Summer is traditionally a little quieter for lots of us, so I thought it would be a good time to talk about how you can audit your Amazon Seller Central Account, identify opportunities and make any changes or adjustments needed ahead of Q4.
Last Summer I wrote a blog post about general things you can do to keep your Seller Central account in order over Summer. Today I’m going to be talking about the metrics that you can look at today – and track over time – to ensure you’re where you want to be. Or, if you’re not, you’ll have a really clear idea of what needs to change.
Account health
To find your account health in Seller Central, go to the Performance tab and click on Account Health.
Here you can see:
- Customer service performance and order defect rate
- Product policy compliance
- Shipping performance
If you’re using MFN (fulfilling your own orders) it’s important to check this regularly (maybe once a fortnight), as delivering orders late, or poor customer service, can result in poor account health or even getting suspended from selling. (Although this is the worst case scenario – please don’t panic too much.)
Check your shipping settings and handling times (if you’re fulfilling orders via MFN) to ensure they’re still accurate.
Remember to put your account on holiday mode if you’re going away and can’t fulfil orders over the Summer!
If you’re using Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) check the detailed customer feedback and get any negative feedback related to delivery removed – as this is Amazon’s error, but will remain on your performance score unless you ask them to remove it.
Also check Voice of the Customer, to see if there are any improvements you can make to your listings. (i.e. to make it clearer what a customer receives, for example.)
Inventory performance (FBA only)
To do this you need to go to your FBA dashboard. Firstly, check your Inventory Performance Index (IPI) score. This shows how well you’re managing your FBA inventory and you want as high a score as possible. Low scores can prevent you from sending in more stock, so it is important to keep on top of it.
The way this is displayed has changed recently – so if you haven’t been in for a while it’s worth taking a look and familiarising yourself with it.
Things that negatively affect your score include having excess inventory, or products that sell very slowly. Note that you can have one SKU that isn’t selling and that can be enough to prevent you sending in stock for your bestselling SKUs , as it’s worked out across your inventory overall – so it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on.
If you have excess inventory, make a plan for how you’re going to sell it through, or create a removal request to avoid potentially large storage fees.
Also make sure you keep replenishing stock for SKUs that sell quickly, as going out of stock will affect your ranking – and remember to leave extra time for stock to get booked in during Q4!
Conversion rate
This is an important metric to view and track – but not an easy one to find! You’ll find it in your business reports, under Detail Page Sales and Traffic By Child Item. Just to make it even more confusing, Amazon call it ‘Unit Session Percentage.’
It’s useful to know how well each SKU is converting. (The higher the better.) If conversions are low, or go down, this could be an indication that something needs to change – perhaps your listing text, price, search terms or images.
Review your listings
Ok, so this one isn’t actually a metric – but if any metrics we’ve already covered – i.e. conversion rates, customer feedback, inventory sell-through, etc, indicate something needs to change then this is a good place to start.
Review your text and images and ensure they’re as good as possible. Updating your images (perhaps even just swapping out the main image) can be a great way to refresh your listing.
Also think about whether you can do any more – ie. can you apply for Brand Registry? If you already have it, are you using all the features? Could you add a Store or some A+ content?
Keyword ranking
Speaking of listings, it’s also a good idea to regularly review your keywords
I also like to track keyword rankings – i.e. how high your products are ranked in Amazon’s search results when a customer searches for a particular keyword. A high keyword ranking means that potential customers are more likely to see your products (as you’ll be closer to the top of the search results), which can lead to more sales.
You can keep track of this using a tool like Junglscout’s Rank Tracker. You could also do it manually, if you prefer, but this is more work!
Fees
While you will always pay Amazon fees, I think it’s a good idea to check on these from time to time to ensure you’re not paying too much for FBA. (You can see these in your inventory.)
You can request for products to be re-measured, if you’ve seen fees go up, or if you sell variations of the same product, but see discrepancies in fees. (i.e. if one colour is being charged more than another.)
Yes, this might be a small thing – but it all adds up!
Your Sponsored Products ads
If you’re running any Amazon ads it’s important to keep track of the metrics. There are two to consider:
- RoAS stands for Return on Advertising Spend and measures how much revenue you’ve made in sales for each pound spent. You want this to be as high as possible!
- ACoS stands for Advertising Cost of Sale. You want this one to be low!
I can’t give ideal numbers for either – as that varies from seller to seller. You do however need to know what healthy numbers look like for you – and to track how you’re doing over time.
If this all seems like a lot, you’re not sure what to look at, don’t have time, or just want me to do it, for you, I offer a comprehensive Amazon Account audit.
I look at all of the above and more, in lots of detail – giving you a really comprehensive list of what and how to improve.