June 10, 2020

Amazon Product Launch Checklist

6 min read

Amazon has become a complex marketplace, with several ways of selling products to consumers. This includes selling to Amazon via Amazon’s Vendor program, selling direct to consumers via Seller Central, and a vendor drop ship model, where Amazon sells on your behalf and you fulfil the orders. However you sell on Amazon, we have created a Product Launch Checklist to help you successfully launch your brand/products.

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BRAND PROTECTION

It is highly recommended that you protect your brand before launching on Amazon. Without brand protection, any seller with a product matching the product you are selling could jump on your listing and compete with you for the buy box. So, get your trademark from the US Patent and Trademark office (US) or Intellectual property: an overview (UK).

Your approval may take 4-8 months, but once you have this you can apply for Amazon brand registry, which is free. If you want quicker access to the tools Amazon makes available to brand owners, you can register for the IP accelerator program. This program allows you to have many of the benefits reserved for trademark owners in just a few weeks.

Once you have brand registry, Amazon allows you to add enhanced descriptions via A+ pages and branded storefronts. In a competitive marketplace, having a strong brand message and standing out from the crowd will have a significant impact on sales.

GS1 EANS/ UPC

EANs or UPCs are mandatory, but there are some exemptions - this is worth checking with Amazon. To get EANs or UPCs, visit GS1. These EANs have been an important part of the Amazon system since the start. Having EANs has allowed Amazon to build a product catalogue where multiple sellers are linked with one page when selling that particular product.

AMAZON FBA

Amazon’s well thought out long-term strategy of building customer loyalty via Amazon Prime has paid off for all Amazon Sellers. Amazon now has 112 million members in its Prime loyalty program in the US alone, and Prime members account for roughly 65% of Amazon shoppers.

Consumers don’t like paying for shipping, and Amazon Prime offers free and fast shipping. It is so powerful that when your product is launched with Prime you could start getting sales almost immediately. In order to maximize the benefits of FBA, proper inventory planning and management is critical. So, get to grips with Amazon FBA fees and do test it with a limited inventory if you are not sure.

AMAZON SELLING COST

Getting the numbers right can be tricky, but spending time on this early on pays off eventually. Our aim is to predict the estimated profit. Although you cannot predict the future of your product success, it is important for you to understand all of the costs involved. Some of the common costs of selling on Amazon are Amazon Commission, FBA fee, product cost, Freight & duty and VAT. You can use a free Amazon FBA Calculator that helps FBA sellers calculate Amazon fees.

AMAZON CONTENT

Optimising your copy

Having the right content ensures you appear in search results. It is always best to write content with the user in mind, and include highly searched keywords to increase your discoverability.

Take your time understanding highly relevant searched keywords via tools like the Sonar tool, an Amazon specific keyword research tool.
Research your competitor product titles and also keywords they are ranking against by searching their ASIN in the sonar tool.
Google Keyword Planner gives you excellent insights on search behaviour and helps you to create a broader keyword list.
Similarly, tools like Answerthepublic give you a good list of questions your prospects are asking in Google and Bing. This, in turn, gives you a much better idea of your customer mindset and your content becomes more accurate.

Optimising your images

Images are as important as anything else for any Amazon product. Multiple images at different angles, lifestyle images, or feature text within the image brings your product to life. Take a look at these product images. They are clear, with feature text and USPs along with lifestyle images. Use Canva to add feature text and USPs.

You may already know what you want to do in terms of marketing the product, but putting things in the plan allows you to create a process which you can streamline and re-use for any other future product launch. And include all these costs as discussed above so you have an estimated project profit.

Discounts/Vouchers: Everybody gets excited with offers, and it helps to launch with heavy offers at the start (50% or above). Vouchers come with a tab as seen in this image on your right and it stands out from the crowd in the search result.

Encouraging sales at the start means Amazon pushes your product in ranking → you sell more → your ranking further improves → you sell much more. Vouchers have an additional cost of 60p per redemption.

Additionally, you can push your deals through third-party websites like latestdeals, which further increase the chance of selling more of your products early on.

AMAZON ADVERTISING

Amazon Advertising: Although this is another cost on top of everything else, it is integral to selling quickly. But don’t take my word for it. Check out this ad sale of one product on the 4th of April. Within a few hours of the product launch, it generated 140 orders out of 232 total orders on the same day, which is 60% of the total orders for this product.

Amazon Advertising is a very powerful tool when it comes to selling stock more quickly. Simply start with automatic targeting ads, which do not require any keyword research, and follow on with targeted keywords campaigns and competitor product target campaigns.

Learn more about Amazon Advertising, take a look at this A to Z guide to Amazon Advertising.

EXTERNAL CHANNEL ADVERTISING

Other than Amazon, you may have access to your customers via Facebook, Instagram or emails. Leverage these channels to advertise your products with voucher discounts. If you prefer to collect an email address, then use tools like ZonPages, which gives landing pages with a prompt asking for an email address before seeing the discount codes, which you can use for the future product launch or to send a follow-up review email. Try the Amazon Attribution program that gives insight into how your non-Amazon marketing channels across search, social, video, display, and email impact shopping activity and sales performance on Amazon.

PRODUCT REVIEWS

Our aim is to generate a few reviews at the early stage of the product launch. You will also notice that once you have some reviews, your follow-on reviews are much quicker.

You can increase reviews by sending follow-up messages to your customers. Amazon has a new “request a review” button. All you have to do is click and Amazon does the rest for you. If you have too many orders, this may take a lot of time, so you can now use a free automation tool called Captainamz.

This checklist is aimed at helping you to launch your products successfully on Amazon, and having it will help you create your own process for a successful product launch. If you are considering launching your product or business on Amazon, get in touch and we will create the steps to ensure your success.

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Read further:

How would you go about choosing the right product for your Amazon launch? The real Amazon gem that generates tons of sales can only be discovered with the help of data and thorough analysis. Read how to find best-selling Amazon products!