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Feb 16 2024

Amazon Sellers: Inventory Tips & Tactics For 2024 Success via @sejournal, @AMZRobynJohnson

Inventory has always played a significant role in the way you sell on Amazon.

Running out of inventory can impact your organic ranking and can impact your advertising strategy.

Besides the potential loss of sales, poor inventory control also impacts the amount of inventory Amazon will allow you to send into the Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) program.

Keep reading to learn more about:

How your Inventory Performance Index (IPI) score impacts your available storage volume.
What the IPI is, and how it’s calculated.
Recommended actions for improving your IPI score.
Tips for Amazon sellers who are new to Seller Central.

Amazon Limiting Sellers Storage Based On Storage Utilization

Amazon controls your storage capacity limits based on storage utilization and your sales history:

Total Capacity Limit

This limits the amount of inventory you can restock to Amazon’s FBA warehouses in one shipment and the overall maximum number of units you can store at Amazon.

Accounts that have been active for less than 39 weeks are not subject to these restrictions.

It is important to note that this is only true for those accounts on the Professional Seller Plan. Those with individual Seller Plans are limited to 15 cubic feet per month.

This limits the maximum cubic feet of storage space you have at Amazon. These limits are reviewed and adjusted monthly.

Any changes you can expect for your storage capacity for the following month will be announced on the third Monday of the month.

Included in your storage usage are the inventory currently stored at Amazon, inventory en route to Amazon, and any shipments that have been prepared but not yet sent to Amazon.

Screenshot of storage capacity monitor on Amazon Seller Central.

Screenshot from Amazon Seller Central, February 2024

The Storage Volume is highly impacted by your IPI (Inventory Performance Index).

We will further discuss how your IPI is calculated later in this article.

Screenshot from Amazon Seller Central, February 2024

Sellers who fall below the minimum criteria can have their storage limited. Operating with such limited storage can significantly undermine your sales forecasts.

We will outline the steps you can take to ensure you have sufficient storage for your high-demand season, maximizing your sales on Seller Central.

We’ll also review what you can do if you fall below Amazon’s set criteria.

You can find your limit by going to Seller Central, selecting Inventory, navigating to the Inventory Dashboard, and then selecting Inventory Performance under the dropdown for Inventory.

Screenshot of how to navigate to find your storage capacity on Amazon.

Screenshot from Amazon, February 2024

Your IPI score will be near the top of the page.

To reach your storage capacity, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the small gray box labeled Capacity Monitor.

Success on Amazon Means You Have To Manage Your Inventory Levels Proactively

Amazon says that it considers the following criteria for your storage levels:

IPI Score and Sales Performance: Higher storage capacities are granted to accounts that consistently achieve a high IPI score.
Storage Utilization: In determining storage limits, Amazon considers your current inventory, inbound inventory, and shipments that are prepared but not yet dispatched.
Sales Volume: Amazon will also look at sales volume over time.

Improving Your IPI

If you have a low IPI score, know it will take time to improve your score.

IPI is a rolling average. It can take anywhere from 2 to 12 weeks to increase your score on Amazon, so planning ahead of time is essential.

This means if your IPI is below the 400 Amazon requires, you need to start taking aggressive action today.

This article will outline how to avoid having detrimental storage limits, how it happens, and what to do when you’re already below the threshold.

For those interested in Restock Limits, we’ll explore this topic in more detail later in the guide.

What Is The IPI (Inventory Performance Index), And Does It Affect Me?

The IPI will only affect those using Seller Central and FBA warehouses.

It does not affect those using Vendor Central, Kindle Direct Platform, or those selling on Seller Central by Merchant Fulfilling or utilizing Seller Fulfilled Prime for their items.

Inventory Performance Index (IPI)

The Inventory Performance Index (IPI) manages how well you control and manage your inventory at Amazon.

This metric is a 12-week rolling average. It looks at several components over three months.

Four components make up the Inventory Performance Index (IPI):

Excess Inventory

This is the most important metric as it measures where your profitability may take a hit due to storage fees and holding costs for slow-moving FBA inventory.

Excess Inventory percentages help sellers plan when to restock more or remove inventory from FBA.

An item is considered to have excess inventory when it has over 90 days of supply based on the forecasted demand.

Sell Through Rate

This metric is just how it sounds. The formula that Amazon uses to calculate Sell Through rates is:

(Units Shipped In the Last 90 Days)/(Average Units on Hand Over the Last 90 days)

Stranded Inventory

This provides information on products that aren’t selling due to listing issues.

This occurs when your listing doesn’t meet Amazon guidelines.

In these instances, your products become stranded and unable to move while still incurring FBA storage fees.

In-Stock Inventory

Amazon looks at the percentage of time your products have been in stock during the past 30 days, with additional weight given to items that have sold more units over the past 60 days.

If you maintain a high in-stock inventory, it will result in fewer lost sales.

Four components of the Inventory Performance Index.

Screenshot from author, February 2024

It is important to highlight that these components are not weighted equally.

Excess Inventory

Excess Inventory and Sell-Through Rate are the parameters that have the most significant impact on IPI, while Stranded Inventory and Restock Rates can play a minor role in the overall score.

This means you will get more movement focusing solely on the first two components rather than spreading your efforts equally across all four elements.

During the height of the pandemic, Amazon changed the minimum IPI to 500. IT has since reduced the minimum IPI back to 400.

However, Amazon can increase or decrease the minimum IPI desired score at any point in time.

For this reason, we advise our clients to aim for a total IPI of 600.

Your minimum goal should be achieving at least 50 points over the current IPI requirement.

Some product mixes make maintaining a high IPI easier than others. For example, if you are a small brand with many products that move consistently, your IPI will generally tend to be higher.

If you are a seller with a large product mix that changes often, it is the most challenging to manage.

Combatting Capacity Limits

If you’re currently experiencing a capacity limit, Amazon can increase your capacity limit for a specific period of time by submitting a request subject to Amazon’s approval.

It is important to remember that if the storage limit increase request gets approved, your account is subject to paying a “reservation fee” for each cubic foot of capacity requested, and it will get charged at the end of the specified period.

Such fee is subject to a credit depending on your sales achieved during the period (performance credits are earned at $0.15 for every dollar of sales you generate using the additional capacity.)

Another alternative is to continue selling items via merchant fulfillment or using other third-party sellers to move your inventory or send small shipments of your fastest, most profitable inventory to Amazon.

Further down in this article, we will highlight what you can do when your inventory performance is low, you are facing potential inventory limits, or if you’re new to Amazon.

Why Would Amazon Do This?

It seems like it would be counterintuitive for a company that is so focused on having as many products on its platform as possible to limit the amount of inventory you could sell.

