Top Amazon News & Updates For Sellers (February 2021 Edition)

Amazon is ever-changing. From introducing new reports in Advertising to changing category requirements for the supplements category, the eCommerce behemoth has constantly been making tweaks to make it easier for the sellers to sell and the shoppers to buy. Sometimes amidst the chaos and the hustle, it can be difficult to keep up which is why we have brought our monthly updates blog. Read on and stay updated.

1) Launch announcement: Amazon will expand to Poland

Amazon is all set to enter Poland's blooming $19 billion market. The retail giant has 10 logistics centers in Poland that help process Amazon EU's deliveries, but now it's all set to bring full consumer retail offering. The company has supported hundreds and thousands of Polish sellers by allowing them to sell on other EU marketplaces, but now with the launch, they can increase their reach exponentially.

"Amazon has been supporting Polish customers and selling partners across our different European stores for many years, but the next step is to bring a full consumer retail offering to Poland and we are making those plans now," said Alex Ootes, Vice President of EU Expansion at Amazon. "We are excited to empower small Polish businesses through Amazon and are investing in tools and services to help them grow. We're optimistic that by focusing on the things we believe customers value the most – low prices, vast selection, and fast delivery – over time, we will earn the trust of customers in Poland."

Amazon's expansion brings significant competition risk to Allegro, which has seen a boom in online sales after country-wide lockdowns during the COVID-10 pandemic. However, the Polish company has said that it's ready for the competition.

Sellers interested in selling in Poland can register at https://sell.amazon.pl.

2) Adding customer search terms to your campaigns just got easier

Looking at the constant technical updates and rivaling of their 3rd party tools, Amazon is developing features to dominate the market from the customers, sellers, or even third-party service providers. Amazon has just introduced the customer search terms feature where you can add profitable customer search terms and negative keywords into ad groups without downloading the Customer Search Terms Report. Just select the keywords from the left side in the "Search Terms" tab and your terms directly as negative keywords (both match type - Exact and Phrase are available) or as a target keyword.

3) New Changes To Dietary & Supplements Category

Amazon makes it difficult to get ungated in the Health and Personal Care category. The company states that these new changes will deter careless and counterfeit sellers. To get approval in the Dietary & Supplements Category, you must submit the following documents: Certificate of Analysis (COA), Letter of Guarantee, and product images that have a label, nutrition facts, and the name and address of the company visible. The approval can take about 48 hours or less. The changes are made at the ASIN level, so sellers will have to submit documents for EVERY product.

Note: There are no shortcuts to this process except for keeping all the paperwork ready and organized. Consider hiring Amazon Marketing Consultants to make the process hassle free.

4) Create Shipments faster with "Send to Amazon" Feature

Creating FBA shipments is probably one of the most tedious jobs as an Amazon seller. Luckily Amazon has rolled out a brand new FBA shipment feature that makes your shipment creating process a whole lot easier. The tool is called: Send to Amazon. Send to Amazon lets you create reusable packing templates to provide box content information, box weight and dimensions, and prep and labeling details for your SKUs. Once you save those details in a template, you will not have to re-enter them for each shipment, saving you time.

To get started, open Manage Shipments and go to Send To Amazon or click on the below link:

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/fba/sendtoamazon/

5) Amazon makes brand storefront more prominent on the product detail page

Amazon's yet another attempt to make the storefront more prominent. Shoppers can now view the storefront category directly from the product detail page. It appears right below the Frequently Bought Together section and is strategically placed right above the Amazon Sponsored Ads. This feature gives brand store owners more real estate on the detail page and also allows them to connect more with their customers. The section appears as a big banner, is displayed in brand colors, and is almost unmissable – meaning you are sure to get your shopper's attention. The section displays the first 4 categories from the page – so make sure you categorize and organize your products properly.

6) Product images & titles now available for A/B Tests with Manage Your Experiments

The Manage Your Experiments feature now allows you to A/B test your product images and title. Until now, you could only experiment with two versions of your Amazon Enhanced Brand Content, but now at no additional cost, you can also optimize your product image and title for better conversion. So with Manage Your Experiments, you can run A/B experiments on three areas of your detail page: A+ Content, product titles, and images. Experiments are easy to start and the results are detailed yet easy to understand.

