Amazon’s search engine operates on an algorithm that rewards certain things and penalizes others. With that being said, understanding the Amazon algorithm, known as A9, is your ticket to success on Amazon.

You might be an established seller or just getting started in eCommerce. Whichever the case, there’s always something you can learn about the Amazon algorithm to make your business work better.

This post will walk you through what A9 is and how it works so you can optimize your listings to make it work for you.

How the Amazon Algorithm Works

Basically, when you understand the Amazon algorithm, your products can rank high on Amazon’s Search Engine Page Results (SERP) and you have better chances of winning the Amazon Buy Box.

High rankings on Amazon for the right keywords is the best way to drive purchase-ready customers to your listings so they can click the Buy button. If you can follow A9 and optimize accordingly, you can experience a lasting boost in conversions.

The A9 algorithm is a system that Amazon developed to determine which products should be shown to customers when they search the marketplace using keywords. Below are the major ranking factors that come into play for Amazon searches.

• Relevance

This works similarly to the way Google chooses what search results to display when keywords are entered into that engine. In other words, A9 will rank you if your keywords match what customers are typing. But that is only the beginning.

• Conversions

Amazon is focused on selling more. It’s a business that makes money when third-party sellers sell more. Unlike the Google algorithm, then, A9 will look at whether or not your listing is converting. If your keywords aren’t relevant, you will get a lot of traffic but not a lot of sales.

The Amazon algorithm will then drop you from the rankings. This is so that they can feature listings that are generating sales and are more likely to result in bigger profits for the marketplace.

Relevance and conversions work together as well to achieve higher rankings on Amazon searches. If your listing uses relevant keywords that take customers to the products they are looking to buy, you will get more sales, which will result in higher rankings. If your listing is highly ranked, you will get even more converting traffic, sales, and so on.

That being said, the goal is to optimize listings with keywords that drive more relevant traffic from purchase-ready customers.

• High-Volume Keywords

You want to optimize your listings with keywords that are used by more customers when they search for products to buy on Amazon. The best way to find them is to use a keyword research tool that’s specifically designed for Amazon. A quick search on Google for “Amazon keyword research tool” will yield tons of results to choose from, depending on your budget and how deep you want to go.

You do need to have what are called “seed keywords,” though. These are the keywords that you start with to generate more ideas. To get these, the best thing to do is to look at similar products to yours on Amazon that are high-ranking and look at the keywords that they are using on their listings.

Jot those down and plug them into the tool of your choice. You can, of course, also use your own ideas for terms that you know are relevant for your product and that customers have used to find your listings.

The last step is to take the most searched keywords from the tool and use them to optimize your listings. Make sure you take only the relevant ones!

• Competition

Note that the most highly-searched terms will also likely have a ton of competition. You can combine these with lower-volume keywords with less competition to balance it out. This way, you can get some traffic to help boost your rankings as the Amazon algorithm works your listing up the rankings for the competitive search terms.

Optimizing for the Amazon Algorithm

Put simply, Amazon A9 had a point system for ranking listings based on keywords. To get the highest possible score, you need to place your keywords into your listings in a strategic manner. As you distribute them according to the tips below, remember that each element of your listing must, above all, read well – don’t just stuff them with keywords!

• Title

This is where the best of the best keywords go. Include as many as you can without affecting readability. You can use connector words because Amazon does not count those as part of the keywords and phrases. You can also use pipes (|) and dashes (–) to separate the benefits and features you are highlighting.

• Bullets

This is where the next best keywords go. Use synonyms, too, where it makes sense. Add at least one keyword per bullet point that’s relevant to the benefit and feature. You can use longer variations (key phrases) of the main keywords here to support the title.

• Description

This is where you can expand on your product’s benefits and features, and where all the rest of your keywords and synonyms and long-tail variations can go. But don’t write senseless or repetitive information just to get more keywords into the listing! Customers will get annoyed and be less likely to buy. This means that you will lose ranking even if your listing ranked well initially because of the keyword content.

How to Improve Sales Conversions

You need a high conversion rate to get and keep high Amazon rankings. This means creating your listing copy in such a way that attracts and persuades. Customers need to want to buy from you instead of just using your listing to do a comparison.