However, as more sellers joined the platform and with rising FBA and Prime offers, overcrowding at the warehouses started to become a larger problem for Amazon.

Amazon sellers were attracted to FBA because of the low cost of storage rates. Sellers were using the FBA program as a cheap way to warehouse large amounts of inventory.

At first, Amazon tried to increase storage fees. Adding long-term storage fees dramatically increased the storage cost for merchandise aged over six months.

However, even with those changes, Amazon couldn’t curve the overcrowding and demand in its FBA warehouses.

As a result, it started to introduce storage limits in 2019.

From Amazon’s perspective, it wants to ensure customers have favorable shopping experiences and quickly get the products they want.

This means ensuring that the products most likely to sell are available.

Amazon looks at how you have managed inventory in the past and whether customers are purchasing your products to determine how much space is allocated to you.

The better Amazon feels you are at managing your space at Amazon’s FBA warehouses, the more storage space you will be allowed.

What If My IPI Is Below The Current Threshold?

If your IPI is currently below the threshold or within 50 points of the lowest threshold, these are the actions we recommend.

The first step is to check the current threshold. As of the writing of this article, the current threshold for IPI is 400.

However, here’s the direct link to the policy so you can find the current threshold, as Amazon can change this at any time. You can find the current required IPI in Seller Support under the heading FBA Inventory Storage Limits (login required).

You can review your current IPI score in Seller Central by going to Inventory, Inventory Planning, and then clicking on your IPI score.

Screenshot from Amazon Seller Central, February 2024

Even with aggressive tactics, changing the IPI significantly can take 2 to 12 weeks.

Recommended Actions To Improve Inventory Performance Index (IPI)

Excess Inventory – Dump Slow Moving Items

Excess inventory is generally one of the top two reasons your IPI score could be low, since it is the most heavily weighted metric.

The first step to addressing excess inventory is to pull back inventory you don’t expect to sell.

Focus on stock-keeping units (SKUs) that have gone out of fashion or merchandise experiencing a significant demand drop, like seasonal products.

If you don’t expect it to sell within three months, you should pull back the inventory to sell on a different channel by creating a removal order.

You can also start to use the Multi-Channel Fulfillment (MCF) to fulfill your website orders from your Amazon stock.

Sometimes, it makes more sense to discount and/or advertise products to help them sell faster to remove them from your inventory rather than call back inventory from Amazon.

Optimizing a listing that is not moving can also help increase the sell-through rate.

A quick note on having Amazon destroy products – sometimes, the company will liquidate that product instead of destroying it.

If inventory control is an essential factor for your brand, we recommend pulling back the inventory even though it costs more.

While Amazon is great at logistics and moving items through its process, it isn’t great at returning items to sellers.

Often, items arrive damaged or mixed SKUs in multiple boxes, clogging up receiving departments.

If possible, we want to ensure that we’re proactively taking action to avoid pulling back inventory and risk inventory being damaged or unavailable to be sold for a long time.

Sell-Through Rate – Send Fast-Moving Items

Amazon looks at this to identify whether the items you’re selling are things customers want to purchase.

The way that we improve the sell-through rate is to send in small shipments of items that will sell out very quickly.

If you’re currently using LTL or FTL, we recommend that you move to small parcel shipments during this process so that you can send more frequent shipments without going out of stock for long periods.

As you’re restocking items, you want to prioritize those that will move quickly, sending small quantities of items that will sell out as soon as they arrive or shortly after.

This allows your overall sell-through rate to increase dramatically and significantly impact your overall IPI.

It is vital that no matter how fast you think a product will move through, as you send these products in, you’re testing small batches to make sure that things will sell at the pace you anticipate.

Stranded Inventory

Inventory that’s being held in FBA warehouses and not available for sale affects your overall IPI.

Fixing stranded inventory can make a slight difference; however, if you need to move your IPI significantly, this component of the overall metric will only make a slight difference.

It would be best to address stranded inventory weekly or bi-weekly, depending on your general sell-through rate.

In-Stock Inventory

This is probably the most frustrating metric of the IPI because, basically, Amazon is telling you that you can’t restock items because they’re not selling fast enough.

At the same time, it’s trying to encourage you to ensure you stay in stock.

We have found that this metric is very lightly weighted, and you’re better off focusing on the two key metrics of excess inventory and sell-through rate.

There has been some debate about whether deleting previous SKUs can increase this; however, we have not seen that this significantly impacts the total IPI.

General IPI Notes

As you’re working to increase your overall IPI, it is important to remember that it can take several weeks to increase.

The IPI is an average calculated over 12 weeks.

You must give the IPI enough time to move before determining whether your actions are making a difference.

It can be tempting to check your IPI often. However, your IPI score is only recalculated once a week.

If you need to raise your IPI quickly or by a significant amount, you may need to take overly aggressive actions in pruning your inventory and pumping fast-moving items through your account to increase your score to the required amount.

You might have to also bid for a capacity increase.

You should only do this if you have the data to support being able to sell through that higher quantity of items so you do not incur extra charges.

Additional Options To Combat Low IPI and Storage Capacity Issues

Sometimes, this means utilizing third-party sellers to ensure that inventory can be available to customers with a Prime offer.

Some of the brands we work with have focused on selling their fastest-moving SKUs while they improve their overall IPI score and capacity limits.

Then, they utilized third-party sellers to carry their slower-moving items while they worked on increasing their averages.

We have several reliable third-party resellers we refer our clients to if it’s ever an issue.

This means that those accounts saw a faster increase in storage capacity as they were sending in inventory that was selling at a much faster rate and restocking regularly.

If you don’t want to utilize third-party sellers, the alternative is to increase your total number of merchant-fulfilled offerings.

Remember that Merchant Fulfilled offerings generally don’t compete well against FBA offers, so watch your competition to determine feasibility.

While many brands avoid third-party sellers because it may reduce control over their brand, in this instance, it can be an excellent tool to ensure that you don’t lose potential market share to other competing product lines.

Another step you can take is to allocate your FBA warehouse space to items with the highest margin and smallest dimensional size, as they are highly profitable and sell quickly.

Leaving items with lower profitability or moving slower through Merchant Fulfilled (MF).

Tips For New Amazon Sellers

If you’re a new seller coming to Amazon or moving from Vendor Central to Seller Central, start by sending small quantities at first.

You have a grace window of 39 weeks when opening your account.

However, you want to ensure you send in small amounts of inventory. A few cases per product can help you identify the overall sell-through rate.

There is no minimum for sending inventory into Amazon FBA. So, it is possible to test as little as one unit at a time to test products on Amazon.

Sending in small shipments does increase your overall shipping cost and can reduce profitability in the short term.

