Mistakes happen.

Learning from your mistakes helps improve your business practices, puts you more in touch with your customers, and drives you ahead of your competition.

Don’t worry about your past mistakes. Focus on avoiding these 6 common Mistakes Amazon Sellers make. Now’s your time to learn!

1. Ignoring Performance Notifications

While you may receive many notifications from Seller Central, some notifications should NOT be ignored. If you’ve received a warning that your account is at risk, address it. If you have the luxury of a warning, address it. Paying attention to a warning is much easier than working on an appeal for a suspension!

Pay attention to customer feedback, as a trend in negative feedback could affect the health of your account. Monitor your account and check your health dashboard daily. Being diligent about performance notifications can be the difference between a healthy and a suspended account.

2. Dealing with Unreliable suppliers

Amazon sellers tend to focus on these types of suppliers: drop shippers, wholesalers, manufacturers, and liquidators. Whichever model (or hybrid) works best for your online business, a stable relationship with your supplier will result in it a higher level of service, offering you the consistency of the quality of your goods, delivery time, and possibly preferred payment terms. 

How do you develop a relationship with your suppliers? If possible, “meet” them! Distance is no excuse for avoiding a video chat and having a face-to-face conversation. Invest the time in talking with potential suppliers, ask for references go to trade shows, and do your due diligence. Don’t make mistakes Amazon sellers often make – finding a supplier and then not following through or keeping track of quality control. Your reliance on reputable and verifiable supplies is directly linked to your performance on Amazon.

3. Overspending on advertising

More traffic brings more sales, right? So how do you know what you should be spending on advertising? Advertising on Amazon gives you a ton of insights, including clicks, spend, total sales, impressions, and your advertising cost of sale.

Advertising on Amazon is divided into three categories:

Sponsored Products

Appearing on the right-hand side and top and bottom of search results, these ads are either keyword-driven or content-driven.  You can choose either Manual Targeting or Automatic Targeting for these ads.

Sponsored Brands

Also keyword-driven, sponsored brands appear at the very top of the search results. The goal is to convert consumers who are at the very beginning of the “buyer’s journey”. (The ad will look like a banner)

Product Display Ads

Trying to target your competitors by attracting THEIR customers to YOUR products. Product display ads are shown on specific product pages right before they click ‘add to cart.’

As a seller, you will need to become an expert (or hire an expert) to help with advertising. But before you jump down the rabbit hole, familiarize yourself with the key terms and best practices of advertising.

4. Misreading the 3 ‘S’s (Stock – Seasonality – Sales Velocity)

Inventory management is challenging!  From forecasting trends to predicting velocity, fluctuating sales cycles keep profitable Amazon Sellers on their toes!

It’s not about dusting off the crystal ball, it’s about including factors such as recent sales and trends, seasonal demands, and stock and storage levels. Combining important considerations such as replenishment and forecasting, you need to keep enough stock on hand while not wasting valuable resources on storage costs and space.

There are many factors that affect demand; some are more predictable than others. An unexpected winter storm may delay products from entering your warehouse, and you’re out of stock. If you’re planning on marketing a specific product, plan for the potential demands of that item so you don’t oversell. Canceling orders because of overselling can affect the health of your account. It demonstrated to Amazon that you haven’t established a reliable supply chain. This demonstrates o Amazon that you’re unable to follow through with getting your product to the customer.

5. Not Meeting Amazon’s Customer Support Standards

With a model based on customer (and not seller) satisfaction, sellers must provide a positive and engaging shopping experience. So not only must your product exceed expectations, but your follow-up is equally important. Respond to all messages, and respond to all feedback – especially when it’s negative.  Your superpower is the potential to turn a negative review into a loyal customer. By validating your customer’s response and answering pro-actively, you can recover the satisfaction rating and turn a negative review into a positive one.

6. Violation of Rules

The team at Axelligence supports sellers in every step of the selling journey – from opening a new seller account to transferring ownership of Amazon seller accounts. We understand the importance of compliance with Amazon’s Terms of Service and we’re here to help avoid minor or major mistakes Amazon sellers make.

Violation of Amazon’s TOS can put the health of your account at risk for suspension. Reach out to the experts at Axelligence for a free account health audit! And if you’re suspended, We can develop a Plan of Action for every suspension type and get you back to what you do best – selling!

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