How to stand out on Amazon (even if your product isn’t totally unique)

Welcome to the Bring your product idea to Life podcast. This is the podcast for you if you're getting started selling products or if you'd like to create your own product to sell.

I'm Vicki Weinberg, a product creation coach and Amazon expert. Every week I share friendly practical advice as well as inspirational stories from small businesses. Let's get started.

Hi, and welcome to this episode of Bring your product idea to Life and this Amazon made Easy Tuesday episode where we talk all things Amazon.

So if you are watching this on YouTube, you'll notice I'm wearing exactly the same outfit and I'm in exactly the same place as I was for last week's episode because I'm recording all of my jean content in one go. So I guess at least I'm very consistent.

So today I want to talk about how to stand out on Amazon even if your product isn't unique, because the chances are your product isn't unique when it comes to Amazon. There are likely, probably, possibly lots of products like yours on Amazon already. So today we're going to talk about how do you get noticed?

And of course, maybe your product is a completely unique, original idea, in which case you have a different issue on Amazon, which is how to get your product found when it's so niche. But. And I will do an episode on that because that's actually a good topic to cover. But today we're talking about the opposite.

We're talking about what do you do?

How do you get noticed when you're selling a product in a category where there are already other people selling products very similar to yours, hopefully not identical, not the same, but similar enough.

Because, let's be honest, there are only so many original ideas, and the chances are there will be someone or lots of someones selling a product like yours. However, here is the good news. You can still stand out.

Even if your product isn't original, even if it's not the only one of its kind, you can still stand out on Amazon. What really matters is how you communicate the value of what you sell. You've heard me say this before, but a lot of sellers overlook this.

They talk about all the features of their product. They list out the dimensions, size, the color, all the things that it has, all the things that it does, and hope for the best.

But customers don't buy features. They buy products that will either benefit them in some way or solve a need or a problem. And that's it.

So I'm going to give you a few really simple ways to make sure that your product gets noticed on Amazon. So, number one, lead with what makes you different. Think about what sets your products apart from the other similar products on Amazon at the moment.

So is your product more durable? Is it easier to clean? Is it kind to the environment? What, what is it that sets you apart from your competitors?

Now, hopefully, before you set up on Amazon, you had a look at who else was selling there. And if you haven't done this already, I would definitely do it now.

Look at the other products similar to yours and really look at them and have a look at the features. I know I said, doctor, focus on features, but look at the features of their products.

Look at the benefits they're selling and think about what makes yours different to them. So, for example, and I apologize if you've heard me use this exact example before, but I used to sell a range of bamboo baby products.

And one of the products, products I sold was a bamboo baby towel.

And my products, I could see from the research I did before I even got to the listing on Amazon stage, right at the research page, I was looking at the products like mine already on Amazon, and I could see a few things. One, I could see that all of the products were of a certain size. So I deliberately made mine bigger. That was a really.

That was a key design decision I took, that I was gonna have the biggest towel. I could also see the thickness of the towels on Amazon, and I decided to make mine the thickest.

And the other thing that I did that I didn't see anyone else talking about, and this isn't to say that other, other brands weren't doing this, but nobody spoke about the fact that they were not bleaching the bamboo. So my towels were white, but they weren't like pure, pure white. They didn't look dirty or anything, but they weren't like, sparkling, right?

Because I didn't bleach them because I didn't want to use any unnecessary chemicals. Other brands might have been doing this, but they weren't saying they were doing this.

And this was a difference because when it came to listing my product on Amazon, I was able to say that it was the biggest. I was able to say it was the thickest. And I was able to say that no chemicals had been added and the bamboo wasn't bleached.

So therefore, obviously it was kind of baby's skin because I wasn't using any unnecessary chemicals in the process. And these, you know, these were unique selling points to my product.

These were three things that I could talk about that made my, my child different to other ones on the market. And I said this very clearly. I spoke about it in my product title, I spoke about it in my bullet points. I made it really clear what made my product.

And you have to, I've said this before, but you have to really sell your product. Your product listing is there to sell.

So if you have something, whether it's something about you, whether it's something about your brand, whether it's something about the product that makes your product stand out and you will, you know, you have a great product. Everyone's product is unique. Talk about what, what that is. Do not be shy. This is definitely not, not a place to be shy.

