The 3 P’s to Achieve Profitability on Amazon

Are you an Amazon seller who is struggling to make a profit? If so, you're not alone. Many sellers spend a lot of money on ads without seeing a return on investment. But don't worry, there are ways to improve your profitability. In this article, we will discuss three things you should focus on to stop struggling and start earning real cash.

Most people will start on Amazon and get some sales, but they often spend too much money on ads and fail to make any profit. And again, you need to see what your profit is. Using tools like Samurai Seller you can see what your profit is every single day. Let’s say you find out that you are losing 10%. You sell $1,000 a day and are losing $100 a day in profit. So what do you do about it? 

The answer is you are going to focus on the 3 P’s. The first two are your page and your promotion. The third P is your product, which you can't change too often. You might change it every three months, every six months, or even once a year. You do need to change your product, but if you're not making profit, you need to improve your page a little bit and improve your promotions a little bit by getting more efficient on ads.

Starting with Ad Optimization

I have a free course on YouTube called “Amazon Ads Power User Course” https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLowqO4vh7Fo1SFU8ygvij0ICcTtmpsRyC that teaches you how to improve your ads, how to find better keywords, how to find other people's products you're going to target. You need to get better ads, period. That is so much of Amazon. But if you only do that, it's very hard to achieve profitability. Because everyone else is also improving their stuff a little bit. You might not have good reviews. Over time, you'll get a few more reviews. Maybe when you get 50 reviews, 100 reviews, 500 reviews, it'll go up. Eventually, you'll double your reviews. But that's going to change your sales and your percentage a little bit.

If you're at number 10 right now, the seller at number one is going to increase their reviews faster than you. So if they're at 5,000, you're at 50. Well, when they're at 10,000, you'll be at 100. It's not going to do anything for your cost. So you need to improve your page.

Improving Your Main Page

What do I mean by your page? Your main image, your second image, third image, fourth image, fifth image, sixth image, seventh image, your video, your title, your first bullet points, your A plus content, the questions that are asked on your listing, the posts.

Posts from posts.amazon.com will also show up inside of your page. Your videos, not just your first video, but there are about seven videos that are on that page. These are all things you need to do.

If you have one product at the moment you need to be doing something to improve the page every day. How do I improve it if I have only one title and only one image?

Contact a new photographer, render expert, change the title, or try a different word in the title. For instance, if you have a lemon squeezer, consider adding the word "metal" to the title because people generally prefer it over plastic. You could also try using words like "durable," "heavy duty," "cleans easily," "double reinforced," "will not break or your money back," "non-toxic paint," or even "certified and tested by lab" if you have run tests on your product.

To increase sales, try different variations in the title, main image, angle, shine, and filter. Just like how people obsess over Instagram filters, you can also try using different filters and angles to see which one works best. Your main image is critical to generating sales, so experiment with different angles, and make use of white space. Take the lemon squeezer, for example, try opening it a bit, change its angle, or try different filters to see what works best. To maximize sales, be as obsessive about your main image as the most obsessive model on Instagram, and try posting it from different angles.

This is crucial, and I cannot stress it enough. Your second image is also important, and it's best to change images in batches, such as images two to seven. If you only change the second or fifth image, you may not notice a change in conversion rate.

In images two to seven, you can create a whole new look for your brand, with a different direction. Use infographics or diagrams if you haven't used them before, or flip the images around. Some successful strategies include offering a coupon code or promo code for a discount on multiple items.

After making big changes to all your images monitor your conversion rate and best seller ranking. If you're selling more, that's good. Don’t forget to try new keywords and ads based on the changes you made.

Adding Videos to Your Page

If you want to improve your page add videos to it. You could create a new video or add five videos to your page. You could do a box opening video, a 30-minute video about your product, or even talk about your story. However, just talking for 11 minutes and picking a product for 10 minutes may not be effective. You should try to be more creative and show viewers how to use your product by making a checklist and demonstrating it. You can easily use your phone to record videos and it won't cost you anything. Add these videos to your listing and see if it improves your page's performance.

If you are selling teddy bears, you can record some kids playing with them. You could go to a kindergarten class, throw the teddy bears, and capture the kids' reactions. You need to be creative and do something every day to improve your promotion or your page. If your conversion rate was 10% and you improve your page and promotion, it could increase up to 16%. That's a 60% increase, and you should gain 30-40% more.

Amazon has a tool that lets you make videos in just five clicks. You can choose from various video types, add your main image, and some text, and it makes a video for you. You can try making seven videos with this tool and add them to your page.

Don't Be Afraid to Ask for Honest Feedback

Have you gotten feedback from potential or actual customers about what they like and don't like about the listing? What could be improved? Read it out loud, and ask for opinions from people who will give you an honest opinion, not just your best friend. They should be able to tell you what they like and what they don't like. Instead of asking if they like it, ask open-ended questions that will elicit helpful responses. For example, "What's your favorite part about this title?" or "What's your least favorite part about the image?"

Don't Rest on Your Laurels

Being an Amazon Seller is about making it your own way. You should have some ideas that I'm not mentioning. Figure out how to make your product better. Go on Pinterest, go to Twitter, promote it, do something else. But every time, improve your page, improve your ads, and improve your promotion. Then figure out how to improve your product. Add inserts, add bonuses, make it stronger, make it last longer, make it more beautiful, make the packaging better, and include the packaging in your images.

If you improve your product, page, and promotion, you'll get ahead of people who are resting on their laurels, people who feel that they are the champion, they're number one, and they'll never be beaten. "I'm chilling, I am the champion of the cell phone cases, and I'll never be taken down," but then they stop changing their ads, changing their product, changing their listing, and then you start taking over. You start winning market share, and one day, whoever gets to number one is always pushing and pushing and pushing. That's the way to get to profitability: improve your page, improve your promotion, and over time, improve your product, get a better price, get more durability, and repeat.

If you do these things, you'll be in the top 1% of the top 1% of sellers because most people don't do them. The other day, I attended a high-level mastermind meeting where everyone in the room was selling an average of around five million dollars a year. I asked them, "How many of you guys have even looked at your number one listing?" Out of 30 people, only two raised their hands. These are people who sell a lot, millions of dollars. They're not doing this. Personally, I have 1,100 products. I haven't done this for all of them, but what makes me a better seller than most people is that when I open a product page, I say, "Wow, this is terrible. Make this better, make this better, make this better, make this better." Then, I set it up with the design team, and we try different things like rendering, videos, and more.

If you look at the history of our products in Zulay Kitchen and have been watching us, you'll notice that our video and images change frequently. Little tweaks happen, sometimes unnoticeable, like a slight shading or color change, all to improve the product. It's essential to keep pushing and improving because if you stay still, you'll get eaten, burned, scorched, and crucified alive. This is a known fact about Amazon. There are plenty of people hungry to take your market share, and if you don't update your listings, you'll slowly lose it. In fact, a post on LinkedIn mentioned that 25% of the brands that started with Amazon's seal of approval in 2019 are now gone. Those who do nothing and don't update their listings will die. It's not rocket science, but it needs reminding.

By doing this, you'll make a lot of money and guarantee to become a millionaire on Amazon while being extremely profitable.

—

This article is based on my recent podcast episode “A Guide to Profitability on Amazon” which you can listen to in full here. https://ecommleaders.libsyn.com/a-guide-to-profitability