SNIPPET: With marketplaces now in 11 countries, Amazon has amassed an enormous customer base on a global scale. The premier marketplace, with the highest product count is Amazon U.S.
If you are a seller in a country outside of the United States, you can still take advantage of the most powerful Amazon marketplace. The key? Thoughtful, strategic copywriting.
Amazon is expanding into countries all over the world, making it easier than ever for sellers anywhere to launch their products.
With marketplaces in 11 countries, Amazon has amassed a global customer base. That said, the premier marketplace, with the highest product count by a significant margin, is still Amazon U.S.
As of October 2017, Amazon U.S. sells more than 606 million products. That’s a hefty 207 million products ahead of the closest second, Amazon Germany.
It’s also experiencing impressive growth. In 2017, approximately 1.3 million products were listed on Amazon U.S. per day, and that number is only climbing. More businesses and entrepreneurs are recognizing the power of Amazon to elevate their products to visibility and success. This makes Amazon a landscape of both opportunity and competition.
How can I turn this into an opportunity for my non-US brand?
If you are a seller in a country outside of the United States, you can still take advantage of the most powerful Amazon marketplace.
Creating U.S. Amazon listings for your products is a great way to expand your customer base. But, your Amazon listings must be strategically crafted to see results. To create listings on Amazon that stand up to competitors, you’ll have to appeal to American customers.
The key to achieving these goals? Strategic, thoughtful copywriting. Copywriting has to do with all the text on a listing in both the front and back end of Amazon.
Title, bullet points, thumbnail copy, product description, and enhanced brand content are all copies. These all present opportunities to convince your customer to decide to buy. You can describe special features of your product, highlight its utility, and create a tangible sense of your product in these spaces.
On the backend, the search terms that you include for Amazon’s indexing purposes will not be seen by customers. Instead, it acts as one of the deciding factors about your product’s visibility.
Keywords integrated into your customer-facing copy and backend terms help your product rise to the top of search results. This is where customers do the majority of their clicking and buying. You can read more in-depth about how and why copywriting is such a crucial element of Amazon’s success here.
As an international seller creating U.S. Amazon listings, you will face some unique challenges when it comes to copywriting. We’ll help you recognize these challenges and leverage solutions to ensure that your Amazon listings stand up to the competition.
Challenge: The Language Barrier
Copywriting is more than a step in building your Amazon listings. Rather, it’s an art that requires a strong grasp of language. For international sellers looking to build U.S. Amazon listings, this poses a problem. Non-native English speakers often find it difficult to craft copy that can compete with other top listings.
Relying on online translation tools such as Google Translate doesn’t solve the problem. These machines ignore the nuances of language that make compelling copy. Translator tools produce literal translations, which result in lifeless copies. You may also lose effective keywords in translation, sacrificing traffic and conversions.
The solution is to seek copy written by a native speaker, one with experience writing Amazon listings. This is the only way to ensure the copy you post is accurate and informative. It also ensures your listings are compelling enough to encourage sales.
Challenge: The Cultural Differences
Each country has unique cultural elements, including the way products are marketed. This is an important factor to consider while copywriting. Appealing to your target customer involves being in tune with their cultural values and language.
Plus, shopping behaviors vary across borders. For example, Chinese shoppers rely more heavily on social media to inform their buying decisions than Americans. 75% of Chinese Internet users post feedback on their purchases at least once a month.
Another study found that consumers’ most important reason to choose a brand is “innovation” in the USA, but “brand credibility” in China. This disparity is likely because Chinese consumers have faced a long history of being deceived by brands in terms of quality. Meanwhile, American brands have more standards in place to guarantee the quality of their goods.
Chinese brands must perform more footwork to gain a customer’s trust in their marketing efforts. Whereas, US brands generally assume trust and tend to focus more on the unique aspects of their products.
These are just a few examples of how cultural differences are emulated in marketing copy. To ensure that your copywriting matches the framework of American shoppers, it is best to have an American copywriter produce it.
Expanding into Amazon US is a smart business decision no matter where you are based. You can sidestep the hurdles of transitioning by investing in copywriting. This is one of many services that Lab 916 extends to our clients. Schedule a consultation to learn more about how we can help your brand move into Amazon US.
