Amazon Seller App: Should You Use It?

eCommerce isn’t exactly the stationery, make-money-in-your-underwear lifestyle that people think it is… at least not all the time. Online retailers still do some running around — sourcing products, meeting new partners, managing storage, etc. — to say nothing of everyday errands. For the seller on the go, Amazon has a special Amazon Seller app for iOS and Android to help make life a little easier.

More than just a mobile dashboard, the seller app has some handy tools that Amazon merchants can access from their smartphones anytime, anywhere. But what exactly does it do? Is it worth it? In this quick guide, we clear up any confusion and explain everything you need to know to decide if it’s right for you.

What is the Amazon Seller App?

The Amazon Seller app is designed to let sellers manage their Amazon business directly on their phones. While it’s useful for fulfilling orders and checking in on your business, it also allows instant, real-time management of time-sensitive tasks like changing prices and responding to customers.

In addition to offering the standard seller options on mobile devices, Amazon Seller also enables some features exclusive to your smartphone such as using the camera to scan barcodes or product packaging. It also includes a built-in image editor, Photo Studio, to optimize new product pictures before uploading them.

The app is free to use but requires you to already have an Amazon seller account. It’s fairly well-received; as of this writing, it has a 4.1 rating on Google Play and a 4.6 on the iPhone App Store.

What Does Amazon's Seller App Do?

Amazon's seller app has a wide range of features to accommodate all types of sellers and selling strategies. Specifically, here’s a list of what you can do with it:

• Update listings: Modify prices and quantities instantly.
• Oversee orders: Confirm shipments, review pending orders, and set notifications for any time you make a sale.
• Respond to customer messages: Receive alerts for new customer inquiries and respond instantly.
• Check your sales analytics: See a breakdown of total sales or check the performance of an individual product.
• Look up products: Scan barcodes or product packaging to see that item in the Amazon database. Check prices, sales rank, competition, and reviews to see if it’s a viable choice for your store.
• Manage returns: Confirm returns and issue refunds.
• Review Sponsored Products campaigns: Keep an eye on how they’re performing and make quick modifications.
• View next payment balance: Preview your next payment from Amazon, including how much and when you’ll receive it.
• Take and edit product photos: Use your phone’s camera to take product photos and edit them in Photo Studio for rapid, on-the-go uploads.

Essentially, you can manage your entire Amazon account from this app, starting with sourcing products and uploading new listings, and ending with shipping confirmations and chatting with new customers.

The app itself doesn’t offer many features you can't also access from Seller Central, except for identifying products with your phone camera, which can be extremely useful for hands-on product sourcing. Its real value lies in making your regular tasks more convenient, especially the time-sensitive ones like changing prices and responding to customers.

Instant, Real-time Management

Selling on Amazon is a fast-paced job, often with split-second decisions and lightning-fast strategy changes. While the product scanning and pocket analytics are huge advantages themselves, our favorite part of the Amazon Seller app is how it lets you run your business quickly and without hesitation.

For starters, it’s a great help with dynamic pricing, where the seller changes the price of a product frequently to stay up-to-date with supply, demand, and competition. This app makes that much easier, allowing you to both check statistics and update pricing any time you want.

The other major time-sensitive issue with selling online is responding to shoppers. Unlike brick-and-mortar stores, there’s not always someone on staff monitoring an online store when a visitor drops by. What if that person has a question or comment while they’re shopping?

Shopper enthusiasm is not constant; it’s highest during the shopping experience and then wanes when they move on to the rest of their day. If your responses come too late, the shopper may have lost interest completely by then — or already purchased from your competitor.

That’s where Amazon Seller shines. You can receive an alert the moment a shopper sends you a direct message and reply immediately, keeping their shopping momentum going and increasing your chances of making a sale.

Amazon's marketplace is open 24/7, and the more you can make yourself available, the better. With the seller app, you can quickly respond to customers anytime, anywhere, and take key actions for keeping your account healthy.

Leveraging FeedbackFive to Stay in the Loop

While the Amazon Seller app is useful on its own, you can really maximize its effectiveness by combining it with other seller software like our own FeedbackFive.

FeedbackFive helps sellers automate feedback and review requests in 17 Amazon marketplaces, either through Buyer-Seller messaging or Amazon's Request a Review message. This powerful software is an incredible time-saver and makes monitoring your ratings quick and easy.

And, similar to the seller app, you don't have to be logged on to stay in the loop; FeedbackFive's SMS and email notifications keep you informed of any new feedback and reviews received so you can take action much faster from wherever you are. Give the #1 rated feedback and reviews software in the Selling Partner Appstore (formerly the Seller Central Partner Network) a test drive today!