5 Amazon Seller Mistakes to Avoid This Q4

Welcome to the jungle of Q4 on Amazon! As we power through the final few months of the year, many Amazon businesses are working extra hard to make the holiday shopping period as lucrative as possible.

There are lots of great tips for how to prepare and succeed on Amazon throughout the season, but as we’re in the thick of it, here are five common Amazon FBA mistakes to avoid during Q4.

But before we dive in, let's recap why Q4 is so important for eCommerce sellers in the first place.

Why Are Amazon Seller Mistakes So Costly in Q4?

When it comes to selling on Amazon, there are many pitfalls and also many paths to success. Every business will be different, which makes sweeping advice trickier to incorporate into your plans. But historically, Amazon has reported that sellers can see as much as a 30% profit boost from October to December.

On average, US small and medium-sized businesses sold more than 4,000 items per minute on Amazon in 2019.

In financial terms, this accounts for billions of dollars. Don’t miss out on your share of this eCommerce pie. Ensure you maximize your profits and come out unscathed in January by avoiding making the following mistakes selling on Amazon.

1) Fail to Run Promotions or Offers

Success on Amazon is all about staying visible. With customers searching for great deals earlier and earlier, it’s hard to be competitive without running some kind of discount or promotion.

This is especially true for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The reason is psychological and also visual for Amazon shoppers. On Amazon, products that are running deals and discounts receive banners in search and browse results and, depending on the deal type, potentially additional marketing placements across the store.

These discounts also pull through to some types of Amazon Advertising placements you may be running both on and off Amazon. Even if you miss submitting Lightning Deals or other key promotion cut-offs, you can always run a coupon! This deal type can be set up in minutes and adjusted to your particular needs.

Even running $1 off or just 5% off can be really beneficial, driving traffic to your product and your whole brand as well as increasing conversion once customers land on the detail page. Case in point: Which products catch your attention in the images below?

These are examples of products running 7-Day Deals and basic coupons on Amazon.com. Ready to run your own coupons this Q4? Learn more about how to set up coupons on Seller Central.

2) Focus Your Attention on ASINs that are Not Retail-Ready

Sometimes, sellers are so eager to get their products selling on Amazon, that they hurry too fast and don’t put their best foot forward. Using resources to advertise and promote ASINs with bad content can be a waste of time and money, especially during peak season when marketing costs will be higher.

Even if your brand can logistically support a Black Friday deal, you should not do it if the ASIN isn’t retail-ready. This usually means in stock, with at least a 3.5-star average rating, on a detail page with at least 15 reviews, and one that is fully optimized.

Related Reading: How to Get More Reviews

Listings should have professional images (and videos), full descriptions, contain SEO keywords for organic acceleration, A+ Content, and be featured in your Brand Store. If you didn’t adequately prepare your full catalog before October, try to focus on your products that are retail-ready and maximize your cost-benefit. Promote and advertise items that are likely to do the most good for your business.

This is even more important on Amazon during Q4. Many shoppers use Amazon to comparison shop, read reviews, and check out a brand before making a purchase, even if they end up buying it elsewhere. A poor customer experience with one product can make or break the season for your whole brand on Amazon.

This also might mean turning off advertising and even dialing down stock for items that are not giftable, not ready to perform well, or likely to run out of stock before peak periods.

3) Limit Your Advertising Budget

Q4 is not a time to fix it and forget it when it comes to ads. Amazon Advertising is crucial this time of year. Don’t assume that an advertising budget that works well for you during the rest of the year will be sufficient during Q4.

Our in-house advertising team at eCommerce Nurse recommends an “always on” strategy. That means starting your campaigns early so they can build momentum. Don’t wait until late November to start scheduling your campaigns for the rest of Q4. And maybe more importantly, don’t mess with campaigns that are working, unless you’re merely increasing the budget or bidding on certain keywords.

Pay-per-click bids and other advertising costs can skyrocket during Q4, so be smart about your increases. It’s not necessary to increase the whole budget for three full months, which will obviously impact your margins. But you should try to target your spending to cover periods of time when most people will be shopping.

Use budget rules to automatically increase the overall budget or individual bids during peak periods. This might mean a higher budget during Black Friday, for example, to ensure your campaigns run all day and do their work in all relevant time zones. Also, spread the increased budget out over time so your return on ad spend can carry through to Christmas Eve shipping cut-offs and not run out the first week of December.

4) Ignore Your Brand Store

Another key component of the Amazon Advertising platform is not just your ad campaigns, but your Brand Store. At eCommerce Nurse, we build and manage Brand Stores for small businesses and large, international brands. The most successful branded stores refresh their content in Q4 to give it a slight holiday feel.

This doesn’t have to involve a lot of resources. Here are some simple things to do:

Include a module to showcase any items you’re planning to feature in deals at the top of your Brand Store. This can help you capitalize on Q4 traffic and draw attention to any deals you’ve scheduled.
Consider a banner/graphic at the top of your store with a holiday treatment. Everyone loves Christmas lights!
Ensure all of your products and your bestsellers are featured prominently.

Because some brands set up Brand Stores and then ignore them completely, updating your brand’s store is an easy way to distinguish yourself from the competition with a premium feel. Brand Stores also increase traffic to your brand overall and can provide a cohesive experience across your brand (from your own website, social media, etc).

5) Make Massive Changes and Adjustments

Q4 can be a volatile time, and it can be tempting to constantly react to changes in real-time. Amazon is also known for unpredictability, such as deciding to enforce new storage limits, adjusting shipping cut-offs, or even suspending your brand after a new policy roll-out. Try not to panic, because the stress of trying to outperform your previous year’s results or triumph over competitors can be a bit overwhelming.

Don’t try A/B tests, testing Amazon Ads campaigns, swapping out product images or updating content (unless it’s due to a truly crucial issue), or anything else rash. Any benefits to this are likely outweighed by the prospect of a product suspension or an issue that you won’t want to deal with during Q4 when Seller Support is likely to be not very quick or not very jolly. Instead, maintain what you know works and be consistent.

If you follow this advice, you won’t be spending your time messing around the backend of Seller Central. Instead, focus your efforts on traffic drivers outside Amazon. This may mean driving traffic from your business’ website or social media channels to your (beautiful, refreshed) Amazon Brand Store, posting holiday content and sales, working with influencers, requesting reviews post-purchase, or analyzing results.

Above All, Don't Panic

The Q4 period can be fast-paced and challenging to navigate. Even seasoned sellers make mistakes, but the learning curve can be especially detrimental to new sellers or smaller businesses using Amazon as their main platform. By following our tips and learning the top Amazon seller mistakes to avoid, you’re likely to have a happy, successful Q4 and start next year off right.

If you are looking for more support with your account, including Amazon Advertising, marketing, consulting, account management for vendors and sellers, and more, eCommerce Nurse is a boutique agency specializing in tailoring our services to your specific experience, needs, and budget. Contact us for more information.