7 Research-Backed Tips to Improve Your Amazon Listing: A Meta-Analysis
The team over at Empire Flippers recently penned a blog post titled, “7 Research-Backed Tips to Improve Your Amazon Listing.”
Normally, I ignore articles like this because 1) they’re mainly for SEO and 2) they’re often written by content marketers, NOT operators (or other domain experts).
But this one was…different.
You see, it relies on usability testing to answer the questions: What pushes consumers to choose one product over another on Amazon? What aspects do they like or dislike?
I love this approach. It’s fundamentally about working backwards from the customer (which, is kind of a big deal in the Amazon space).
Importantly, it zooms out from impersonal data and seeks out “ground truth” from the voice of the customer.
To save you the time reading it, here’s the TLDR…
Provide Clear and Concise Information in the Header
Make Sure Your Product Stands Out
Use High-quality Images to Build Trust
Consider Reviews, Consumer Photos, and 1-star ratings
Avoid Long, Repetitive Titles
Refine Grammar and Spelling
Avoid Overwhelming Bullet Points
That’s all basic, and perhaps intuitive, stuff if you’ve been in the Amazon game for a while. But there’s some interesting nuance to two of these. Let’s zoom in…
Reviews! They matter, but not in the way that you think
When it comes to reviews, consumers don’t automatically choose the product with the highest rating. Almost half of the usability participants also looked at the following factors:
Percentages of 5-star and 1-star reviews
‘Top’ and ‘Most Recent’ reviews
Number of customer photos shared in the reviews
Ok, so consumers are maybe more savvy and discerning than most brands give them credit for. In my mind there are two ways that brands can take advantage of this:
Rule-based review request automation. You should be doing the automation part anyway, but setting rules that reduce the probability of requesting a review from a customer that is likely to give you 1-star is key. Check with us here at AUXO if you want help with this.
Leverage “super friendlies” for customer product photos. If you have a network of influencers, lean on them to provide this content. But remember — Amazon has a policy against incentivized reviews, so you’ll have to tread carefully here. (Ask us how)
It’s not just your grade school teacher that cares about spelling
Apparently customers do too. From the study:
Participants noticed language errors in a variety of listings. Grammar and spelling mistakes made them less likely to purchase a product because they believed the item was of inferior quality.
Don’t be lazy. Pay attention to grammar and spelling. Use an AI copywriting tool like https://www.jasper.ai/ if you get stuck.
In a world where China-based sellers often have advantages in terms of capital, and an appetite for black hat tactics, you can set yourself apart but paying attention to the details and taking advantage of your native English proficiency (assuming this describes you).
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If you want to put your Amazon listing to the test, check out Scout by Conversion Crimes to receive consumer feedback on your Amazon listing for free every month.