• Clearly State The Benefit(s) Of Your Product(s)

Most sellers focus on talking about product features. You need to focus on product benefits – what customers get and how their lives will change when they use your product. Create for them a clear picture in their minds with your copy so they can see the wonderful improvements they will experience when they click Buy Now.

• Have a Unique Selling Point

You need to communicate your product’s unique selling point. See to it that customer knows how your product is different from – and better than! – all the other similar products out there. Tell them about secondary uses, too, so that they can see how much more useful the product is than the competition.

• Provide Social Proof

If you have recommendations or endorsements (other than Amazon reviews), add them to your listings. This supports your reviews with stories from other people whose lives have been made easier, more convenient, etc., by the addition of your product.

• Include Images

Make sure you follow Amazon’s image guidelines when you choose listing photos. Within those guidelines, choose product pictures that give customers as full a view as possible of the product and its benefits. Custom graphics and in-use shots are great for discussing further benefits. Then don’t neglect to add titles and alt text optimized with your keywords.

Final Thoughts

Your listing needs to pass the Amazon algorithm’s standards to gain and maintain rankings on the platform. One good way to check if you’re doing well with your optimization is to take a glance at it and see if you can capture the vital information about the product in 3 seconds. If not, rework the elements that are lacking until it does.

Once you have your optimized listing, prepare for a flood of new visitors and sales! You need to be able to cope with the increase in volume and make sure that you are satisfying customers or risk losing your rankings due to poor seller performance feedback and bad reviews.

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About the Author:

Matt Harrison is the VP of Strategy of FreeUp, the preeminent freelance marketplace for hiring high quality, vetted talent. He has hired freelancers from around the world and built teams to service multinational brands resulting from over $100 million in web hosting company acquisitions. He currently lives in St. Petersburg, FL.

With sales of up to 280.52 billion dollars in 2019, it’s not surprising that everyone wants a piece of the pie, so to speak.

If you are one of them, congratulations because you’ve made the right choice. Before you open shop, however, it’s important to understand how dropshipping works so you can use it to your advantage.

Keep reading to learn everything you need to know about dropshipping with Amazon.

What is Dropshipping?

Dropshipping is the process of selling products without keeping them in stock (inventory) and shipping them to the buyer.

With the ease of running a store without having the responsibility of doing both, the business model has gained popularity over the years.

You can do it with your own eCommerce store or via Amazon depending on your preference.

If you decide to dropship via your own online store, here’s how the process works:

• You post your listings on your website

• A customer orders a product online

• You contact your supplier who has the product on hand

• The supplier then ships the product to your customer

Easy peasy, isn’t it?

Technically, the only work you do is to market the products. What goes on behind the scenes is up to your supplier.

Dropshipping on Amazon is typically the same though it can get a bit trickier based on the e-commerce giant’s current policies. 

Dropshipping on Amazon

There are two ways to dropship on Amazon. You can do the dropshipping Amazon the traditional way or via Amazon FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon), a popular Amazon dropshipping method.

Traditional dropshipping Amazon, or that of allowing someone else to fulfill orders on your behalf, is generally acceptable. You just need to comply with Amazon’s requirements as stated below to commence dropshipping on Amazon.

• You must be the seller of record of your products;

• You must identify yourself as the seller of your products on all packing slips and other information included or provided in connection with them;

• You must remove any packing slips, invoices, external packaging, or other information identifying a third-party drop shipper prior to shipping the order;

• You must be responsible for accepting and processing customer returns of your products;

• You must comply with all other terms of your seller agreement and applicable Amazon policies.

If you go by these requirements, it’s fair to say that Amazon doesn’t allow dropshipping products through traditional means. Hence, alternative Amazon dropshipping method should be sought.

Despite the said terms, many sellers still do it and the easiest way to spot them is through listings with shipping times between 7 to 14 days. More often than not, this is an indication that the product is being purchased from a dropshipper located somewhere else.

