As an Amazon FBA seller, you want your FBA inventory to sell the moment it hit the shelves so that you don’t have to deal with long-term storage fees or monthly storage fees for any of the inventory.
However, the sad reality is that there are times when we inevitably end up with stagnant inventory. It doesn’t matter how much we try to smart our sourcing decisions, from time to time we end up with the stock that just won’t sell. The inventory just sits there, collecting dust, for longer than we had anticipated. At this point, the inventory isn’t making you any profit; in fact, it is costing you money as Amazon is charging you for storing your inventory in its warehouse.
It feels deflating and can cause you to question what if everything you have done so far was wrong. Sometimes it might make you freak out and wonder if Amazon had suspended your Amazon Seller Account without notifying you. The worst case, your slow-moving Amazon FBA sales might even cause you to stop and think if this whole FBA seller thing is even working out like everyone promised.
It is not easy doing business on any platform and Amazon is no different. In this post, we will discuss the main reasons why your Amazon FBA sales may have dropped and will provide you with some effective ways to overcome your slow-moving Amazon FBA Sales.
Reasons why your Amazon FBA Sales may have dropped:
It is a known fact that your sales are likely to vary on a day to day basis. However, some sellers are doing just okay even when all of a sudden they experience a doze off in sales. Why? Because, they know almost every possible reason that may incur a drop-off in sales! Let us discuss some of them.#1 Have you lost the Buy Box?
With almost 90% of the sales going through the Buy Box, the Amazon sellers should be intended on winning their share of the very popular ‘Buy Box’ in order to be successful on Amazon. However, it is not as easy as the Buy Box is rotated between the sellers by Amazon who has met the marketplace’s high standards.
In case if you are the only seller selling your product on Amazon, you are fine for now. However, if there are several sellers selling the same service or product as you, then you will have to compete with them for the same Buy Box.
On the other hand, if you had the Buy Box and you recently lost it to some other seller or the Buy Box is now being shared among multiple sellers, then this could explain why your Amazon FBA sales have dropped all of a sudden.If you are selling your own private label product,make sure that your listing is hijacked by other sellers.Also look for other sellers selling similar products and see if they are copying your ideas.Product Spypro Tracker help you keep track of your own listing,buy box changes,reviews and sentiment expressed by your customers.
How can you check if you are the Buy Box winner?
You can go to your Amazon Seller Central account to quickly access the dashboard that displays your Buy Box performance. On the other hand, you could also see those listings that recently lost the Amazon Buy Box. Alternatively, there are several tools whose services you can avail for finding this information.
In order to retain the Buy Box, you need to ensure that your seller metrics including reviews and feedback remain healthy and you are competitively priced.
#2 Have you received bad reviews or feedback recently?
The customers leave two types of feedback on Amazon: Seller Feedback for the seller and Product Review for the product they have purchased.
If you are a private label seller and received a 1-star product review, then it could dramatically affect your sales in the future. Similarly, poor seller feedback reviews can also impact your sales badly.
However, you should examine the feedback and reviews you received to check whether it is within the Amazon Feedback Guidelines or not. That is if a buyer leaves a seller feedback in the form of a product review or if you are Amazon FBA seller and the feedback the customer gave is about shipping, then Amazon will automatically delete this feedback, so you will not have to worry about the seller metrics.
On the other hand, legitimate reviews and feedback can be removed by the buyer. You have to communicate with them and try to understand any issues or misunderstanding they had with your service/product. However, it is against the rules and regulations to pressurize the customers into removing the reviews. Moreover, treat neutral feedback and reviews (3-star) same as the 1-star and 2-star reviews.
There are several Amazon Feedback Software and tools that can help you get notified via email or SMS whenever a buyer gives you a negative feedback.
#3 Search for your Product as a Customer
If you experience slow-moving Amazon FBA Sales, then put yourself in the shoes of your customers and search for your products as they would and understand if something is wrong. Search using the keywords that customers is using see if your product lost the ranking for the keyword also gather the list of keywords that customer may be searching for and optimize your listing to rank for those keywords.
Is your product visibility good?
When you search for your product as a customer and if it is not on the first page of the search results list then this might be the problem of your sales suddenly dipping. Most of the buyers prefer using mobile application so check how your product is displayed on a smartphone.
Ensure that your products are listed correctly with the right images and keywords. If not, immediately update everything required on your listing accordingly.
Another important practice that you should follow is to check the views of your product page in order to determine if there are any dramatic changes being made.
You can achieve this by visiting Seller Central > Business Reports
#4 It could be a seasonal trend
Your niche or the product you sell plays a crucial role in determining whether it is going to experience slow sales or not. For certain products, you may experience months or quarters of the year when the sales are on the slower side.
For example, if you sell fancy costumes, then you will be expecting rush hours during Halloween season (October) or if you sell sunglasses, then you are to be expected to sell more during the summer months.
For identifying any seasonal trends, you can always keep track of your yearly or even monthly sales figures.
