipping costs which amounted to a $27,000 saving per month.
Reinvesting those savings into advertising, or charging less, is a great way to increase sales.
Bottom line: everything comes down to inventory and profit margins. More stock and better margins means you make more sales. Consider using an Amazon inventory management software to make the process easier.
How to Increase Your Amazon Sales – In Summary
Everyone wants more sales. That’s the point of doing business. The good news is, for most sellers, there are plenty of opportunities to increase your sales on Amazon.
More shoppers are coming to Amazon when they want to buy something online, which means there are more people to buy your product.
The list of sales tips in this post is not exhaustive – there are even more things you could do to drive more sales for your products, that we didn’t touch on.
- Set up an integration with your Shopify or WooCommerce store to drive more sales.
- Hack the “frequently bought together” section on Amazon.
- Optimize your Amazon listing for Google SEO.
These are just a few more ideas, in the unlikely scenario you don’t find any opportunities from the first list.
By following the tips in this post, you’re going to see a boost in sales, and the momentum you need to overtake the competition and crush it this year.