However, when you’re first investigating the platform, sending in smaller quantities can help you better understand your product’s demand and help avoid additional fees that can be required to call inventory back or pay for storage fees.

Once you have a better idea of your sell-through rate, you can start to increase the total sizes of your inventory.

It is a delicate balance to have enough inventory so that you don’t run out of stock but also that you don’t have excess inventory.

While, in general, you want to aggressively avoid stockouts, the impact of a low IPI score should take priority.

Monitoring Inventory Matters

To succeed on the platform, you must take an active role in your Amazon inventory management.

In prior years, simply avoiding restocks was enough.

However, these new requirements require a greater focus on monitoring your sell-through rate and storage utilization on Amazon.

Prepare now to support your Amazon marketing and sales goals for the coming holiday season.

More Resources:

Featured Image: Piscine26/Shutterstock

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Jan 18 2024

Why Integrated Search Matters On Amazon via @sejournal, @AMZRobynJohnson

Amazon’s algorithm operates differently than most other search engines, which means you need a distinct strategy when attempting to rank on the platform versus platforms like Google and Bing.

To oversimplify, Amazon’s search engine is highly capitalistic; you need sales to get your products to rank organically.

Keyword-rich content is no longer enough to rank; you must have a strategy that includes great copy and images, advertising, and proactive account monitoring to ensure your products can rank and maintain that ranking over time.

Let’s jump into some key points on how to rank your Amazon products.

Understanding Amazon’s Algorithm

Unlike Google, Amazon advertising does impact organic search within the platform.

The Amazon algorithm determines how a product has converted for a specific keyword phrase in the past to know what to put at the top of the organic rankings.

There are, of course, other ranking factors – however, this is the most impactful.

This creates a chicken and an egg problem. To get sales on Amazon through organic ranking, you first have to cause sales for that keyword phrase.

Then, to stay at the top of the organic rankings, you need to continue to outsell your competitor for that keyword.

Any dip due to changes in advertising, pricing suspension, account suspension, or conversion rate issues will cause you to lose your placement at the top of organic search.

This means you need more than just a listing that will convert and is indexed for relevant keywords.

Ranking and launch strategies on Amazon will require that you jumpstart your listings with advertising and potentially a deal or discount to get the organic ranking needed to sell.

It also means proactively avoiding anything that will cause a temporary pause in sales for your products.

Indexing For Relevant Keywords

The most fundamental piece for ranking is ensuring your product is indexed for the most relevant keywords. When looking at keywords, we want to prioritize keywords and phrases that will bring in the most qualified buyers.

When crafting your listing, the most important keywords should be in the title.

Your title will be the primary copy that customers will see on the search engine result page (SERP) and will also be the primary copy for your ads on several of Amazon’s most popular ad types.

For established brands, your most important keywords will be your brand and product name. Then, you should include relevant keyword phrases for your product.

Copy Essentials For Amazon

When writing for Amazon, you are balancing two goals: writing persuasive copy that reads easily and converts to sales, and that maximizes keywords you’re indexing for.

This means before you write your title and bullets, ensure you’ve done complete keyword research and include the most relevant root keywords in your bullet points.

Root Keywords: The individual words that make up the keywords phrases you want to index and rank for. This is what we focus on in the organic stage of optimization for Amazon.
Keyword Phrase: This is the keyword phrase in specific orders or sequences you want to focus on ranking for after the listing is indexed for the individual root keywords.

First, look at root keywords relevant to your products and incorporate them into your listing.

Make sure that you are utilizing the structured data for your listings are filled out completely.

Amazon has been surfacing a lot of different kinds of structured data like product weights, compatibility, and materials.

Making sure this is filled out completely and correctly will help with indexing and conversion rate optimization.

Screenshot from Amazon, December 2023

Amazon has been playing with displaying different structured data in the SERPs and Product Detail pages.

Take the time to fill out all of the available data in the structured data to index your product correctly.

Once your product is live, it’s vital you check that the structured data surfacing on the primary detail page is correct, simple for the customer to identify, and matches your product’s features (dimensions, material, unit count, etc.).

Then compare this to your competitors to make sure it is easy for the right customers to identify whether your product is a good fit for them.

Authority On Amazon

Each product detail page on Amazon is ranked individually. Unlike Google, you’re not able to build authority for a specific brand, and it’s okay to have duplicate content across multiple of your listings.

While it might seem like some brands have built-in authority, it’s only because several people are already searching for them.

As soon as their listings go live, they immediately get sales and conversions, which helps Amazon understand their product better and, in turn, helps their ad relevancy and organic ranking.

Brands with an existing audience and search volume on Amazon will generally have faster, more successful launches.

Why DTC Brands Struggle On Amazon

Unlike direct-to-consumer sales, on Amazon, your competitors will be right next to you on the SERP and on your product detail page, advertising right below your product information.

This means being very clear on your unique selling proposition if you are more expensive than your competitors.

If your product is expensive, it’s crucial to communicate this in your listing copy and primary images, highlighting your product’s unique selling point in a way that customers understand.

It’s also vital that your images mimic the information in your bullets. On mobile, the bullets are further down on the page.

Amazon has also hidden the bullets in some categories under an “About the Product” section that needs to be clicked to be expanded.

Screenshot from Amazon, December 2023

On Amazon, you need to make sure you add infographic images that display the most important information about your product.

Any information critical to the purchase should be included in the images and/or A+ content.

Ensure your images are the correct size and aspect ratio, as Amazon’s interface may compress images, making your product look smaller or harder to identify.

Once your listings are online, be sure to verify how the thumbnails are loading and how they look next to your competition. This is especially important as the primary image is also used for advertising for most of Amazon’s ad types.

For secondary images, make sure that you include infographics so that the primary details for your products are easily found.

Amazon allows you to add videos to the product detail pages, which can help with conversation, so you want to include these as much as possible.

Reviews Still Play A Role On Amazon

Reviews used to be the way to manipulate Amazon’s search algorithm. Amazon has worked to close that loophole, and they take review manipulation very seriously.

However, reviews still play a role in marketing on Amazon. Reviews help with proof of concept and will help with click-through rate (CTR) and conversion rates.

Programs like “Amazon Vine” or the “Request Review Button” give you information to maximize the total number of reviews for your product.

The text that’s included in reviews can also be indexed for search on Amazon.

This means that if you have a large number of reviews, you might be able to rewrite your list copy to focus more on conversion and not worry as much about maximizing the total number of root keywords you want to be indexed for.

