How to Launch a New Amazon Listing to Become a Best Seller

GUIDE OUTLINE

• What a typical failed product launch looks like

• Gaining visibility

• Run a PPC campaign

• Offer discounts

• Establishing trust and credibility with customers

INTRODUCTION

In 2017 Amazon posted a record-breaking net sales revenue of $178 billion USD, now that’s a lot of money! If you’re a new seller, I’m sure you’re looking to get a piece of that.

Well, I have news for you, a common mistake I see a lot of new sellers make is they think they can simply create a product listing, sit back, relax, and watch the money come flowing into their bank account within the week.

That’s not how Amazon works!

Amazon is a competitive marketplace! To make money on Amazon, you have to compete against other sellers. To be candid, launching a new product is going to be a challenge in the beginning until you’ve created enough momentum for your listing to see success.

What you need to know:

Creating momentum will take time, but it will be time well spent when you see the returns of your investment.

This is what a typical failed product launch looks like:

• A seller creates a new listing. The seller is both anxious and excited about the prospects of launching their new product.

• The first day goes by without any sales. The seller thinks to them self, “it’s okay, it’s only the first day, I’ll land my first sale tomorrow.”

• The second day goes by, no sale.

• Then the first week goes by, still no sale.

• Then one month goes by, still nothing!

• Now the seller is frustrated trying to figure out what they’re doing wrong.

• They’re also confused because they’ve read how easy it was to make money on Amazon through multiple get rich quick websites and videos.

• Now the seller is angry because they’ve invested a lot of their time, money, and effort on their Amazon business with nothing to show for it.

The above example is a cautionary tale, don’t let this happen to you.

The reason for the failed product launch is because the seller was either unaware of the challenges new listings face, or, they were aware of the challenges but had no plan to overcome them.

I’ll be sharing with you the plan Amazon top sellers use to launch new product listing towards success.

Whenever you’re launching a new listing, you’re going to face 2 big challenges, they are:

• gaining visibility

• establishing trust and credibility with customers

Whether or not you’re able to overcome both of these challenges is the difference between success and failure on Amazon.

GAINING VISIBILITY

The problem with your new listing is it’s going to have low or no sales. It’s a common and understandable problem because your listing is just starting out.

The problem with low or no sales is it produces a low score on Amazon’s ranking algorithm. As a result, your new listing will be given a low search rank. Most likely, your new listing will end up past the tenth page of search results.

What you need to know:

Ranking as high as possible is extremely important as only 30% of users click past the first page of search results according to a market research study done by Millward Brown Digital. If you rank in the second page or lower, you’re listing is missed by 70% of customers.

An analogy I could use is, a high search rank is equivalent to being placed front and center for everybody to see while a low search rank is equivalent to being hidden all the way at the back where few people go.

Simply put, if customers can’t see your listing, you’re not going to get any sales.

This is what happens to new listings.

Their low sales numbers lead to a low rank, a low rank leads to low visibility, low visibility leads to low or no sales. The trend continues as low or no sales lead to a low rank, which then leads to low visibility, which then leads to low or no sales and so on.

Essentially, the new listing is stuck in a negative feedback loop.

The only way to get out of a negative feedback loop is to jumpstart a positive feedback loop.

Here are 2 ways to jumpstart a positive feedback loop towards higher visibility:

1. Run PPC campaign

2. Temporarily price your product lower

RUN A PPC CAMPAIGN

When you’ve just launched a new listing, it’s impossible to rank high because your initial sales numbers will be too low to score an organic spot on the top pages.

What you’re going to need to do is artificially boost your rank with a PPC campaign.

Running a PPC campaign is a great way to instantly improve the visibility of your listing by having it appear on the top pages of search results.

You do of course have to pay for the privilege. But you should think of it as a temporary expense to jumpstart a positive feedback loop towards gaining high visibility and more sales.

With a PPC campaign comes high visibility, with high visibility, comes more sales. With more sales comes the award of a higher rank. And the positive feedback loop continues as high visibility leads to more sales which then leads to a higher rank and so on.

Once you’ve generated enough sales from your PPC campaign, your listing will rank organically on the top pages.

