Lately, Amazon has been laying a lot of emphasis on de-cluttering its layout and arming Shoppers with easy tools to navigate across the marketplace, and find the products of their choice and also in exploring new items.

With that, Amazon is now encouraging its partners to create an online store on amazon.com to showcase their brands to the Shoppers in a structured way.

Stores is a free service available to all Brand owners and vendors who are enrolled under Amazon Brand Registry.

It is like your Virtual Storefront on Amazon.com, where you can create content that inspires, educates, and encourages the Shoppers to discover your Brand and its products.

The Store’s layout is fully customizable, where you can create your brand story and promote a brand-centric shopping experience.

You get your own unique URL – www.amazon.com/yourbrand that you can link with any external ad campaigns that you may be running off of Amazon, and you can use Stores Insights for optimizing your store, campaign performances and in tracking your sales.

You can find a Store by clicking on one of the Sponsored Ads and then clicking on the Brand mentioned under the Product Title, or you can also find product links on the Amazon Search Results Page, which can further lead you to the Store for that particular Brand.

The best part about Amazon Stores is that you don’t need to know how to code to set up your Storefront on Amazon. The Store Builder equips Vendors and Sellers to create their Store in just a few hours, and your store can go live in 72 Hours.

You need to have a Seller Account on Amazon for you to be able to create your store. Once you login to your Account, you will find a navigation bar at the top with a tab called ‘Stores’; click on it and select ‘Manage Stores’ from the drop-down menu and you will find the option to ‘Create Store’.

While building the store, we have to ensure that your brand communication is consistent across all our other online initiatives like our website, social media pages, emailers, etc.

You will have the option of choosing from the following Templates –

1. Marquee – Display a range of products with additional space for product descriptions and customer reviews
2. Product Highlight / Showcase – This is ideal for showcasing specific products with a content-rich layout
3. Product Grid – With this template, you can display an extensive list of related products
4. Blank – Customize your own store view where you can place the product tiles as per your vision

For Storefronts, Amazon requires you to have a minimum of 1 page, and then you can also start building sub-pages relevant to your product portfolio and offerings. There will be a Navigation Bar running across the top of your store, and your sub-pages can go upto three levels deep.

Create a store structure that makes sense for your brand, and is consistent with your Brand communication across all the channels.

Group your products by –

1. Category
2. Similar Styles / Features
3. About Us page

Here are a few key elements to take care of –

1. You can have a Brand Story Snippet that can lead back to your ‘About Us’ section or ‘Brand Story’ page
2. Use the Page Meta Description; it is a space where you tell about your Brand in less than 170 characters that shows up within search engines. The meta descriptions are a part of an SEO strategy that should also include keywords that a person may use while searching on google
3. Key Messages – Create an ‘About Us’ section to tell your Brand Story and offer your Value Proposition
4. Categories – You can create various categories and specify them by creating sub-pages for your different range of products that makes navigation easier
5. Highlight your Best Sellers, Featured Deals & ‘Recommended for you’ widgets
6. A fun way to visually interact with your audience is by using Posts that are the new Browse & Discover on Amazon
7. The Amazon Sponsored Brands is another excellent way of growing your customer base while customers are actively shopping. Creating Stores is a great way to make your brand relevant, and have your product portfolio available to your potential buyers

1. Your Homepage

The purpose of a Brand is to connect and interact with their audience, where the Shoppers can also find something new to browse. Think of it like Shopping Mall; there are hundreds of Shops around with each of the shops having a different layout and unique ways of displaying their products.

Homepages are ideal for Vendors and Sellers to position their Brand, tell their Brand Story, and provide easy navigation of sub-pages. Make sure to use your homepage as a tool to encourage shopping around your store, and keep in mind not to make the content and information too overwhelming for Shoppers.

2. Sub-Pages

The sub-pages within the Amazon Brand Store would help the Shoppers navigate your product offerrings, and encourage them to explore and find new items. You can use the following features for your sub-pages:-

• Sub Category – Group similar products together by category, product types, uses or needs
• Structure – Drill down from broader categories to more specific products. For e.g, if you deal in shoes, then you can first categorize it based on Male and Female Footwear and then further categorize it on the basis of purpose like Formal, Semi-Formal, Sports, etc.
• About Us Page – Brand History & Mission
• Can create a ‘How to Use’ page that includes the benefits & instructions on how to use a product
• Sub-pages for Holidays or essential seasons where you can highlight your products that are best suited, or are the most suitable as gifts, and you can drive sponsored traffic to those pages

Seasonal specific sub-page –

You can create a separate sub-page to Highlight a season or for any upcoming Festivals. There are a few things to keep in mind –

