It sounds obvious but selling a product on-line is very different from selling the same item in a shop. Personal charm and persuasion might get you a customer on the shop floor but it doesn’t count for much on-line.

Therefore, selling your product effectively on Amazon requires knowledge of Amazon’s in-house selling rules and an understanding of the consequences if you fail to meet them.

Getting Great Seller Feedback

Seller feedback is how the customer rates your shipping, communication and packaging and is different from your Product Review Score. The excellent quality of your product counts for nothing if it regularly arrives late or you don’t answer customer e-mails.

Buy box status, listing rankings and future Amazon loans are all positively affected by maintaining a good seller performance rating. 98% and above puts you at the head of the pack. 95-97% is good. 95% and under and you have problems.

Customer confusion

Occasionally customers get confused and write seller feedback that was actually meant as a product review. If this happens Amazon has a special algorithm which analyses and changes the rating if you receive a 1-star review (you have to report the potential error).

Seller feedback score should be analysed on a regular basis.

Be proactive

Sending replies to issues within a 24-hour time frame (including holidays and weekends), and checking ‘no response required’ if the e-mail is spam will all contribute to high customer satisfaction ratings. Customers want to see their issues addressed promptly. If you see the little notification flag on the top bar of your seller central tab click it immediately!

Make sure you follow the ToS in your product image by always ensuring correct labeling on your FBA shipments.

Don’t ask for a 5-star review

This is a big NO NO. Amazon allows a seller to reach out directly to a customer one time. This should be conducted in a formal, unbiased and neutral tone. The e-mail (custom template) you send to customers one hour after purchase should include tips on how to use the product, how-to-use guides and most importantly a polite request to write a review.

Being Brand Registered

Being Brand Registered on Amazon has its advantages. This multi-option service gives you the opportunity to contact customers using a standardized template and, crucially for many customers, allows an instant refund.

Remember communication is vital. Consumers are drawn to negative reviews – just one of them could have devastating effects on your sales.

Strict tile rules

Brand name comes first, followed by the rest of the title. Titles have a 50-200 character limit. Exact character limit changes according to item category. The title field is what the customer sees first - If your business was a house the title field is the front door. Every letter counts. Short brands tend to be advantageous.

Maximum order quantity

Most Amazon sellers place limits on how many units a buyer can purchase in a single order.

Setting an order cap on demand for each buyer is important to avoid a problem known as arbitrage. This is when someone buys all your discounted stock and resells it at a profit.

Unscrupulous competitors will also purchase large amounts of your stock and then delay payment. The result is that items are held up in ‘pending’. This is a surprisingly common practice. Make sure when you have a sale or are offering coupons you pay special attention to setting an order cap.

Business Program

Multiple sales volumes items like office supplies, light bulbs and home accessories are often bought by schools, hospitals and other institutions which need frequent stock replenishment.

By joining the Business Programme sellers offer these registered business buyers bulk discounts which typically lead to a 5-15% increase in sales.

If you are a minority seller (LGBTQ, owner with disabilities etc) you can set your status to show this. This way, buyers, often large companies who need to fulfill a minority-based purchase quota, will know exactly where to go.

Obstacles to selling well

Never try to manipulate customer reviews. Amazon will suspend your seller account if you try to encourage buyers to change their review. You should try and deal with the problem they have and hope that this positive action induces them to change their opinion.

Don’t ask for positive reviews, only for HONEST feedback.

Getting family and friends to write excellent feedback will also be flagged immediately.

Be aware that Amazon may sometimes be at fault. Occasionally your product might get lost or damaged in the warehouse. They may reimburse you but it’s not guaranteed.

Amazon tends to do more for its customers than it does for its sellers so when you have a difficult buyer it can be a frustrating process. Just remember to be polite and professional and don’t annoy customers by asking them to do too much.

Product reviews Q&A section

An enquiry sent by a customer regarding your product will be pinpointed by Amazon and then forwarded to other customers who bought your product.

A selection of these questions will appear in the Q&A section of your product page.

Other customers can reply to these questions but in order to stop the spread of misinformation and prove your authority you should attempt to answer all of them.

Answerthepublic.com is an excellent research tool that tells you what questions people are asking about your product on Google.

If you reply to product questions using keywords your indexing and ranking on Google will improve.

Watch your customer return rates

If Amazon sees your product return rate go above 5% (not the case for clothing and fashion) they might suspend your listing.

Initially this is not normally a huge problem. Send Amazon a form setting out how you plan to fix the problem and they usually automatically restore your listing.

If the problem persists though a reinstatement of your listing may require manual approval from the powers that be. The worst-case scenario is a permanent suspension of your product.

Your overall return rate is made up of ALL returns from customer to seller. The key thing is to try and get your customer to keep hold of a faulty product (even if you replace them). That way the returned product doesn’t negatively affect your return rate.

Amazon and other platforms

Amazon often compares its own sellers with those on other platforms in order to ensure its customers are getting the best deals. If they find out that you (or another seller for that matter) have been selling your product for lower you might lose your buy box.