“Amazon FBA Predictions 2021: What Happened in 2020 and What We Predict for the New Year” (Source: Jungle Scout)
1 in 3 consumers increased their online spending between July and September of 2020. On top of that, fourth-quarter holiday shopping events were a boon for online retailers and many foresee a continued shift to eCommerce in 2021
The changes predicted to impact FBA business in the new year are 1. More Brand Registry features, 2. Expanded video content, 3. Continued growth for Amazon, 4. Improved features and targeting options, and 5. Added support for small and medium-sized businesses.
Sellers will be able to “gate” their own listings allowing only approved sellers to list their products. This would make controlling listings and pricing much much easier for third-party sellers.
Amazon will soon allow all sellers to upload videos to their listings, regardless of their tenure on the platform and has already taken a step toward more video features by introducing Amazon Live. They’ll most-likely feature video content on customers’ Amazon homepages related to products they viewed or purchased in the past.
Amazon will focus more on improving the ad platform and add new targeting options for brand-registered sellers. So if you have not applied for Brand Registry yet, you should really look into it for 2021.
Amazon will support small businesses in 2021 by spotlighting small businesses on the Amazon homepage, making it easier to find the small business page, featuring small businesses in the categories customers are likely to shop, and highlighting nearby small businesses so customers can support their local economy.
“Upload your product images faster” (Source: Amazon News)
Amazon announced that in a continuous effort to make it easier for you to provide images to your Amazon listings, they have launched a new bulk image upload tool.
Previously, you could only upload images and view the upload status for one product at a time.
Now, you can now upload up to 5 GB worth of product images at once with the bulk image upload tool and view the status of all your uploads in the image upload status report in Seller Central.
The new bulk image upload tool and image upload status report are available now.
“Amazon Sellers Have A Merry Christmas, But Struggle With Returns” (Source: PYMNTS)
While Amazon has said that they delivered more than 1.5 billion gifts this season, nearly one billion products were sold by Amazon’s third-party sellers.
Now, sellers have to play on the same returns field as their bigger competitors, as returns season follows what was a watershed event for Amazon and its sellers.
Issues are already starting to pop up, most notably around the on-time delivery and customer experience rating that is so important for third-party sellers.
With so much business that went out this holiday season, sellers need to be prepared for the business coming back.
Failure to refund consumers fast enough will have a more detrimental effect on ODR rate than the returns themselves. Amazon is aware returns are going to spike even more after this holiday season since the period of time has been extended.
Making sure sellers stay on top of refunds will ensure ODR rates are not severely affected and their accounts are not in jeopardy of getting suspended.
The expected wave of returns will impact sellers’ bottom line and cash flow, especially during January. The true profit of the 2020 holiday season may not be known until the end of January 2021.
“Everything You Need To Know About The New Amazon Virtual Product Bundle Tool” (Source: Helium 10)
The Virtual Product Bundles tool for FBA (only available for Amazon USA right now) lets brand owners create bundles made up of complementary ASINs from a single detail page.
A handful of Amazon sellers have been using bundling since last year as a Beta test group. For now, it is only open to those with Brand Registry 2.0.
A bundled ASIN allows brand owners to offer bundles without packaging items together or changing FBA inbound inventory.
Once a product is part of an Amazon bundle, the “main component” or main product in the bundle will get a prominent widget on the page right under the main image that directs people to the bundle, and is above the Frequently Bought Together section.
Currently, you cannot run regular PPC (sponsored product ads) to these ASINs. You can run sponsored brand ads to it, however.
You need to offer some kind of discount (or be priced the same). The bundle cannot be higher priced than the total of someone buying the products separately. Bundles cannot yet be part of variation families.
There are no backend search terms for the new bundle, however, you can enter your own title, bullet points, and description. The bundle ASIN will automatically inherit the search keywords from its main component ASIN.
At face value, this tool has the potential to increase your Amazon business. As it is now, it’s something that seems to be a risk-free way to get more exposure for your products.
