The goal of this article is to detail many different components to how a brand could begin to value the sellers that sell your product on Amazon.
If you work with experienced sellers, they can help your products shine and bring them in front of more customers in many cases than if you sold the product yourself.
Working with fewer, but higher quality sellers can do a lot of things to help a brand’s position on Amazon. Some of the quality factors between sellers that you need to consider are as follows:
Seller Approval Rating
- Think overall customer service here and you can view this information for each seller when reviewing the new or used offers on any product
- You want to see that the product is sold via “FBA” which stands for Fulfilled by Amazon, which means the customer is guaranteed to receive their product within 2 days since the product is available via Prime
- In general, you want to see at least ~97% positive feedback or higher to set a standard of high-quality service
Overall Experience as a Seller
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- Shows you if a seller can handle volume and maintain their customer service over time
- Look for the, “total ratings” number just below the approval rating when viewing a sellers offer on Amazon – Want to see a minimum of ~4,000 total ratings to be assured in our estimation that the seller has extensive experience over time
Average Purchase Amount Over a Period of Time
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- Valuing total purchases reduces your need to find additional sellers and creates a closer working relationship as the seller is more invested in your products
- Ability to grow this component as well
- Eliminates drop ship sellers from your approach
Brands Ability to Contact Sellers
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- Quickly resolving problems, pricing issues (i.e. MAP), clerical errors, payment terms etc.
Understanding of the Amazon Marketplace
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- Troubleshooting product issues, bringing new products to market (creating listings), advertising products to grow overall market share on Amazon for your brand
To summarize the above information, working with sellers that have a higher seller rating, more experience, and can deliver on the other areas mentioned above will increase the quality of customer service received overall for people interacting with your brand on Amazon. Keep in mind, running a large retail business or a brick and mortar store with good customer service often has no correlation to a good seller rating on Amazon.
This is an entirely different arena.
Sellers who specialize in Amazon are more often going to have a better understanding of customer service on this platform. For example, here are some big retailers with subpar ratings as of July 2019:
- Champ’s Sports: 91%
- Shoebacca: 92%
- Peltz Shoes: 95%
- The Vitamin Shoppe: 92%
- GNC: 96%
- Under Armour: 90%
- ShoeMall: 87%
- Petco: 89%
- Office Depot: 90%
Our positive Amazon seller rating has hovered around ~99.9% consistently over the past 5 years and we take this very seriously. We do whatever it takes to provide the customer service necessary for every purchase that is made through our account. If you don’t find sellers that put customer service first, as we do, then your brand won’t be as strong as it could be with customers on Amazon. You now know how to gauge that properly!
Lastly, if you’re wondering why you want to have ~5-10 sellers instead of one main relationship on Amazon (which includes Amazon itself as a seller), you want to consider the control you would have over your brand on Amazon. Imagine if your financial advisor recommended that you put your entire retirement portfolio into one stock? Diversification is a component here as well.
Plus, the setup with a handful of sellers gives you maximum coverage on product and leverage to get sellers to comply with your policies. Under this scenario, you will be less likely to have product go out of stock and you can enforce your rules by enacting penalties to those that don’t comply as you have other sellers who would continue to move product in the meantime.
Quality of sellers on Amazon matters, and its time you took control of your brand. Give it the best chance to succeed with the most experienced sellers on the platform.