{"id":9810,"date":"2020-05-26T18:57:13","date_gmt":"2020-05-26T18:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.sellerapp.com\/blog\/?p=9810"},"modified":"2025-11-11T17:47:44","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T12:17:44","slug":"amazon-q4-seller-improvements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sellerapp.com\/blog\/amazon-q4-seller-improvements\/","title":{"rendered":"Planning for Q3 And Q4 On Amazon – 5 Improvements for Every Seller"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Perplexing is becoming a common way to describe the current state of e-commerce, for Amazon and beyond. Most sellers are finding significant success and new customers, though there\u2019s no straightforward way to understand how much is a COVID-19<\/a> bump and what is long-term growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You could be having the best Q2 of your store\u2019s history right now<\/a>, and two months from now could be entirely different. No one knows, so it\u2019s time to plan.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your second half of 2020 should have a laser-like focus on keeping customers happy, controlling your costs, and protecting operations. We\u2019re going to explore aspects of each and how they impact your business behind the scenes, what customers experience, and how you\u2019re enticing new sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quick Guide:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. Consider your fulfillment options<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Automate best practices for safety and success<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Maximize backend keywords<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Expand into video<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. Look for external traffic<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  6. Always come back to the TOS<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    1. Consider your fulfillment options<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    One of the biggest lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic is that everything can go sideways quickly. Amazon sellers faced a variety of challenges around their supply chain, order fulfillment delays, and FBA temporarily suspended some products from third-party sellers<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Sellers got little notice, and it\u2019s hard to blame Amazon. The company was trying to ensure supplies got to people\u2019s homes and healthcare settings while demand for everything was surging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The big takeaway from Amazon FBA stopping in a flash is that your business is at their mercy. If your sole distribution arm is FBA, then you could lose access to all revenue opportunities at any time \u2014 this threat is true for non-COVID times if your store gets suspended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Protect your business and potentially reduce costs by shifting to a third-party eCommerce fulfillment<\/a> company that already meets Amazon\u2019s Seller Fulfilled Prime<\/a> requirements. By partnering with these brands, you know that they\u2019re going to meet customer expectations for fast shipping and order accuracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    If the Amazon FBA pause caught you, you might have also realized that you wanted more sales channels than Amazon. Turning fulfillment over to a 3PL<\/a> might be the right move because they natively support multiple sales channels and carriers, while also allowing for some personalization around branded packaging materials. Consider a pilot project with a 3PL just for non-Amazon sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    2. Automate best practices for safety and success<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    Amazon is touchy about how you reach out to customers when it isn\u2019t explicitly related to purchasing and getting goods to that customer. They want to protect their business and keep people coming back and shopping on the platform \u2014 only you <\/em>want them to keep buying just from you. This has led the company to be fiercely protective of customers and take steps to limit spam sent their way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    However, your business needs product reviews to keep products rated well, showing up in search, and getting purchased. So, you\u2019ve got to ask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    There are a variety of feedback apps you can use, many of which integrate with your other tools to insert customer names, product photos, and direct links to feedback pages. These tools also make it easy to send emails out while you run the rest of your business.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    One big reason to consider an automated solution is that many now have advanced rules and guidelines for sending out reviews. These options allow you to send out review requests to new customers while avoiding sending the 20th<\/sup> email to someone who buys from you regularly.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It keeps you from annoying people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Tools can also keep you from breaking Amazon\u2019s rules. Automating your feedback request emails can stop you from accidentally sending out order confirmation or shipment emails or from including links to other websites and sales. They also are designed to meet Amazon rules around asking for reviews \u2014 never try to incentivize a review <\/strong>\u2014 protecting your ability to sell on Amazon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    3. Maximize backend keywords<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    On-site search is essential to your ability to sell products. You\u2019ve got to make it so people can find your products based on what they type, which isn\u2019t always how you\u2019d describe your products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Most sellers know about traditional SEO<\/a>, but we want to take a minute to discuss Amazon\u2019s backend keywords<\/a>. Customers don\u2019t see these keywords. They\u2019re what you tell Amazon about your products, which then Amazon will try to match to search queries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    You only get so much space (250 bytes), so here are six tips to help you optimize your terms<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n