• Group the products as per shopping intent
• Highlight seasonally proper Top Sellers
• Specific product grid for the relevant inventory
• Display more specific categories
• Add a Deals widget which should have good-to-move products over a short duration
• Include a Season Theme or message in the main display image
• Use the seasonal creative throughout
• Use full-width-images sparingly, as they take up a lot of space

3. Stores Insights

Gain inputs about the Campaigns, Traffic sources, and Sales related to your Store, and measure the impact created by your Store using the following –

• Dashboard and data tables
• Measure the store’s pages and traffic source
• The Data is updated daily and can be exported into a CSV file

Key Metrics available –

1. Views – The total number of times your products have been viewed
2. Visitors – The total number of visitors that visited your Store for the selected date range
3. Sales – Estimated total sales generated by the Store’s visitors within a 14 day period
4. Units Sold
5. Orders

Each store page can be viewed separately and can also be checked for traffic and sales performance.

Tracking Traffic Sources –

• Amazon Organic Traffic
• Amazon Sponsored Traffic
• External Traffic (from outside Amazon) – Important to use Source Tags to check specific sources, campaigns (email, social media, display ads, etc.)

How do I optimize my Amazon Brand Store –

Make sure that you are set-up for success, where you are directing your customers.

• Use High-Quality Photos
• Ensure that the product titles are correct and have keywords
• Ensure that there are no Typos & inaccurate Information
• High numbers of reviews & products rated more than 3.5 stars should be displayed
• Have a featured offer within your product details page
• Upload a video to explain how to use a product, wherever necessary
• Regular update your Store with latest offerings and new product launches and removal of discontinued inventory
• Make sure your Brand Logo is consistent throughout

How do I drive traffic to my Amazon Store?

Amazon Sponsored Products

Amazon Sponsored Products are PPC (pay-per-Click) Ads that are displayed across the Amazon Platform and are mentioned as ‘Sponsored’ Ads. You can help showcase your products to a broader audience by investing a little for the Amazon Sponsored Ads.

According to Amazon, almost 80% of the audience on its platform searches for new products and brands. The Sponsored Ads are placed strategically to catch the Shoppers’ eye by showing them relevant products and deals and introducing them with your Brand. This type of strategy works well for Old and New brands by highlighting your products and increasing your sales funnel.

You can choose from three types of ads – Sponsored Brand Ads, Sponsored Products Ads, and Product Display Ads.

Key Features –

• Will show up at the top or bottom or alongside the search results or even on product display pages of similar products and third-party apps or websites
• Drive the traffic towards a specific set of products, or directly to the homepage of your amazon store
• Ads show a Brand Logo, your Headline and your product or a selection of your products
• Linking your sponsored brand to your homepage has 17% better return on the ad spend than linking to a product list page, this is across all platforms
• You can set up two identical sets of campaigns and test one element at a time

Advertising Tips for Sponsored Brands –

1. Direct them to your store and browse your entire catalog
2. Use ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number) optimizations
3. Highlight Deals in your campaign creatives
4. Set end dates for seasonal campaigns, but no need to set an end date for non-seasonal ones

NOTES –

1. Make sure to use SOURCE TAGS to measure your campaigns that are off-Amazon through your various sponsored & organic activities to measure success and understand the areas to improve upon
2. ASIN is a ten character unique alphanumeric identifier that is assigned by Amazon to products to help identify them. To select the right ASIN’s for your page go through –

• Top Seller
• Highest rated ASIN’s
• Seasonally relevant ASIN’s
• Anything that has been launched recently

To learn more about how to Advertise on Amazon and the different types of Ads available, refer to this link – Amazon Sponsored Products.

How do I Maintain my Store within Amazon?

It is highly recommended that you update your Amazon Storefront regularly to keep it fresh, making it more interactive for the Shoppers.

Regular updates help in building a presence for your Brand, improves the trust factor, and is a crucial element for optimization.

Here are a few steps to consider to follow while updating your Store –

1. Plan an Update – Remove all irrelevant and outdated data and update using fresh data about the upcoming seasons or offers or any new product launches
2. Submit for Moderation – Once the updates have been done, do send in your store for moderation in advance, it may take anywhere between 24 Hours to 72 Hours for it to be approved, so plan accordingly
3. Optimize – Monitor your store’s insights and reports and optimize your store & sponsored brand campaigns throughout the season

Are Amazon Brand Stores Free?

Yes, Amazon Brand Stores are absolutely free of cost to set-up and use. You just need to be a registered Seller or Vendor on Amazon and own the brand or its trademark or selling rights.

Conclusion

Amazon Brand Stores makes it easier for the Shoppers to Discover your products, Research about them and finally Purchase the product of their choice.

This helps you stand out from your competition and helps in connecting with the right type of audience, which improves your Brand Value.

Setting up your Store is completely Free and helps you in attracting both old and new customers through immersive and creative content and enhancing the Shopping experience for the visitors.