Amazon Storefronts give sellers the opportunity to set their brand apart from their competitors, allowing online shoppers to purchase from their specific brand.
With Storefronts, sellers can also build trust with online shoppers, educate, upsell, and cross-sell free from competitor advertising. Those sellers who invest in creating a compelling Amazon Storefront can see a dramatic rise in their sales.
Opening an Amazon storefront, also called an Amazon Store, can set your brand apart from competitors, as well as build trust with shoppers.
10 Benefits of Creating an Amazon Storefront
- It’s similar to having a website on the Amazon platform. You are able to drive strategic traffic to it, using Sponsored Brands Ads.
- Increase your organic search ranking on Amazon
- Drive traffic away from your competitor’s ads
- Showcase more of your product catalog
- Introduce new customers to your brand (tell your story brand)
- Educate consumers about your products (how they satisfy their needs/desires)
- Promote new product launches and seasonal offerings
- Drive incremental sales with up-selling and cross-selling
- Create brand loyalty and repeat buyers
- Coordinate with off Amazon marketing initiatives
How to Open an Amazon Storefront
Sellers that wish to open an Amazon storefront must enroll in the Amazon Brand Registry program, which helps protect a seller’s brand and products from imitators on Amazon. As a member of the Amazon Brand Registry program, sellers have access to search and reporting tools to find knock-off products. In addition, Amazon proactively monitors its website for copycat versions of your products.
How to Apply for Brand Registry
If you’re eligible for the Amazon Brand Registry program, complete the following application steps:
- Sign into your Amazon Seller Central account
- Supply your brand name (the brand name that owns the active registered trademark)
- Provide your government-registered trademark number
- List the product categories that apply to your brand
- List the countries that manufacture and distribute your brand’s products
After you submit your application, Amazon will review it. During the application process,
Amazon will contact the person associated with the registered trademark. That contact will answer some questions, and then Amazon will determine if your brand meets its Amazon Brand Registry requirements.
Approval times for Amazon Brand Registry can range from 24 hours to over a month. Upon approval, Amazon will send a verification code that you can use to enroll in the program.
Once enrolled in Brand Registry, you can move forward with opening your Amazon Storefront.
Getting Started Opening the Doors…
- Log into your Amazon Seller Central
- Click “Storefront” from the main navigation bar
- Select “Create Store” on the following page
- Choose your brand’s name from the pop-up box
- Click “Create Store”
Only approved brands (associated with your Amazon account) will appear when creating an Amazon storefront. If you don’t see your brand’s name listed in the pop-up, make sure you’ve completed the enrollment process.
Before You Submit Your Storefront for Amazon’s Approval…
Before leaving the Store Builder console, sellers should review their Amazon Storefront for any possible issues, such as:
- Grammar mistakes
- Spelling errors
- Improperly uploaded images and videos
- Improperly linked ASINS and store pages
- Branding inconsistencies across pages
Storefront Best Practices Do’s & Don’ts
Do…
- give visitors to the storefront a sense of reassurance by placing content that they are familiar with above the fold (i.e. the Prime badge).
- breakdown products into 'product lines' and categories.
- use images to present product lines and categories in a visually appealing manner (i.e. clear images, lifestyle shots, highlight features)
- use video to engage shoppers more actively. Video that is engaging can help drive more attention, clear communication, and memorability of your products’ key benefits.
- feature best-selling products and incorporate a small amount of copy that describes these products in an easy to read and visually appealing way. Brevity is key.
- tabs should be utilized to categorize products, keep your page organized and not clutter the home page.
- for highly seasonal product assortment, such as apparel, updating your Storefront on a quarterly basis is a good idea.
- design the content with ease-of-navigation in mind.
- when selecting a homepage template, consider the purpose of your store. Are you trying to educate customers about your product? Or do you have a few best-selling items that you want to promote front and center?
- Amazon has added the “interactive points” feature as a way to provide additional information on a product image. This is particularly useful to highlight specific attributes without a video. When using this feature, it is also a good idea not to overload an image with these points, as it can make the image more confusing and cluttered.
Don’ts…
- crowd the storefront with random products. It's better to build it around a line of products, rather than one which features several distinct, but unrelated products.
- overwhelm shoppers by squeezing in a large number of display options that the storefront provides. Too many choices presents an obstacle to a clear path for the shopper to follow in order for them to purchase the products they are seeking. The best storefronts give the online shopper a clear presentation of the available products for sale and an easy way to purchase them.
- forget to include a strong brand message that helps shoppers to identify your USP (unique selling proposition) and tells your story.
- have content that confuses the potential customer about your products and how they can satisfy their needs/desires once purchased. Shopper confusion leads to reduced sales.
- be sure not to complicate the customer journey or use unintuitive categories for your pages.
How to Advertise Your Amazon Storefront
An Amazon Storefront won’t be effective at driving brand awareness and sales if potential buyers can’t find it. That’s why it is crucial to implement an Amazon Advertising strategy that drives traffic from a number of locations along the Customer Buying Cycle.
Sponsored Brand advertisements are an effective way to increase visibility from the Amazon search page while driving traffic back to your Amazon Storefront.
Consider creating several Sponsored Brand campaigns that drive traffic to the subpages of your Storefront. If you have a product line that you are promoting, feature the bestselling products from that line in an ad and link back to the corresponding Storefront subpage.
Another effective strategy for driving store traffic utilizes Sponsored Display ads to target in-market online shoppers across the web with display ads that link back to your Amazon Storefront.
This strategy is effective because it targets audience segments using first party data from the Amazon platform, ensuring that the online shoppers being driven back to your Storefront are highly qualified to purchase.
Additional Best Practices to Drive Traffic to Your Storefront include:
- Linking your storefront to your Amazon product detail pages
- Sharing your store’s link on all your social media channels
- Sharing your store’s link through email newsletters and marketing campaigns
You can then track traffic and sales on Amazon from external channels by using Amazon Attribution.
How Will Potential Buyers Access Your Storefront?
On Amazon, potential buyers can access your brand’s Storefront in two ways:
- By clicking on a Sponsored Brand advertisement
- By clicking on a brand byline on a product detail page
Off of Amazon, online shoppers can link to your Amazon Storefront in a number of ways such as through Sponsored Display campaigns, social media campaigns, and email marketing campaigns.
Storefronts appear on Amazon’s website as well as their Amazon mobile app and are built with a responsive design so they can fit all device screen sizes.
Amazon Storefronts give sellers a unique opportunity to make an introduction to online shoppers with a compelling branded experience. Storefronts are key elements in a complete marketing strategy. Without them, brands are losing out on a massive sales opportunity.
By following the Amazon Storefront Formula and the 15 Do's and Don'ts, sellers can drive awareness about their product lines and attract more online shoppers to increase their sales potential.
If you’re in need of help in creating an advertising strategy that drives quality traffic to a conversion-ready storefront, consider working with our team of experts at Entourage Management Services.
Click here to learn more about our Management Services.
We’ve worked with a diverse group of sellers, collaborating with them on hundreds of advertising campaigns, with millions in ad spend. We can create unique winning strategies for your business that will lower ACoS, reduce wasted Ad Spend and increase your profitability.