Have you heard about the newest platform Amazon has launched for merchants? Appropriately named Amazon Storefronts, it allows shoppers to buy products exclusively from the almost 20,000 small to mid-sized merchants. With half of everything sold on Amazon coming from these small to medium-sized sellers, it’s no wonder why this new platform is an important tool to help drive traffic. Amazon rolled out this platform in order to provide a marketing lift by showcasing these sellers in a dedicated section.
Brand owners now have more options in creating branded content that can help them set themselves apart from their competition. Amazon Storefronts allows brand owners to post video, design layouts to customize how the page looks and feels, custom images that tell their brand story, different pages categorized in a way they choose, and direct links to branded products. Oh, and Amazon Storefronts in free!
Amazon Storefronts is a replacement for Amazon Pages and offer more content, options and flexibility for brand owners. Using things like dedicated links in marketing campaigns on Amazon, in campaigns outside of Amazon, or on social media pages. Amazon Storefronts are also responsive, meaning they display correctly on any device.
A brand owner can create an Amazon Storefront by accessing the Stores section in either Amazon Marketing Services or on the Seller Central homepage. Sellers must have already registered with the Amazon Brand Registry before setting up their Amazon Storefronts. Each brand can have its own separate storefront, so if you own more than one brand you’ll need to register and set up each one individually.
There are four sections in the Amazon Store builder: Page Manager, Preview Window, Tile Manager, and Status Bar. Page Manager allows the creation, selection, movement and deletion of pages from Amazon Storefronts. Preview Window gives a live view of the page currently being worked on and can also be used to select a tile edit in the Tile Manager. You can use Tile Manager to add, edit, move and delete tiles. The current moderation status and any error messages will be displayed in the Status Bar. Each page in Amazon Storefronts contain a logo, hero image, navigation bar, body/content, and a footer.
Brand owners should ensure that their images, including the hero image at the top and logo images, are high quality. Logo images should have a 1:1 image ratio and should not cover important parts of the hero image. There should be no prohibited information like phone numbers or websites, personal information, guarantees like “buy now and get a two-year warranty,” or links to sites outside of Amazon. Any words written in all caps can risk Amazon Storefronts to be rejected. Amazon is also restrictive about videos. Make sure videos do not include pricing information or direct viewers to non-Amazon URLs. Even using customer reviews within videos can be considered using private customer information, so it’s best to avoid using them in your videos. Sticking to how-to videos, product demos, and lifestyle videos are usually a safe bet, so brand owners should prioritize creating these for their Amazon Storefronts.
Amazon Storefronts also offers access to analytics called Insights. Brand owners can dive into the numbers of things like daily visitors, views, sales, units sold, and views per visitor. These analytics allow brand owners to identify opportunities for improvement depending on their objectives. For example, if traffic is low and needs an increase, a brand owner may consider using advertising to help boost traffic and sales rather than relying on organic traffic and sales alone.
Amazon Storefronts can be featured in the Amazon Storefront of the Week and Meet the Business Owners sections. These sections highlight Amazon Storefronts and business owners that profile the company, its founders and the brand’s products. In the Meet the Business Owners section, there are a few categories like Family-Focused, Artisans, Innovator-Makers, and Women-Owned Businesses that help set apart those specialized brands from the rest.
If you haven’t already registered for a trademark for your brand and the Amazon Brand Registry, you should definitely think about doing so. With Amazon prioritizing more small to mid-size sellers, you’re missing out on great opportunities and the potential for more sales. Amazon Storefronts is another obvious indication of how Amazon plans to continue featuring these small brands and help boost both their sales and the customer shopping experience.
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