And as I say, if you're not sure what that is, go and have a look at your competitors products on Amazon and see what they're talking about and think about, okay, so how can I different differentiate from everything else out there? Because you will have something that makes you unique and that's the thing you need to focus on.

Because coming back to my example, there were lots of baby towels on Amazon at the time. There weren't lots of bamboo towels, to be fair. There were quite a lot of cotton. But there were some cotton, there were some bamboo.

I really had to think about what, what can I talk about to make someone choose my towel? Which also, by the way, was one of the most expensive at the time. What's going to make someone choose my towel over someone else's?

And also what's going to help them see the value of my towel? Because as I say, it was more expensive.

But I felt really justified in that because I was like, well, it's more expensive because it's bigger, it's thicker, there's no chemicals used in the process. And it comes in a beautiful gift box. It doesn't just come in a, you know, plastic wrap or whatever.

It was really nicely packaged up for gifting as well. So for all those reasons, I could justify the price. And I was very, very clear about all of these things in the listing.

I literally spelled it out to people and that's what you have to do. So my second tip is let your images tell a story. Your photo shouldn't just show people what the product looks like.

So it shouldn't be lots of shots of your product on a white background so people can, you know, get an idea of what it looks like. Obviously that's important as you know, your first image has to be your product on a white background.

And you may want a few more of those types of images to show different angles. But Actually the main purpose of your images are to show customers how the product fits into their lives.

To help them to imagine how they might, how they might use it, where they might take it. So lifestyle shots shots. So in the size context, benefit call out.

So you know those images where you have a little line and some, maybe some text showing certain features, a mix of these images all really, really help and particularly the lifestyle shots. So I was working with a brand recently who sells bars that you might have maybe after you've been exercising.

So they're like energy, not energy, but like protein. And you might have one after you've been to the gym. So they had an image of someone with one in a gym bag, for example.

If you sell a product where it's hard to gauge the size of it and that this is also a really good tip to help with returns as well.

If you sell something and it's not, it's not easy to sort of show the scale, lifestyle images are really helpful for this as well because let's say you sell a bedside lamp and there's a picture of the bedside lamp on the bedside table next to a bed. That's a much easier way if someone working out the scale than having on a white background with, you know, dimensions posted on there, for example.

So lifestyle shots, all of these different types of images really, really help your product stand out. My first piece of advice is to use your customers language. So I mentioned reviews again. Read your reviews if you've got, if you've got them.

If you haven't read, just read your competitors and get a sense of what customers care about. Because if you read reviews of products close to yours, you'll get a really good idea of, okay, what are the things that like about their product?

What are the things that are important to them? I promise you if you start reading enough reviews, you will get a sense of this.

You can then use that language in your text to show that you really understand what your customers are looking for.

If there are things that people dislike about other people's products and you're like, oh, actually my, my product solves this because of whatever reason, that's another thing you can call out as a benefit in your listing text. I don't mean, by the way, hopefully this has been really clear. Never ever say my product is better than X brands because of this.

What I mean is if you can see.

So for example in the towel example, coming back to that, if you're reading lots of reviews, you sell a towel and you're reading lots of Reviews and people saying, oh, this towel is so thin. You know, it's got holes in it, it's got really raggedy because it's so thin and your towel is really thick.

Then that would be something you could lead on. You could say, I know that it's really important to you. Your towels last a long time and they don't get, you know, tatty in the washing machine.

Therefore, our towel is however thick. And it's designed to be really durable.

So you can use it for, you know, not only your first child, but you can hand it down to other children, that, that kind of thing. Because by reading the reviews, you're getting a real sense of what people care about, what they're looking for.

And then you can incorporate that into your own text. And my fourth point is don't assume that the value of your product is obvious.

It might be really obvious to you, but a customer scrolling through search results won't necessarily dig to find out, I wonder what that makes this product different to all of the others. You have to make it really, really easy for them to see why your product is worth. Is worth. First of all, clicking on and then second buying.

So what I mean by this is, I'll give you another, I'll give you another example. We spoke about the towel example. So I used to sell bamboo baby bowls. That was something else that I sold.

And I did lots of research again before creating this product. And I could see that other baby, baby bowls at the time made of bamboo had a logo like on the side of the bowl.

So the logo of the brand and the problem of that is it really marked them out as a baby product because often they'd have like a really often logos were quite cute. So you would have this on the side of the bowl.

