Amazon Launches New Features and Capabilities at Amazon Accelerate Conference
We all have become accustomed to Amazon being an ever-evolving marketplace. Changes to both the frontend of listings and the backend reporting tools can be tweaked without any notice, leaving brands wondering what happened. However, Amazon also highlights some of their big updates, changes and new products and features, through communication and Amazon’s annual conference: Amazon Accelerate.
While you were out managing the day-to-day of operating a brand, Code3 Strategists attended the annual conference held in Seattle, Washington, and we’re excited to share all we learned. At the event, executives from Amazon showcased a plethora of new features and capabilities that will soon be brought to life for sellers to use across the globe. While the focus of the conference itself was on the Seller Central platform, many of the advancements shared will also be brought over to the Vendor Central side in the near future.
Amazon Accelerate wasn’t just about the future: some of the new releases are even available to Seller Central brands today and can make an immediate impact on your marketplace strategy. Others will be released later this year and throughout 2024. Keep reading to learn more about some of the major callouts from the September conference, and how Code3 Amazon Strategists recommend using these features to positively affect your brand’s operation.
Generative Listing Content (Seller Central)
Available now, Amazon is leveraging AI and brand-provided information to make product information easier to develop. Brands can submit a description of products in up to 100 words. Amazon will then use AI to generate the title, bullet points, and product description based on the input. In the future, there will be automated listing setup assistance by utilizing website URLs and image extractions.
Similar to Generative Listing Content, brands will soon be able to create variations with a single line of text describing how you want the variation to look (number of themes, colors, size, style, etc.). This also creates a more user-friendly way to create variations in the backend of Seller Central – something that previously would take a significant amount of time to implement.
Premium A+ Pages (Seller Central)
According to Amazon, brands that leverage Premium A+ over basic A+ see up to a 12% sales lift, and now, brands on Seller Central have easier access to obtain Premium A+ Pages. Important updates to the eligibility include 2 main checkpoints: brand stories must be published on all brand ASINs in your catalog and you must have submitted 5+ A+ Pages over the past year (it previously was 15 A+ Page submissions).
Enhancements were also made to the comparisons chart within the A+ Pages. Amazon added a better interface to include an Add to Cart button, customer reviews, and pricing information. This will make it much easier for consumers to purchase other products in your brand’s catalog.
A/B Testing (Seller & Vendor Central)
More A/B experiments are coming very soon, which can be critical to a pressure testing a brand’s strategy. You will be able to A/B test the following: Brand stories, secondary images (not just the main image), multiple attributes at once, and multiple treatments per attribute. The enhancements made to this area will allow you to make sure your PDP is as effective and profitable as can be to the customer.
Customer Loyalty Analytics Dashboard (Seller & Vendor Central)
An exciting, brand-new reporting dashboard is coming soon for both Seller and Vendor: Customer Loyalty Analytics Dashboard. The revamped platform will provide a holistic view of customers' shopping behavior and loyalty. With this holistic view, insights into the historical performance and trends of past customers will be available to analyze. This will help to reduce customer acquisition costs, target high-value customers and tailor the right action for the customer. This new report will be found under the brand analytics tab.
Brand Tailored Promotions (Seller Central)
For the last 2-3 months, brands on Seller Central have been able to use Brand Tailored Promotions to create promotions for specific audiences in order to acquire new customers, grow existing customers and increase efficiency. Discounts can range from 10%-50% and eligible customers can redeem promotion on a single purchase (limited to one unit redemption per customer). A few of the targeted audiences that can be selected are: at risk, brand cart abandoners, high-spend customers, and more.
Growth Opportunities (Seller & Vendor Central)
Like the Customer Loyalty Analytics Dashboard, more actionable recommendations are coming to the Growth Opportunities portal of both Seller and Vendor. Recommendations coming directly from Amazon include keyword optimization plans which will help reduce customer returns and lower operational costs. By leveraging the dataset of customer concerns via reviews, Amazon will be able to give direct advice on how to enhance your listings and make them more convertible.
Escalate My Case (Seller Central)
One of the biggest pains to brands of working with Amazon is having to deal with seller support. The good news is that Amazon is aware of this, and they are enhancing its previously released escalation button while developing further measures to improve case resolution and solve root issues.
While there was much more unveiled at Accelerate than just the above, these exciting new features can make your time selling on Amazon more efficient and profitable for your brand. Want to learn even more about what was discussed at Accelerate and how the new features can further benefit your brand? Contact us at Code3 to ensure your brand is ready to crush it this holiday season and beyond.