Our top 10 posts for 2014 are a pretty clear reflection of our company priorities. We help companies make the best product pages possible, and we guide the uninitiated through the rough jungles of selling on Amazon. This list is a sharp how-to on both counts, so we’re going to consider this a pretty good year for our blog.
The Year in Amazon Expertise
Interpreting Google and other analytics is often more of an art than a science, but if you’re lucky, dominating trends will stand out. So it seems we are lucky, because our analytics always bring us one clear trend: the people want to know more about Amazon. We are nothing if not servants of the people, and so we deliver.
1. The top post of the year, by a significant margin, was Amazon Vendor Central v. Seller Central: What Are the Benefits? We have learned, and are reminded of over and over, how absolutely baffling Amazon is to newbies as well as to those who have been in the game for a while. This extends to the fairly basic question of what version of selling on Amazon can you or should you use? If you’re asking yourself this question right now, see the post for our answer.
2. and 3. Number 2 was a hit from late 2013, Amazon’s Vendor Central Templates: Insider Impressions, while number 3 was its successor, Goodbye Templates, Hello Modules: Amazon A+ 2.0. The templates and the modules arrived unannounced, creating massive interruptions in Amazon A+ strategies still in the making, and they clearly still confound manufacturers.
4. The Essential Guide to Amazon Vendor Central Templates. Instead of using the freeform design available via Webcollage (which can be syndicated to Walmart and Costco, among other retailers) to display products to their best advantage, Vendor Central sellers found themselves needing to work with rigid building blocks to create A+ content for Amazon.com. And, finding themselves stumped, they found their way to us. Glad to help.
And Other Product Pages, Too
Like many of our clients’ robust, diverse multichannel strategies, we’re about more than just Amazon, and we dove into the many aspects of enhanced product content too.
5. Product Comparison Charts: An Instructive Tour explains the elements of a product comparison chart (or matrix) and how to create one that gives your customer the information they need without overwhelming them in a sea of floating specs.
6. In Why Online Retail Content Fails and How to Fix It, we looked at four keys to ensure your product content works: understanding your audience, keeping marketing out of your enhanced content, considering translation, and incorporating clean design.
7. Product Description Word Counts: Why Length Matters is a perennial favorite of readers and c26ers alike. It’s not just what you say – it’s also how you say it and how long you say it for. (Tl;dr: 250 to 400 words is the sweet spot.)
8. Aaaand, back to Amazon with Amazon Modules: A Brave New Product Page. This is our in-depth look at the pros and cons of the modules. If we do say so ourselves, it goes deeper into the subject than anyone else has yet.
There are plenty of up-and-comers in the online retailer world (Alibaba, please pick up the white service phone), but Amazon is likely to be a mainstay for the coming years, despite the many kinds of competition and disruption they’re currently facing. We promise we’ll have lots of Amazon-related content to come to help get you through it.
9. This spot goes to Product Marketing and Merchandising: the Right Place for the Buy Button, a treatise on omnichannel, buy everywhere, and when the Buy button can cause more harm than good. Hint: some social media is for marketing, and some is for merchandising. Your vertical and your audience determine which is which for your company.
10. Rounding out the list is Product Images: The Power to Convert. This post practices what it preaches, using bright, delectable images to demonstrate the importance of the visual when composing a product page.
The Takeaway
Product pages are tricky beasts, and Amazon A+ content is no exception. Need more guidance? Email us. This is what we do, and we’d love to work with you.
Happy new year!
Editor’s note: We also recommend our two-part series on Costco, which came out a little too late to make the list honestly. Part one is You Should Be Selling on Costco.com, and part two is How to Sell on Costco.com.