If you want to create a different variation for testing, please hire our Amazon Photo Editing services.

Related post: Take Out The Guesswork From A+ Pages With Amazon’s Manage Your Experiments Feature

7) Updates to the FBA New Selection program

Last April, Amazon rolled out the FBA New Selection program, and since then, over 60,000 enrolled sellers have sent over 680,000 new-to-FBA parent ASINs to Amazon FBA centers. Looking at the positive feedback, Amazon has expanded the program this year. The new benefits include:

• Oversize item eligibility: Starting April 1, 2021, for up to 30 units per parent ASIN, Amazon will provide free storage for up to 90 days and free removals for up to 180 days for eligible oversize items.

• Sponsored advertising: Starting April 1, 2021, for eligible sellers, Amazon will offer promotional credits for sponsored ads.

• ASIN limit: Starting April 1, 2021, Amazon will remove the 500-ASIN limit, allowing an unlimited amount of eligible, new-to-FBA parent ASINs to qualify for program benefits.

Advertising updates:

8) Sponsored brand campaigns now give a category benchmark report:

Category benchmarks are available for impressions, click-through rate (CTR), return on ad spend (ROAS), and advertising cost of sales (ACOS). For each metric, the benchmark presents your performance with your closest peers' performance values at the median, lower-performing quartile (bottom 25%), and top-performing quartile (top 25%) within specific shopping categories.

9) Sponsored Display audiences expand to new countries

Amazon has expanded the release of Sponsored Display audiences internationally for vendors and sellers registered in the Amazon Brand Registry to seven additional countries: CA, DE, ES, FR, IT, the UAE, and the UK. Sponsored Display is the only ad type that gives you access to placements both on and off Amazon—including highly visible placements on the Amazon.com home page.

10) Sponsored Brands' video ads launched in AU, CA, and MX

Sponsored Brands video is now available to vendors and sellers registered in the Amazon Brand Registry in AU, CA, and MX, in addition to DE, ES, FR, IN, IT, JP, the UK, and the US. Sponsored Brand Video ads allow advertisers to stand out amongst the search result pages. Ads are keyword targeted, cost-per-click, and link customers directly to the product detail page where they can learn more and purchase.

11) New Search Terms report feature available for Brand Analytics

The new report is introduced in Brand Analytics that shows how customers (in aggregate) find your and your competitor's products in Amazon stores. The report includes relative search popularity, click share, and conversion share for each of the top three clicked products for a given search term. With the introduction of this report, you can better understand which of your products might be losing search relevancy, and based on that data; you can adjust your product images, title, and advertising campaigns.

12) New Brand metrics are now available for SD audience targeting!

Sponsored Display audience retargeting is a great way to increase your sales by targeting shoppers who visited your product detail page but didn't purchase. Despite being so useful, there weren't any reports that could help advertisers optimize their campaigns. But now, new brand metrics are introduced that help calculate the true returns of your ad. For products like consumables & supplements, this metric is very useful.

13) New Search Terms report feature available for Brand Analytics

The new report is introduced in Brand Analytics that shows how customers (in aggregate) find your and your competitor's products in the Amazon Seller Storefront. The report includes relative search popularity, click share, and conversion share for each of the top three clicked products for a given search term. With the introduction of this report, you can better understand which of your products might be losing search relevancy, and based on that data; you can adjust your product images, title, and advertising campaigns.

Staying updated is as easy as reading our blogs

There are so many updates every day; it’s hard to keep up. But with our monthly updates blog, you can stay on top of all Amazon developments and changes. Every month we round up the most essential and need-to-know updates for and relating to Amazon sellers. Check in here every month and catch up on what’s making news on Amazon lately.

There’s more. Our Amazon Consultants at eStore Factory collect all the need-to-know updates that affect you as a seller and we post them on our Amazon Seller News page. Bookmark this page and stay on top of everything.