OFFER DISCOUNTS (TEMPORARILY)

Make customers an offer they can’t refuse by offering them a discount deal they can’t pass up. When customers see discounted prices, they’ll be given a compelling reason to buy your product over others.

Customers like to save money and discounts provide an incentive for them to buy now rather than later.

I recommend creating a money off promotion. You can do so by navigating to the advertising section of seller central and clicking on promotions.

How much of a discount you provide is really up to you, but the higher the discount, the more sales you’re likely to get.

As the law of demand teaches us: lower prices = increased demand

Just make sure the prices and discounts you offer comply with any pricing policies or arrangements you have with your suppliers.

Now I know some of you may be thinking, “if I offer discounts, I won’t be making much profit?”

Here’s what I have to say about that.

Dropping your price is only a temporary measure. When you’re launching a new product, your priority shouldn’t be about making large profit margins -- that comes later. Your priority should be gaining visibility first!

The purpose of discounts is to jumpstart a positive feedback loop towards high visibility and sales.

Here’s how it works.

Lower prices lead to increased sales, increased sales leads to a higher search rank, a higher search rank produces higher visibility. The trend continues when more customers see discounted prices, you’ll get more sales, with more sales comes a higher search rank, with a higher search rank, comes higher visibility and so on.

Once your listing has made enough sales to organically score a spot on the top pages, you can increase your price back to normal.

With the goal of gaining better visibility in mind, you can further learn how to improve your visibility by watching my other video, “How to Write an SEO Amazon Product Listing with High Conversion Rates in 4 Easy Steps.”

Learn how to perform the necessary keyword work to show up more frequently in search queries.

Now that you know how to gain visibility for your new listing, let’s move on to the next challenge.

ESTABLISHING TRUST AND CREDIBILITY WITH CUSTOMERS

The problem with your new listing is it’s not going to have any reviews. Again, this is a common and understandable problem because your listing is just starting out.

What you need to know:

Customers in large part will base their purchasing decision on reviews.

Why? Because reviews act as a form of proof or evidence.

Customers use reviews to validate whether or not your product works as advertised, whether or not you deliver the product as promised, and, whether or not your product is of good quality.

Positive reviews (4 starts and higher) prove to customers that a product is good while negative reviews (2 stars or lower) prove to customers that a product is bad.

When your listing has no reviews -- customers will be reluctant to buy your product because they have no way of telling if your product is good or not.

As a result, you won’t get any sales because customers will always be waiting for someone else to be the first one to take a chance on your unreviewed product and write a first review.

Essentially, nobody wants to be the test subject who has to risk wasting money on a potentially bad product.

This is one of the main reasons why it takes so long time for a new listing to land its first sale.

The only way to solve this problem is to build up an initial review count. You should at least aim for 20 positive reviews in the beginning, but the more reviews you have, the better, as you’ll be providing customers with more evidence that your product is good.

How do you gain an initial review count you ask?

The best way is to use the services of Amazon Product Launch platforms.

Now I do have to note the use of -- Amazon compliant platforms which abide by Amazon’s terms of service.

A great one that comes to mind is VIPON. www.vipon.com

What are product launch platforms you ask?

Basically, they’re deal websites where sellers run promotions for their new products. They do so in an effort to attract volunteer Amazon reviewers who will buy their product at a bargain price so they can provide an honest review.

Top sellers use launch platforms to quickly gain the initial review count they need to establish trust and credibility with customers.

Top sellers also use launch services to quickly boost their listing’s sales velocity and sales history which improves their organic search rank.

I do have to note that product launch services are services you need to pay for, but you should think of it as a -- small and necessary expense to effectively compete on the Amazon market.

If you could only take away one lesson from this video it should be this:

To successfully launch your new product, you need to create momentum!

Without momentum, your product launch will crash miserably to the ground.

With momentum, you can gradually build up your sales to become a top seller!

This concludes our short and simple Amazon listing optimization guide.

WORK WITH ME, CLICK THE LINK: https://www.fiverr.com/share/ER7DY

To learn more, read my other guide “How to Optimize Your Amazon Listing in 11 Simple Steps to Increase Your Sales.” <-- CLICK THE LINK.

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