Take Advantage Of The Honeymoon Phase

When launching your product on Amazon, you’re given a short period of time to audition for search terms for that specific product. To maximize this short window, make use of the following:

Future launch date – Create your product with a future launch date so it doesn’t go live until you are fully ready to launch.
Utilize FBA – unless at least 90% of your competitors are not using FBA, you will likely need to use FBA to be able to get enough conversions to rank profitably.
Fully available inventory – Inventory being transferred or not fully checked in will hurt your conversion rate and ad performance.
Launch with a deal or discount – we usually recommend coupons on launch as sales will not show the strike-through at launch.
Advertising – Start advertising as soon as your product goes live. Each conversion helps Amazon better understand your product. Launching with ads speeds up this process.

Advertising And Ranking Go Hand In Hand

Today, it is difficult to rank for competitive search terms on Amazon without some paid advertising.

One of the biggest factors for ranking on Amazon is how that product has converted for a specific keyword phrase in the past.

This means that when you are developing an ad strategy you need to not only be looking at what will cause incremental sales, but how your ads will impact your organic ranking.

Two of the biggest mistakes sellers make when running ads on Amazon are advertising too many stock-keeping units (SKUs) or reaching for too many broad targets.

This spreads their budget too thin and doesn’t allow for the advertising to make a significant impact on sales rank.

Focus budgets on a smaller number of targets or SKUs to make sure that you get enough conversions per keyword term. The goal is to rank in the top three positions for the most important keywords and expand that out over time.

It is also sometimes necessary to exclude a relevant but overly broad term in your advertising strategy.

Let’s assume you have a locking beach bag.

“Bag” is a relevant keyword; however, it’s broad. Not only will it be expensive to run ads on that keyword, but even if you did rank organically for the word “bag,” it’s likely you won’t convert well for that word because it’s not specific enough to bring in the buyers you want.

“Locking beach bag” or “beach bag with lock” will have less search volume but will bring in a customer more likely to convert.

In quick terms, here’s a general winning strategy for advertising:

Only fight battles that you can win.
Limit the number of SKUs.
Start with lower-competition keywords.
Move to more competitive keywords.
Exclude relevant but overly broad keyword phrases.

Once you’ve established the ranking of your product for the most important keywords, you can look to more ROI-focused campaigns that utilize different search types.

Use video ads with Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display whenever possible, as these video ads tend to convert well and take up a lot of space in the SERP.

Integrate Your Advertising Results

Once you have your listing completed and your ads running, it’s time to start looking at how you can increase the visibility of our products.

This includes A/B testing your primary image, title, and bullets to maximize click-through rate and conversions.

Utilize the data that you’ve gotten from your advertising and integrate that back into listing changes to test if a change in title can help increase click-through rate and conversions.

Deals And Discounts

Sales and deals can play a large role in ranking products.

Especially during tentpole events like Black Friday or Prime Days, deals or discounts can increase your conversion rate and the total number of conversions for specific keywords, which is key for improving your organic ranking.

There are many different coupons, deals, and sales types on Amazon, and there is no right or wrong approach.

Right now, we’re seeing the best results with coupons at launch and Prime exclusive deals for tentpole days, and for products with existing sales history.

Sale pricing can also be an effective tool, but make sure that you’re monitoring the average selling price over the last 30 days; this determines if that sale displays with a slash through price.

Monitoring how discounts and deals display, what badging is included, and the impact on the average selling price of your item over the last 30 days is important, as Amazon does change these quite often.

Account Health Impacts Organic Ranking

Account health can derail your ranking progress overnight.

If you run out of stock and your competitors are getting sales when you’re not, you will fall down the organic rankings for your most important keywords, and your competitors will take your place.

The same is true with managing inventory; you must proactively prepare for stock-outs. If a product is at risk of stocking out, cut deals and lower ad spend to extend coverage and avoid a stock out.

Here are some other account health and maintenance issues to watch out for:

In addition to watching for stockouts, manage your FBA storage wisely. Amazon may impose a FBA capacity limit if you don’t.
Avoid ASIN and product restrictions by checking your account health multiple times each week to monitor your order defect rate, shipping performance, and the voice of the customer.
Monitor the voice of the customer at least twice a week. Take action if you see more than three similar complaints on the same SKU within 30 days.
Check your management compliance dashboard, especially during peak times, for new compliance document requirements. Identify and act on compliance issues quickly to avoid ASIN restrictions.

Screenshot from Amazon Seller Central, December 2023

You should be checking Voice of the Customer one to three times a week on Amazon Seller Central. Under Performance, Voice of the Customer.

Price Suppression

If Amazon determines that your price is higher than the 30-day trailing price or sees a lower price off Amazon, it might suppress the featured offer (Buy Box).

This suppression causes conversion rates to fall significantly.

Not only does this impact your ranking, but more importantly, it can affect your ability to run ads since sponsored product ads will not run if you do not own the Buy Box.

Ranking Takes Time

The overall ranking on Amazon isn’t an on/off switch; it takes time, and you must work on trying to index for keywords over a more significant period.

It’s normal that for the first 30 to 90 days, ads won’t be profitable as you focus on optimization.

The larger your ad budget, the more quickly you can work to try to rank for those keyword phrases. With larger budgets, it is important to look at ad performance as a group or SKU basis to maintain profitability.

If you’re working with a smaller budget, it’s essential to set expectations, focus on growth over the long term, and make sure you give enough time for your product to start to make progress!

More resources:

Featured Image: claudenakagawa/Shutterstock

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Jan 11 2024

Microsoft AI Takes Retail Shopping To The Next Level via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Microsoft has unveiled new AI and data tools to bring retailers into the modern digital age.

The new offerings expand Microsoft’s existing retail industry cloud platform. They use Copilot, Microsoft’s latest AI helper that uses generative models like the advanced GPT-4 system to enhance productivity.

Personalization Through Microsoft AI

Microsoft has added Copilot templates to its Cloud for Retail platform, integrating OpenAI’s generative AI capabilities into Azure.

These new tools are intended to help retailers provide more customized and personal shopping experiences for their customers, similar to having a dedicated personal shopper.

The goal is to meet the expectations of today’s consumers, who increasingly want personalized interactions when shopping online or in stores.

By providing tailored product recommendations and offers, retailers can encourage shoppers to add more items to their carts.

The Copilot templates leverage generative AI to dynamically generate unique content for each customer, helping retailers build stronger relationships and boost sales through more personalized shopping journeys.

Support for Retail Associates

Microsoft is previewing new tools to help retail workers be more productive.

The tools are designed to help sales associates and other store staff quickly access information while helping customers. One example is an AI assistant that lets workers ask questions in natural conversational language on their mobile devices and get relevant data.

Microsoft says it’s developing these AI retail tools because there’s demand from retail employees for more digital technologies that can streamline their daily workflows.

