3 Ways to Create a Good Buying Experience on Amazon

eCommerce sellers have always faced one particular challenge: how do you convince consumers your products are worth purchasing when they can't see the items in person before buying?

Online customers take a risk every time they place an order. As an Amazon seller, you can’t remove that feeling of risk entirely, but you can take steps to give customers more confidence in their purchasing decisions by creating a better buying experience on the platform.

Why a Good Buying Experience on Amazon Matters

Enrolling in the FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) service lets you offload some of the work of customer service, but that doesn’t mean you’re entirely off the hook for creating a good customer experience. It’s still on you as the seller to control many crucial aspects of how buyers interact with your products and listings.

That starts with making sure you’re providing potential customers with all the information they need before they make a purchase. If customers can’t tell from your listing whether your product will meet their needs, many will click back to the results page to find a competitor whose listing is more thorough.

But lost sales aren’t the only risk. If customers make a purchase only to realize it’s not what they wanted after it arrives, that creates its own set of problems. It can not only lead to a high return rate but also negative reviews that affect future sales and your brand and product reputation.

Related reading: How to Lower Your Amazon Return Rate

3 Ways to Improve the Amazon Buying Experience

To create a better buying experience on Amazon, work to pack your product pages with plenty of information. You should also respond to any customer inquiries as soon as possible. Here are a few smart strategies to implement that will make you more memorable with buyers.

1) Enable Product Questions on Amazon for FBA Orders

When an Amazon customer has a question about a product, they don't have the option of flagging down an employee to ask in person. But if you enable product questions, they’ll get the next best thing—an option for getting the answer they need before they decide whether or not to buy.

As the seller, you have the most expertise on your products and are in the best position to provide useful answers to consumers. And seeing what product questions customers ask is valuable from a strategic standpoint as well. It provides intel on their priorities and other use cases for your product.

For Amazon sellers that manage order fulfillment themselves, Buyer-Seller Messaging will already be available by default. For sellers that use FBA, you can turn on Buyer-Seller Messaging to respond to a specific Amazon product question by:

Navigating to the Settings menu in your Amazon account and clicking Notification Preferences.
In the Messaging section, select Edit.
Select the Buyer Messages check box, then supply the email address you want questions to go to.
Click Save.

That part was easy. The more important part is to monitor that email inbox and answer the questions that come through as quickly as possible.

FBA Buyer-Seller Messaging is for product inquiries only. You can only respond to messages about returns containing an FBA product designated as a gift. Customer service-related inquiries on Amazon-fulfilled orders should be redirected to Amazon Customer Service.

2) Provide a Detailed Product Listing

The best way to avoid an Amazon product question in the first place is to think through everything a customer might want to know about your item and include it in the product listing.

A detailed product description should include information like:

The product’s size. This could mean listing the dimensions for some items or providing a more detailed sizing guide for products like clothing.
Other products it works with. This is especially important for products like electronics where customers need compatibility information to better inform their purchases.
Materials the product is made from or ingredients it includes. For example, for consumers with allergies, knowing what materials are present is crucial before buying.
Common use cases. List out some of the main ways customers can use the product so there's no question about what it can do.

What you include here will depend on the product you’re selling and what people need to know about it. Pay attention to your reviews (FeedbackFive's review tracking dashboard makes this process quick and easy!) and product questions to determine useful details to add to your descriptions and strengthen them over time.

Learn more: Amazon Listing Guide Best Practices

3) Include High-Quality Images and Video

You can cover a lot of territory with words, but including visuals of your product will go much further in showing consumers what to expect before they order.

Adding high-quality images to your product listings is expected—consumers are unlikely to take a chance on a product that they can’t even see. But you can also add videos that show your products in even more detail. Videos can function as short ads and as a way to provide instructions or tutorials.

Images and videos are both valuable tools for helping customers see what your product looks like and what it can do. It enables them to visualize how they’ll use it themselves, which makes the decision to buy that much easier. Amazon recommends that you have at least six images and one video on your product page.

Creating a Good Buying Experience Pays Off

When you give customers all the information they need upfront, you empower them to make a more informed purchasing decision.

By ensuring your product listings include detailed information and your top product questions on Amazon, you create a better buying experience for customers. That adds up to more satisfied buyers, better reviews, and higher profits for your business.