Amazon FBA

What this means is that Amazon will take care of everything behind the scenes from picking, packing, and shipping your orders to your customers. They even take care of the after-sales transactions which include providing tracking information to customers, customer service, and processing refunds, among others.

The fees you’ll pay Amazon will depend on the type of product you sell as well as the time of the year. Also bear in mind that with this method, you don’t have control over your inventory and you are essentially trusting your vendor to ship the correct item and quantity to the Amazon FBA warehouse, meaning you are giving up your ability to perform quality control. This of course means your reputation is on-the-line should anything go wrong.

Another important thing to consider is the amount of time your products have spent in Amazon’s warehouse. You’ll need to pay fees if your goods have been sitting in storage between 6 to 12 months. Additional fees will also be charged if the goods have spent more than 12 months in storage. 

Why Dropship via Amazon?

There are plenty of reasons why you should consider this option. Whether we want to admit it or not, dropshipping on Amazon comes with several benefits.

One of the obvious benefits of dropship on Amazon  is brand recognition. With over 300 million active users under its belt, marketing your products wouldn’t take so much work compared to having your own ecommerce store.

With Amazon, you already have a massive audience waiting for you. You just need to find ways to separate yourself from the pack so you can drive traffic and sales towards your store and your products.

If you opt to use the FBA model, the biggest benefit is that holding an inventory is the least of your concerns because you already have Amazon doing it for you. The same can be said when it comes to shipping, customer service, and returns when necessary.

The only downside is Amazon disallowing traditional dropshipping methods which can make life difficult for sellers who are used to playing by the rules. Hence, somehow requiring some adjustments with Amazon dropshipping method.

Why?

Because the majority of the profit goes to the supplier. If you factor in the fees a seller is required to pay, it’s safe to say that they’ll be left with very little to play with. 

Lastly, with Amazon’s immense popularity comes its customer’s high expectations and demands. Issues encountered with orders can easily lead to bad reviews and if you’re not lucky enough, even account suspensions.

Storage Fees to Keep in Mind

As mentioned earlier, while Amazon FBA offers the convenience of getting your hands off inventory, packing, and shipping, all of this comes at a cost.

To give you an idea of the potential fees you have to deal with, check out the following:

February 15th and August 15th are very important dates to remember because this is the time when Amazon does their inventory cleanup.

If your products are found to be sitting in storage between 6 to 12 months, you’ll be required to pay a long-term storage fee of $11.25 per cubic foot. If the items have been there for more than 12 months, the fee moves up to $22.50 per cubic foot.

Given these scenarios, Amazon FBA may not be the best alternative for sellers with slow-moving products. Imagine how hefty the fees can become if you’ve got lots of items sitting in storage for a very long time.

Amazon FBA isn’t also for sellers whose products are prohibited by FBA like alcoholic beverages, perishables, vehicle tires, and products that need to be refrigerated among others.

You’re probably better off with dropshipping if you’re planning to sell any of these items so you can save yourself from storage fees.

Where Do You Begin?

 With all of this information considered, the next question is where and how do you begin?

Fortunately, setting an Amazon store is easy.

1. The first thing you need to decide on is whether you’ll dropship the traditional way or via Amazon FBA.

2. Once you’ve reached a decision, you are now ready to create your Amazon seller account. You’ll be given a choice between signing up as either a professional or an individual seller.

3. The next step is to decide on the product categories you’ll be selling your products with and to get those categories approved.

4. Last but not least, start listing your items. 

That’s it!

You should now be ready to start selling on Amazon once you have all of these figured out, especially dropship on Amazon. A fair amount of research is of course required in terms of how you’d present your products in your listings.

Plan these all out before you open shop so you can see quick and better results.

Final Thoughts

Selling on Amazon is a promising endeavor especially since Amazon has become a household name. Running your own store and fulfilling orders through dropshipping is an excellent way of making money because it requires the least amount of effort.

Whether you’ll succeed or not depends on the method of dropshipping you choose, whether traditional or dropship on Amazon. If your budget is tight and you’re not too confident about your items’ selling power, going with traditional dropshipping would be the better choice.

If you have more money to spend and you’re looking for quick results, dropshipping with Amazon FBA makes a lot of sense.