Data Insights With Microsoft Fabric

Microsoft is tackling the problem of scattered and inconsistent retail data by providing new tools within its Microsoft Fabric platform.

This includes a standard data structure for the retail industry, a way to connect e-commerce systems, and pre-made templates for analytics like figuring out what items customers often buy together.

The idea is to help retailers and brands unite their data sources and gain insights from AI more easily.

Enhancements To Marketing with Generative AI

Microsoft is integrating its Copilot AI into Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, its marketing analytics platform, to assist with campaign creation. The AI can help generate project ideas and recommend content for campaigns.

Microsoft launched a new Creative Studio feature in its Retail Media advertising platform that utilizes AI. This tool helps retail advertisers quickly create and customize banner ads to improve campaign results and target ads to specific audiences.

Summary

With Microsoft’s new technologies, stores can improve customer shopping experiences, make retail jobs easier for workers, and harness data to help executives make important choices.

A study done for Microsoft shows that retail companies are seeing major benefits from using AI, highlighting how vital these technologies are in retail.

Featured Image: Photo For Everything/Shutterstock

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Jan 11 2024

Microsoft’s New AI Tools Let Anyone Create Retail Media Content via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Microsoft is announcing the launch of its Retail Media Creative Studio, a platform designed to support the creation of digital advertising content for retailers.

The new platform leverages generative AI to allow easy and customized banner ad creation in seconds. The launch comes as retail media is projected to become a $100 billion industry by 2026.

Retail Media Creative Studio: Features and Impact

Integrated with Microsoft’s existing retail media platform PromoteIQ, the Retail Media Creative Studio is scheduled for a preview release in early 2024.

Developed in response to feedback from retail partners, the Retail Media Creative Studio aims to address the unique challenges of retail advertising.

Among its notable features is that the studio provides tools that convert product URLs into fully-designed banner ads and offers AI-driven content generation.

The creative studio can generate ads that adhere to a retailer’s branding guidelines with minimal input through its user-friendly interface.

Capabilities of the Retail Media Creative Studio

The Retail Media Creative Studio offers several functionalities to simplify the ad creation process, including:

Enhancing product images into more appealing lifestyle visuals.
Producing customized ad copy suggestions.
Cleaning and editing images with ease.
Adjusting ad elements to perfect the final design.

The platform also aims to expedite the approval process, enabling quicker campaign rollouts and better team collaboration.

AI-Enabled Optimization & Physical Store Integration

Microsoft’s AI capabilities provide real-time optimization of banner ads by analyzing performance data and adjusting to maximize efficiency.

This process is designed to reduce the need for manual testing and potentially increase campaign effectiveness.

In addition, Micraaosoft is piloting an integration of in-store media through a partnership with Vibenomics, a company specializing in in-store audio and visual experiences. This initiative seeks to offer a comprehensive view of consumer behavior across both digital and physical retail environments.

Future Direction

Looking forward, Microsoft continues to adapt its retail media offerings to meet the changing market demands.

For more information on Microsoft’s retail media initiatives or to inquire about partnerships, interested parties can refer to the Microsoft Advertising PromoteIQ platform or explore Microsoft Advertising’s retail solutions offerings.

Featured Image: Tada Images/Shutterstock

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Dec 4 2023

Unlock Ecommerce Success: How You Can Get Up To 87% More Traffic [+ Report] via @sejournal, @getdotstore

Wondering how to boost your ecommerce SEO to help you rank higher on SERPs?

Do you feel like you’re getting a new competitor every day?

In the era when everyone has an ecommerce storefront, how do you make sure your store has as many advantages as possible?

Gaining traffic and visibility is listed as one of the top issues that online sellers face, especially if you’re just starting your business and the next step is to choose your URL.

So, what are some of the major issues you might face as a new ecommerce company? How can you solve them?

Let’s dive in.

How To Boost Ecommerce Performance & Decrease Customer Acquisition Costs

The game has changed and .com domains aren’t the only way to get customers to take your business seriously.

If the primary goal of your website is to sell, nothing says that better than a .Store domain extension.

It’s the perfect call to action that instantly connects with potential customers and attracts them to your site.

Some of the key advantages of using a .Store domain include:

87% more traffic.
2X visibility.
12% lower cost of conversion.

Increase Your Web Traffic by 87%

An ecommerce website on a .Store domain gets 87% more visitors than its .com counterparts.

Your domain name is basically like the virtual storefront of your business, and choosing the right one can have a significant impact on your success.

Why It Works

When users see a .Store domain, it instantly communicates that they are on an ecommerce platform where they can make purchases.

This clear and direct messaging not only attracts more visitors but also translates into increased sales, which ultimately results in more revenue for your business.

Double Your Site’s Visibility On Search Engines

An ecommerce site sporting a .Store top-level domain (TLD) gets an impressive double the amount of search visibility.

How?

Well, search engines love contextually relevant keywords, and having the word “store” in your domain name can be a powerful keyword tactic for your site’s rankings.

This added relevance doubles your visibility on search engines, ensuring that potential customers looking to make an online purchase can find your store more easily.

Check out the study.

Reduce Your Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) By 12%

Marketing costs can be a major concern, especially for new and growing businesses – and this is yet another way the .Store domain can transform your SEO strategy.

When users come across ads for a product category, they are 12% more likely to make a purchase if the ad directs them to a “store” domain.

Thus, the cost to acquire your user is much lower.

Analyzing .Store Domain Performance: The Full Report

[Get the full report]

The true impact of .Store TLDs on both paid and organic traffic were examined in a groundbreaking study conducted by Contrast Digital.

This extensive report uncovers a wealth of insights that can reshape your understanding of domain performance.

According to the data, there’s a potential long-term benefit of using .Store domains from a SEO standpoint.

We’ll dive into some key facts from the study below, but you can download the full report to dig into the detailed results.

Organic Study

This extensive 12-month experiment examined the performance of two distinct websites.

The key difference between the two websites was the domain extension.

One website was on .com while the other was on a .Store; with the second-level domain being identical (think example.com vs example.store).

Both sites comprised 82 pages categorized into products, categories, blog posts, and information pages, maintaining identical layouts and product descriptions in order to control variables and conduct a fair assessment.

Googlebot’s crawl time, along with impressions, clicks, and click-through rate measured through Google Search Console, provided a detailed comparative analysis.

Significance testing using MATLAB code offered insights into potential differences between the sites’ metrics, forming a comprehensive overview of their organic performance.

Key Performance Trends:

Example.store achieved the first 100 clicks, 20,000 impressions, and 250 clicks in a 30-day window faster than example.com.
Google seemed to prefer the example.store domain over example.com, indicated by faster indexing and crawling.
Example.store had a 49.01% larger keyword footprint than example.com, correlating with larger impressions over 12 months.
In non-blog content, example.store had a 30.27% increase in visibility compared to example.com.
In blog content, example.store had a 67.02% increase compared to example.com.