And then obviously that meant that once the child sort of outgrew that product, it was kind of dormant. No one else if you was using it. So what I decided was that my bamboo baby bowls were going to have the logo on the bottom of the bowl.

So the bit that went into the rubber base, because that meant that once child had outgrown them, it didn't matter. It's still like a beautiful bamboo bowl. And actually I still use my bamboo bowls now.

The time I created them, my daughter was still quite young and so she had some. And yet we're still using them now because as I say, the logos on the bottom, nobody can see. I can. I put them out all the time.

No one would even know they were initially intended for a baby so when I was writing the product listing for that product, I mentioned that, I mentioned that. I think I mentioned it in the title. I mentioned it in the bullets everywhere. I spoke about the fact that these bowls were. Had no visible branding.

So they had a really, you know, the longevity. What am I trying to say? I was a longer shelf life. That's the wrong words. But the longevity was there.

These products could be used for a really long time because, you know, the branding wasn't visible, they weren't marked out as a baby product. I spoke about the fact that once your baby was done with them, you could then use them for dips or in your other food, whatever it was.

And I had some lifestyle shots, of course, to show this as well, with older children using the bowls for different things and having them on like beautiful tables and things like that, because that sort of thing is really, as I mentioned before, really important. Picture speaks a thousand words or whatever they say. So coming.

So what I'm trying to say is I knew what the value was, I knew what my USP was and I made it very, very obvious. And you sort of have to do that. You cannot be shy. Your product listings are not a place to, to be shy.

They're not a place to think, oh well, a customer will read through and the. When they see the dimensions of my product, they'll understand it was the biggest. They won't. You need to.

If your product is the biggest, you need to tell them.

If your product is unscented and everything else in the market is scented, you need to tell people they're not, they're not reading product listings, yours or anyone else's, potentially in such forensic detail. Some people will be, obviously there will be outliers.

There will be people who are looking for something so specific and they're going to be, you know, scanning the text to, to look for something, whether it's a product that's unscented or they want to know that it's vegetarian friendly or whatever it is.

And for those people to make it as easy as possible because the easier you make it for customer, the easier you're making it for them to buy for you, to buy from you. So hope that hopefully that's really helpful.

Other tips that might be helpful are to make sure you're using a consistent brand voice and images across your product listings. If you've got multiple listings, they all sound like they're the same brand, they all look like they're part of the same brand.

Obviously that should be consistent with your website as well, because that helps to build trust. Particularly if you're an unknown brand.

There is always a chance people will come over at some point and look at your website or look at your social media if they want to find out more of you and that needs to be consistent. And this will also help you with your visibility. If you are brand registered, definitely use a content to give even more value.

So if you have a content you can talk to more about the founder, if that's one of your unique selling points, perhaps there's something about the way your company was founded, perhaps you had what you know, reason you came up for your business idea.

That's the kind of thing you can talk about in the a content who you are, why you're doing what you do, there's anything special about your brand, your brand values, maybe you donate your profits to charity, maybe you have a sustainability policy that's really important to you. All of these things can be. You can be put across in your A plus content and also the brand store.

If you have one of those, it can be really, really hard to get some of this information into the text. It would probably be a bit weird to have a bullet point just about the founder, for example.

However, the A and the store are really good places to get this across and all of this helps to differentiate you and your product from the other similar products on Amazon already. So you don't need to reinvent the wheel at all, you just need to present what you do really, really well.

And finally, I would like to leave you with the fact that in my membership Amazon made easy. We do a lot of work on helping you find and commun what makes your product the right choice for your customer.

I spoke about last week how something I work with people on is if they're not getting the level of sales they'd like, for example, and sometimes it can come down to the fact that their product isn't communicating the value as clearly as some of the other products. They haven't got a key differentiator and that's something we can work on together.

So if you're interested in Amazon Made Easy, I'll put a link in the show notes and I will look forward to speaking to you again next week. And of course I'll be back with another amazing interview on Friday. So have a lovely week and speak to you soon.

Thank you so much for listening right to the end of this episode.

Do remember that you can get the Fullback catalogue and lots of free resources on my website vickyweinberg.com Please do remember to rate and review this episode if you've enjoyed it, and also share it with a friend who you think might find it useful. Thank you again and see you next week.