Detailed explanation of Amazon platform: from entry to master

Understand the Amazon platform

Amazon (Amazon, referred to as Amazon) is the largest online e-commerce company in the United States, located in Seattle, Washington. Amazon was founded in 1995. At first, it only operated online book sales. It has now expanded to a variety of other product areas, becoming the world’s most diverse online retailer and the world’s second-largest Internet company.

Platform sellers and buyers

Seller

Amazon is the world’s largest online retailer, allowing third-party sellers to sell products through the platform. Currently, sales from third-party sellers account for 50% of Amazon’s total sales. In 2017, the number of sellers registered on Amazon reached 391,905, with an average of 2,996 sellers registered every day. According to Amazon European market statistics, Chinese sellers account for about 25% of the Amazon market share, or even higher.

Buyer

Consumers on the Amazon platform are mainly middle-class high-quality customers in developed countries and are not price-sensitive, so product profit margins are guaranteed. If it is a powerful manufacturer that has OEM experience for well-known foreign brands and has established standards for product quality control, then opening a global store on Amazon is definitely a sales channel that cannot be missed. If it is a private brand or patent, you can also register the trademark on the platform to prevent it from being copied and infringed by other sellers.

Platform threshold

Amazon has a certain threshold. Not only is the procedure for opening a store complicated, but it is also relatively difficult to get started. At the same time, it also needs to prevent problems such as account association. If you accidentally violate its rules, you will be warned, or your store will be closed directly. After the store is blocked, the same set of information cannot be used to apply for a new store on the Amazon platform, and a new set of information must be replaced. Since the second half of 2016, Amazon has continued to strengthen its review of Chinese sellers. New sellers who have not received cross-border e-commerce training will encounter greater resistance than before, whether they are registering or operating.

Features of Amazon

Compared with other e-commerce platforms, Amazon has the following characteristics:

• Products are only sold based on pricing: Amazon does not provide any auction model services. Products are only sold based on pricing. Its products are displayed through display, search and classification.
• “Easy access and strict control”: Amazon adopts a “easy access and strict control” management approach, and both individuals and businesses can open stores on its platform. Except for some categories that require sellers to meet certain conditions to apply to Amazon, other categories are completely open to sellers, and Amazon allows sellers to sell second-hand goods.
• The platform adopts a product-centered structure: Amazon is different from other platforms in that it adopts a product-centered structure. Amazon does not develop special second-level domain names for stores. The home page of most stores is a product list, in order to dilute the store and ensure a unified brand image of the Amazon platform.
• Emphasis on product details, light on customer service consultation: The Amazon platform does not have online customer service, and buyers are encouraged to make their own purchases. Since there is no customer service to consult, the product details page is even more important. Sellers must make it as detailed as possible and include various issues that buyers may be concerned about, so as to encourage buyers to make shopping decisions as soon as possible and avoid buyers Abandoned purchase due to incomplete product information.
• Attach importance to buyer feedback: Amazon attaches great importance to buyer feedback, which includes two points, one is the product reviews, and the other is the buyer’s evaluation level of the service quality provided by the seller. In Amazon, buyer feedback and product reviews are very important, which represent whether the buyer is satisfied with the shopping experience.

Follow-up sales and prevention

How to follow sales safely

• Sellers must first ensure that the products they are selling have sufficient supply and ensure the quality of the products. Do not follow the sellers just for the sake of following them. If the quality and quantity of the products cannot be guaranteed, then following the sales is not a wise choice.
• Amazon allows follow-up sales, but it also pays attention to brand protection. Therefore, sellers should check the product details page in detail before engaging in follow-up sales, including product pictures, logo details and text descriptions. They also need to carefully check the trademark registration and filing status of the seller being followed. Sellers can check on Google or the US Trademark Network. To prevent infringement.
• During the follow-up period, you should pay attention to the price changes of other sellers and adjust the price of the follow-up products in a timely manner. However, the price should not be set too low to ensure that there is room for profit. For some products with simple structure and low profit, there is no need to follow them.
• Always pay attention to changes in the product details page. Do not know that the information has been changed from A to B. If you send the wrong goods, you will easily be complained by buyers.

How to prevent follow-up selling

• Make anti-counterfeiting marks on products or packaging. If there is no brand protection, sellers can combine different products together and sell them together. Or you can print your logo on the product or packaging so that other sellers can’t follow suit.
• Report copycat sellers to Amazon. If a seller holds brand agency rights or trademark rights but encounters a follow-up seller, he or she can communicate with the follow-up seller as soon as possible. Tell the other party that your products are protected by the brand, and ask them to remove the follow-up products. If the other party consciously removes the product, then there is no need to pursue it. However, if the other party does not listen to the advice, the seller who was followed by the follow-up seller can give it to the other party again. Send a warning email. If multiple warnings are still ineffective, you can directly complain to Amazon about the seller.
• Register trademarks and apply for brand registration to protect your own interests. Sellers can apply to register a local trademark and then apply for brand registration on the Amazon platform to prevent others from copying the product by creating their own brand.

Amazon’s Advantages

Compared with other cross-border e-commerce platforms, Amazon has the following obvious advantages:

• Abundant international supply: Amazon has been operating abroad for many years and has gathered a large number of overseas suppliers. Consumers can enjoy a total of more than 8,000 international products from Amazon in the United States, Germany, Spain, France, the United Kingdom and Italy. Categories open for direct mail include shoes and boots, clothing, maternal and infant, nutritional health and personal care.
• Systematicity of the entire logistics chain: Amazon has centralized the dispersed information flow and logistics of suppliers or consumers through the layout of large-scale warehousing operation centers, exerting scale effects and reducing the cost of the entire supply chain. operating costs, ultimately defeating competitors and seizing more market share.
• Scale: Amazon has signed a memorandum of cooperation with the China Free Trade Zone and Shanghai Information Investment Co., Ltd. The three parties will cooperate in the free trade zone to develop cross-border e-commerce business. Amazon will use the The cross-border platform carries out large-scale operations.