Overall, the significance tests consistently show that .Store TLDs outperformed equivalent .com TLDs in clicks, impressions, and click-through rate (CTR) over the 12-month experiment.

Want to learn more? Check out the full report for additional insights.

PPC Report

This report delves into the Google paid ads segment of the experiment, evaluating the performance of example.com and example.store over 5 months.

After allowing both websites to naturally perform for three months, paid media was introduced to assess their response to targeted paid traffic, with a primary focus on understanding consumer trust around TLDs.

To ensure fairness in the paid ads environment, settings were adjusted to rotate ads indefinitely, preventing bias toward any particular ad.

Additionally, landing page destinations, ad content, keyword targeting, and max bids were standardized across both accounts, eliminating variables and placing emphasis on individual performance.

Key Performance Trends:

Example.store had a 12.12% higher conversion rate than example.com, 1.48% vs 1.32%.
Example.store managed PPC spend more consistently through daily budgets, possibly contributing to better performance.
Example.store had a statistically significant 15.37% higher CTR compared to example.com, potentially due to the recognizable association of .Store with eCommerce.
Example.store outperformed example.com in conversions (33 vs 24) and had a cheaper customer acquisition cost (£39.59 vs £44.45).
After 5 months, example.store performed the best overall in clicks, CTR, average cost per click, and cost.

Overall, the .Store domain consistently outperformed .com and emerged as the superior performer in the paid experiment.

Navigating The Customer Acquisition Challenge

We know how difficult it can be to capture the attention of your ideal audience, particularly as a new online business without an established track record.

Another key issue you might be facing is profitability.

As essential as marketing may be for your brand, it can certainly be costly to execute effectively.

So what are some ways you can get the most bang for your buck and maximize your return on investment (ROI)?

How can you add value while keeping your customer acquisition costs low?

Though there are various marketing tricks and tactics you can try, sometimes, the answer can be just as simple as picking the right domain name.

Oftentimes, the domain you choose for your business can tell consumers a lot about what you offer and what they can expect.

So if you’re looking to enhance your online retail presence and lower your cost per acquisition (CPA), it might be time to switch things up.

With a .Store domain extension, you can gain a significant performance advantage and get a leg up on your competitors.

Diversify Your Digital Identity: Embracing The Evolution Beyond .Com

Now, I know what you’re thinking: Will customers trust an address that doesn’t end in .com?

How does Google classify a website with a .Store domain and how will it impact your search rankings?

Domain names are not actually a part of your overall search engine rankings – however, that doesn’t mean you can just forget about them.

Your choice of domain name can be an important aspect of your UX and public image, and should usually be the most recognizable aspect of your business.

Till now, the domain extension decision for anyone building an ecommerce site was largely determined by conditioning, perception, and an overall lack of data.

The idea that .com domains are the only viable choice for websites is incredibly common.

However, there’s now an objective, data-backed study available which, for the first time, shows that .Store as a top-level domain (TLD) can actually benefit ecommerce sellers in a major way.

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Nov 7 2023

Google’s Holiday 100 Guide Reveals Top Trending Gift Searches via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

As the holiday shopping season kicks off, Google has released new data and tools offering valuable insights for search marketers looking to connect consumers with top gifts and deals.

The company published its annual Holiday 100 list, highlighting the 100 trending product searches. Additionally, Google launched a holiday deals hub to aggregate discounts in one central location.

This data and new toolset present opportunities to optimize holiday campaigns around high-demand gifts and deals.

Holiday 100 Gift List Reflects Top Trending Searches

Google’s annual Holiday 100 list highlights the top trending gift searches. The extensive list spans gifts across seven categories, including home & garden, apparel, accessories, electronics, toys, beauty, and wellness.

Some interesting trends spotted in Google’s holiday data this year include the rising popularity of cozy home products like candle warmers and human-sized dog beds. Searches for human-dog beds increased 1,650% this year, while candle warmers have been a top search in the home decor category.

Sustainable jewelry pieces like lab-grown diamond necklaces also made the list, reflecting a growing consumer interest in eco-friendly gifts.

Other unique gift ideas highlighted include weighted blankets, puzzle vases (up 1,150% in searches), claw clips outpacing scrunchies in popularity, outdoor bean bag chairs, and instant print cameras for kids.

Across categories, practical gifts like luggage trackers, electric bikes, and acupressure mats also seem to be resonating with shoppers in 2023.

Google compiled the Holiday 100 list by analyzing search trends from June to September to identify gifts seeing a surge of interest compared to previous years. The company hopes the list will provide gift inspiration to the 41% of holiday shoppers surveyed who struggle to come up with ideas.

Data Offers Insights For Retail and Search Marketers

For retail and search marketers, the Holiday 100 list reveals breakout gift ideas to potentially incorporate into holiday promotions and advertisements. Meanwhile, the deals hub presents an opportunity to get discounts and sales front and center before users.

Brands looking to catch shoppers’ attention this season should focus on aligning their strategies with popular searches and interest areas identified by Google. Search marketers can also look to optimize for trending gift-related queries and place deals in front of Google users hunting for savings.

In Summary

The annual Holiday 100 list provides gift inspiration based on top searches, while the new deals hub aggregates discounts.

For shoppers, these tools offer help discovering ideas and savings this season. For retailers, the data reveals rising trends to potentially incorporate into holiday marketing.

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Oct 26 2023

Amazon Introduces Generative AI Image Tool For Advertisers via @sejournal, @kristileilani

In a move aimed at simplifying the ad creative process, Amazon Ads has released a generative AI-powered image generation feature in beta.

This tool promises to tackle a pain point that has been pervasive among digital advertisers: the complexity of designing compelling ad creatives.

The new feature could be a game-changer in the ever-evolving landscape of digital advertising, combining artistic and scientific approaches.

75% Of Advertisers Struggle With Ad Creatives

According to a survey conducted by Amazon in March 2023, nearly 75% of advertisers who struggled with campaign success identified creating ad creatives and choosing a creative format as their main challenges.

Colleen Aubrey, senior vice president of Amazon Ads Products and Technology, said the company is committed to “reducing friction for advertisers” and providing tools that amplify the impact of ads while minimizing effort.

Amazon Offers AI-Powered Solution For Custom Images

The generative AI-powered image generation feature helps brands display products in real-life contexts for better ad performance.

Advertisers choose their product in the Amazon Ad Console, click “Generate,” and the tool employs generative AI to produce a variety of lifestyle and brand-themed images based on product details.