We advise the sellers to make sure their products are stocked up during the fourth quarter as the sales are likely to increase around Cyber Monday and Black Friday as customers buy gifts for the holiday season.
#5 Has the sales promotion ended recently?
In order to boost product visibility and boost sales, most of the Amazon sellers choose to run promotions all through the year. If the promotions are ended, this could be the reason why you are experiencing slow moving Amazon FBA Sales.
Thus, it becomes necessary for you to keep track on the upcoming campaign dates that you may be running on channels like Facebook for driving sales.
#6 Check your PPC campaigns
Most of the Amazon sellers use Google Adwords and Amazon PPC ads to drive traffic to their product listings.
The Amazon PPC ads campaigns can directly affect your sales if the Amazon Sponsored Ad campaign ends of your payment method have been declined.
Similarly, with Google Adwords, promotional campaigns may be put on hold if your ad doesn’t act in accordance with Google’s criteria or if your credit has run out.
10 Effective Ways to overcome your slow-moving Amazon FBA Sales:
Slow moving inventory is always a threat to any Amazon FBA seller as it not only makes you pay long-term storage fees but also impacts your repo on the seller market. But there are ways using which you can clear out your old inventory effectively. Some of the ways have been mentioned in the above section, we will discuss further more.
#1 Reprice Slow Moving Inventory
This is one thing you can do to deal with slow moving Amazon FBA sales. However, we advise not to reprise your inventory before having a proper look at the market. If you are the only seller of your niche, then you should sit tight because the sales will generally come up in one way or the other. But if there are several other sellers selling the same service/product then you should consider repricing your inventory and try to be on the first page of the Prime-only offers.
#2 Process all Backed-Up Inventory
This is the most important point you should consider as most of the inventory purchases are sent to Amazon but there is usually some stock left that is chucked in the corner only because it was time-consuming. You are required to process the backed-up inventory either by creating a different listing for the item or find a box that fits your product as you will need to send it to fulfillment centers other than Amazon. When your sales are slow, make sure that every single product in your inventory has the potential to make a profit, which means you need to list it somewhere else like on eBay, Craigslist, or any other marketplace.
#3 Host a Contest or Giveaway
This is probably the least profitable approach but could help you in clearing out your old inventory. You can incentivize the customers to get greatly-reduced or free merchandise by purchasing another item, signing up through email, interacting with you on Facebook/Instagram/Twitter. This is an excellent strategy for long-term sales as you will be giving up instant sales for more users and their future prospects and dollars.
#4 Highlight the Items as Special Sales
When you walk into any clothing store, you can determine that certain products are on sale by spotting the giant ‘50% Off Discount’ or ‘SALE’ stickers on them. You can follow the same online by putting your old inventory to its own section and marking them as ‘ON Discount’ or ‘ON SALE’ or something like that.
#5 See if another Seller will Swap with you
Perhaps there is nothing wrong with the item as you are naming it ‘slow-mover.’ Perhaps you are not equipped to move the item as quickly as someone else could. If that is the case, then you should start communicating with other sellers and merchants on forums and threads and see if you could cut a deal with them.
#6 Sell your Inventory with a Sense of Urgency
Fear of Missing Out or FOMO can cause the customers to do and buy all sorts of stuff because they don’t want to end up not having what everyone else has. Simply create a lightning sale with a countdown clock for it.
#7 Do not charge restocking fee for return Items
In some cases, the main difference between a slow-mover and a sale lies in the little extras, such as making the returns easier. The customers are always looking for secure shopping experiences in order to remain satisfied with the purchase. By simply making returns easier, there is a possibility to tip the scales in your favor.
#8 Send your Product to Bloggers for Review
When your sales are not going up you can try to market your products. While this might not give you immediate cash returns but you can get a lot of gossip and buzz for your product. You can achieve this by sending your product to bloggers and ask them to review it in the best possible way. It could result in higher sales down the road.
#9 Check for Duplicate Product Pages
There are several duplicate product pages on Amazon that the marketplace is struggling with. These duplicate product pages might be the reason why your sales are on the slower side. If you find a duplicate product page similar to yours, immediately ship the product back to yourself and send it back to Amazon warehouse with a new SKU to achieve a better product page.
#10 Make Time for Goal Setting and Self-Education
Slow Amazon FBA sales also mean that the efforts you are putting in are somewhat lagging. You have to take extra time for developing new strategies for growing your Amazon FBA business.
Conclusion
If you are a smart seller, always remain open to suggestions when it comes to selling product on Amazon. You can greatly boost up your inventory sales by understanding and review the suggestions we have provided. If you have any queries regarding this, do let us know.
Stay Ahead of Amazon’s Changing Landscape by using product spypro tools.Discover which products are most likely to be profitable . Automatically track your competitors and uncover their strategies using Product SpyPro amazon product tracker that uses advanced machine learning and Al to track sentiment analysis.
Comments
Post a Comment