These images can be fine-tuned using short text prompts, and multiple versions can be swiftly generated for A/B testing.

For instance, a simple picture of a toaster against a white backdrop may not elicit as much engagement as an image of the same toaster placed next to a croissant on a kitchen counter.

Lifestyle Images Lead To Higher CTR

According to Amazon, such lifestyle context can increase click-through rates by as much as 40% compared to standard product images.

The tool is designed to be user-friendly, making it accessible to advertisers of all sizes, regardless of whether they have in-house capabilities or agency support.

Amazon Ads has initially rolled out this feature to a select group of advertisers and plans to broaden its availability over time.

They also aim to refine the tool based on customer feedback continually.

The Future Of Generative AI Advertising Solutions

Amazon’s generative AI feature promises to level the playing field for small businesses and large corporations by democratizing access to high-quality, context-rich ad imagery.

It could enable more advertisers to create compelling ad creatives without the need for specialized expertise or extensive resources, thereby improving the overall quality and efficacy of digital advertising.

The launch of an AI-powered image generator follows Amazon’s recent additions of generative AI descriptions and customer review summaries.

Featured image: Tada Images/Shutterstock

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Sep 20 2023

How Plural Keywords Impact Search Intent For Ecommerce [Data Study] via @sejournal, @LidiaInfanteM

When SEO pros are trying to optimize content, they have a choice to make: Do I choose the singular version or the plural one as my primary keyword? Can I rank for both versions of the keywords on the same page, or do I need a new one?

Having worked in SEO for over a decade, I’ve had to make this choice hundreds of times, and I’ve come to have an intuition about which option works best.

You can make this choice on a case-by-case basis, analyzing each keyword individually, but sometimes you need to make this choice in bulk.

If you’re modeling the content of a large ecommerce site, you’ll have to decide what version of your keyword gets used on product detail pages (PDPs) and category pages.

What We Know About Plural Keywords And Search Intent

During my career, I’ve noticed a pattern: Singular keywords are often informational, whereas plural keywords tend to be part of a buyer’s commercial research journey.

This is very obvious in SaaS, B2B, and other classic content marketing arenas.

As a Senior SEO Manager at Sanity, I know that a user searching for “headless CMS” is likely looking for an explanation, while someone searching for “headless CMSes” is looking for buying options.

If you’re shopping online and you’re trying to decide what product to buy, you’d be more likely to search for [men’s shirts] than [men’s shirt]. But if you search for [zara slim white shirt], your intent is likely transactional, and you’re ready to buy.

Google doesn’t always know this. If it thinks people are looking for multiple options or have yet to refine what they’re after, it will present a few potential product category pages.

It requires a very detailed search query to return a product detail page, such as specifying a brand and model, searching for a niche product, or tapping into a viral trend.

Navigational searches, where users are trying to reach a specific site or understand how to arrive at a physical location, are usually singular keywords. Brand names are usually singular, too – you’d never search for [Facebooks], you’d search for [Facebook].

From a programmatic SEO perspective, this means singular keywords suggest a more ambiguous intent, while plural keywords are more likely to be part of a user’s commercial research journey.

Tons of other SEO professionals share this intuition, and it has become standard best practice in ecommerce.

Singular keywords are typically used in product detail pages, while plural keywords tend to feature in category pages.

I decided to analyze the data to find out if our collective best practice was backed by the facts – and hopefully establish a data-led standard to help us choose which version of each keyword to use as the primary one for different types of pages, and whether or not we can rank for both.

It’s worth noting that some keywords are plural by nature. Things like “yellow laces for Dr. Martens boots” will never come as a singular, so those instances have been excluded from the study.

Analyzing The Top 1,000 Keywords On Amazon

Let me explain the methodology for this analysis.

I pulled the top 1,000 searched keywords on Amazon, identified if they were singular or plural, and paired them with their counterpart.

When the keywords didn’t have a singular or plural counterpart, I removed them from the database, leaving me with 607 keywords in total.

This shows that for 60% of the top keywords being used daily on Amazon, marketers have had to make the choice of optimizing for a singular or plural keyword. So making the right decision is crucial.

I then used Semrush data to extract the search intent, search engine results pages (SERP) features, and ranking URLs for each keyword on the Google results for desktop searches based in the US.

All measurements were done using Semrush, including SERP occurrences and search intent. (Full disclosure: I got the Semrush data free of charge. It pays to have connections.)

The data was analyzed on November 22 and again in June 2023 to give me my final results.

Analyzing Keyword Intent

The data shows that singular keywords dominate results for most search intent except for commercials.

Singular keywords are:

65% more likely to have informational intent.
46% more likely to have transactional intent.
And 27% more likely to have navigational intent.

The only instance where plural keywords won out was commercial, and even then, there was only a 5% difference.

Could this suggest that singular keywords are more ambiguous?

It’s certainly a hypothesis the data seems to support, as singular keywords are 23% more likely than plural keywords to have more than one intent.

As users research and learn about their needs and the products that satisfy them, they can refine their searches further, but in the initial stages, search intent can be very murky.

Analyzing SERP Similarity

Fifty percent of the time, the SERPs for singular and plural versions of the keyword will share seven to nine URLs – and 5% of the time, those SERP results are the exact same because the intent on plural and singular keywords is often overlapping.

SEO professionals agonize over whether to use singular or plural keywords for URLs, but most of the time, we shouldn’t overthink it – you can expect to rank for both keywords on the same page.

However, another 5% of the time, there are no URLs in common. This can be because the plural and singular versions in those examples have completely different meanings.

For example, think about basketball (the game) and basketballs (the thing you need to play the game) – or switches (how lights work), and Switches (the Nintendo console). If you search for one, you’d be surprised to find results for the other.

Words that change their meaning when they change from singular to plural form are known as heteronyms or heteroglossia. While spelled the same in both forms, these words have different meanings in singular and plural forms. For example:

“Leaves”: In its singular form, “leave” often refers to departing from a location. But in its plural form, “leaves,” it refers to more than one leaf from a tree or plant.
“Winds”: In its singular form, ‘wind’ is the movement of air. In plural form, “winds” can refer to a variety of things, such as different types of air movements, or it can be used metaphorically.

However, this kind of semantic change is relatively rare in English, hence the low percentage.

Based on the data, the best practice would be to consider that singular and plural keywords have overlapping intent. This means your brand may position itself on both, in the same positions, or may see slight ranking differences between plural and singular keywords.

The data I analyzed in November 2022 looked a little different. Here, only 2% of searches had no URLs in common, and 50% of singular and plural keywords had 8 to 9 URLs in common.

Eight percent of SERPs for singular and plural keywords were identical, down to 5% in June. This could point at Google differentiating further the search intent in plural and singular searches, but it’s too early to tell.

As Google develops its AI offering, including its Search Generative Experience (SGE), and moves further towards a model where users can shop straight from their search, understanding the different intentions when there are minor keyword variations will be key.

Understanding intent at scale will become key for ecommerce merchants, and intent will take center stage.

Analyzing SERP Features

I’ve looked at how frequently SERP features appear in plural and singular searches. The results seem consistent with what we’ve seen so far, pointing at a broader range of search intents for singular keywords and a more commercially focused intent for plural keywords.

Knowledge Panels appear more often with the singular alternative, as do People Also Ask panels. This makes sense since those features align with an informational type of query.

Related Searches are the SERP feature with the greatest difference between plural and singular keywords; plural results were 12.85% more popular.

From my experience, users tend to refine their searches during commercial research as they learn about the product, and Google is trying to facilitate that journey.

Plural SERPs also prove more prevalent for Popular Products, further suggesting that plural keyword searches are more commonly associated with commercial intent.

Indented results, on the other hand, are more common in singular searches, potentially pointing at greater intent ambiguity. We can view indented results as Google not knowing the right page to show for a query and trying to offer alternative content.

What Does This Mean For Your Ecommerce SEO Strategy?

The data supports the SEO best practice: Plural keywords form part of the commercial research stage, while singular keywords have a more ambiguous intent and can be used for informational, navigational, or transactional purposes.

The intent your page aims to satisfy should determine which version of the keyword to use.
Category pages can clearly benefit from using plural keywords, as they are aimed at helping users find a product they will want to buy.
Product pages should use singular keywords.
Changing the grammatical number of our target keywords can completely change their meaning, so we can’t fully automate this decision yet.
Most of the time, you can expect to rank for both singular and plural versions of your target keyword on the same page.
Intent is complex, and it can evolve over time. There seems to be a trend of Google differentiating the SERPs for plural and singular keywords further over time which needs to be looked at.

More resources:

Featured Image: Jo Panuwat D/Shutterstock

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Sep 13 2023

Amazon Launches Generative AI Tool To Generate Listing Content via @sejournal, @kristileilani

Amazon has taken a significant step forward in simplifying the lives of its sellers by employing generative artificial intelligence (AI) to generate listing content.

Initially spotted in August, Amazon showcased the new generative AI capabilities designed to assist sellers in crafting more compelling and detailed product listings at the Amazon Accelerate event.

Creating compelling product titles, bullet points, and descriptions has traditionally been a cumbersome task for sellers.

The newly revealed technology aims to eliminate this hurdle. Using large language models (LLMs), Amazon’s generative AI tool could help sellers build comprehensive and engaging product descriptions.

The process is remarkably straightforward. Sellers only need to supply a brief description or a few keywords about the product. Amazon’s AI generates high-quality, detailed content for the seller’s review.

If satisfied, sellers can directly upload this content to their product listings.

The following video offers a quick demonstration of how the generate listing content feature works.

The feature should help sellers save time and create higher quality and consistency in listings, thereby enhancing the customer’s shopping experience.

Robert Tekiela, vice president of Amazon Selection and Catalog Systems, expressed excitement about the developments in the announcement post.

“With our new generative AI models, we can infer, improve, and enrich product knowledge at an unprecedented scale and with dramatic improvement in quality, performance, and efficiency.

Our models learn to infer product information through the diverse sources of information, latent knowledge, and logical reasoning that they learn.

For example, they can infer a table is round if specifications list a diameter or infer the collar style of a shirt from its image.”

This isn’t Amazon’s first use of generative AI to enrich product listings. The latest AI tool for sellers is expected to improve product listing quality, optimization, and conversion rates.

Early feedback from sellers who have tested the new capabilities is overwhelmingly positive. However, users should review content from any generative AI tool to ensure accuracy.

Many already utilize AI-generated content, testing the technology’s efficiency and effectiveness. Amazon believes this is merely the beginning and plans to integrate AI further to improve the seller experience.

Featured image: Koshiro K/Shutterstock

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ecommerce News social media TikTok

Sep 12 2023

TikTok Shop Officially Launches In The US via @sejournal, @kristileilani

Social media giant TikTok is rolling out its retail ambitions in a big way with the full launch of TikTok Shop in the United States.

With inspiring hashtags like #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt, the company now aims to revolutionize online shopping culture.

TikTok Shop adds shoppable videos and LIVE streams directly into the “For You” feeds for its 150 million American users.

The new ecommerce feature, initially spotted in April, offers a variety of tools to enable brands to sell products directly within the TikTok ecosystem.

TikTok Shop Features For Businesses

TikTok Shop extends beyond in-feed videos and LIVE streams. Users can discover new products via the search bar inside the TikTok app, filtering results to Shop.

Businesses and brands get a dedicated “Shop Tab” to display products and promotions.

This incorporates a product showcase where users can read reviews and purchase directly from your brand’s profile.

Screenshot from TikTok, September 2023

In addition, sellers can take advantage of “Fulfilled by TikTok” – a new logistics solution where TikTok manages storage, picking, packing, and shipping.

The platform even includes an affiliate program, letting popular influencers and creators earn commissions by promoting TikTok Shop products.

TikTok Shop Officially Launches In The US

Screenshot from TikTok, September 2023

How To Sign Up For TikTok Shop

In the TikTok app, visit your profile and, using the menu, navigate to Creator Tools. There, you will see the options to sign up for TikTok Shop as a seller or creator to earn brand commissions.

Creators must have at least 5,000 followers and be 18 years old to be eligible for the TikTok Shop Affiliate program.

Screenshot from TikTok, September 2023

TikTok Shop Integrates With Shopify, WooCommerce

TikTok Shop has integrated with well-known ecommerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento, and Salesforce Commerce Cloud.

This should make it easier for existing ecommece sellers to start selling on TikTok without creating a new store from scratch.

In addition, TikTok has partnered with several multi-channel platforms like Channel Advisor and Feedonomics to support omni-channel businesses.

Sellers can utilize apps from Zendesk, Printful, Yotpo, EasyShip, and more to add more functionality and features to TikTok Shops.

The Future Of Social Commerce And Influencer Marketing

While the potential for TikTok Shop is vast, skepticism will always remain around data privacy.

The company has a tall order to ensure the user experience remains smooth while respecting privacy and security concerns, mainly due to past controversies surrounding user data.

TikTok is committed to user security and privacy, working with trusted third-party payment platforms for transactions.

Integrating ecommerce with TikTok could redefine how brands and creators engage with consumers, as each engagement could lead to a direct sale or affiliate commission.

Featured image: Poetra.RH/Shutterstock

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