Amazon Marketplace

Yogesh,Minghao,Sean,Rhodri

Introduction• If we were a company it would be attractive to sell on Amazon:• A whole shop window of products• One of the largest retailers in the world

• Customers are attracted to them• Good reputation

• Amazon Web Service: automating processes.• International business: selling from abroad

Reputation based platform: modelling this we will get a lot of business.

How Amazon Marketplace works for seller

• Register your seller account

What will you need to complete the registration?

Credit Card, Phone Number, Company Registration Details, Primary Contact Person Information, Beneficial Owner Information, Bank Account Information

• Upload your listings

• Customers see and buy your products

• Deliver your products to the customer

• Receive your payment

How to increase visibility of products1) Optimize your products visibility via Amazon’s SERP

• Main search bar most is common method of customers for locating items on Amazon.

• Amazon’s Search Engine page rank(SERP).

• Amazon SERP working is different than Google search engine working.

• Amazon’s SERP based on following product ranking factors

1. Price

2. Title

3. Image

4. Description

5. Fulfilment channel

How to increase visibility of products2) Sponsored Product

• It is an advertising service of Amazon that helps to promote the products seller list on amazon.

• It uses cost-per-click bid mechanism.

• Factors consider before advertising

1. check out the competition

2. compare their price position with similar items already selling on the site.

3. study the best selling items in relevant category characteristics.

How to increase visibility of products

3) Promotional activity

• Customers love promotions, because promotions offer discounts and ways to save money.

• Seller can make a great impression on customers by offering some promotions.

• Amazon provides Promotional Manager to create promotional offers.

Amazon Feedback

An anonymous online marketplace with no consequences for bad

behaviour

Based on information from ‘The Economics of Reputation and Feedback Systems in E-Commerce Marketplaces’, Tadelis 2015

Solution: feedback and reputation• Buyers have 90 days to leave feedback, 60 days to remove

feedback• Buyers can leave a short comment and a rating of 1 to 5• Not mandatory – most sellers receive feedback 10-20% of the

time

PositiveNeutralNegative

The ‘Buy box’

Two-way feedback• Ebay, Airbnb, Uber etc• Problem of retaliation:

Engineering Trust: Reciprocity in the Production of Reputation Information – Bolton et al

• Inflated ratings

Source: Wired

Amazon feedback: (now) one-way• Amazon accept all sellers are likely to receive negative

feedback at some point• Users less afraid to leave negative feedback• Can leave sellers vulnerable to bad reviews for spurious or

even malicious reasons

NBC News

Amazon seller forums

Amazon reviews can get weird

The Wolf of Wall Street

@AmznMovieRevws, twitter

Improving Online Reputation• Positive historical transactions

• Good reviews: positive consistent service over several transactions• But ranking highly depends on Amazon being happy with service levels also.

• Seller page content: providing a detailed and transparent description of item• Reputable names

• AB1100 – doesn’t feel personal• Derryck Riding – putting a name to a brand makes it more authentic

• Specialism: becoming known for being a great seller for one type of area

• Large delivery window: more secure for company and may result in better reviews.• Conversely, having a large window also puts people off buying in the first place.

• Amazon endorsements e.g. Amazon Prime, fullfiled by Amazon• Including the company who made the product e.g. “Uncharted 3 by Sony”

Other Techniques Sellers Use To Increase Reputation

• Automatic refund: any problems with item• Send item same day delivery• Friendly customer service: quick replies

• Sell lots of cheap items• Lots of positive reviews by simply delivering the item when its said to be delivered.

• Friends and family buy items and leave positive reviews• No company would ever admit to this and Amazon has strict policies against this.

• Extra items for free: unexpected or great deals may make people overlook problems a lot more.• Either included with the item• Special offers

Overall: online reputation is very important and quite often especially if an item is cheap to produce, sellers would rather a incur cost than a bad review

Minimising Impact Of Negative Feedback

• Amazon will remove feedback only in the following cases:• The feedback includes obscene language. • The feedback includes personally identifiable information. • The entire feedback comment is a product review. • The entire feedback comment is regarding fulfilment or customer service for an order fulfilled by Amazon.

• Amazon Marketplace buyers can remove feedback they have left• Resolving issues personally is very important to try to limit bad feedback.• However, putting pressure on a buyer is unacceptable and a violation of Amazon’s Community Rules.

• Refunded customers can still leave feedback providing an incentive for the seller to amend problems.

• Sellers can leave feedback on the buyers feedback.• This is rarely seen

Payment & Refund.• Payment for customer

• Do payment setting before make purchases.• Using Credit card or Amazon Gift Card.

• Payment for seller• Using credit card to receive money from Amazon.• International payment: third parties

• Payoneer• World First• Current Direct

Payment & Refund (con’t)• Issued Refunds

• Most refund are issued based on the payment method used at the time of purchase

• Instant refund option without waiting for process• Instant refunds are either refunded to credit card or issued as an amazon gift

card balance.• 2 weeks for process of return, after items had been received.

• Return postage costs• Receive an incorrect item • Receive a damaged item • Received a defective item • Return shoes and clothing

A-Z Guarantee

• Amazon A-Z Guarantee

• Make a purchase on amazon website or use Amazon Pay .

• The condition of the item customer buy and its timely delivery are guaranteed under it

• Purchases from a Marketplace Seller .

• Up to  £2,500 of the purchase price, including delivery charges.

A-Z Guarantee(con’t)

• File an A-to-Z Guarantee Claim• Go to Your Orders.• Locate your order in the list and click File/View Claim.• A-to-Z Guarantee claims typically take 1-2 weeks to process• Enter the required information and click Report problem.

Why is Trust Important?

Plastic swordSteel sword

Ordered Reality

Brokers

• Middle men- for many purposes• Amazon Web Service- using integrated Web service API

• Programmatically exchange data• Upload catalogue of items• Create product reports• Analyse statistics• Seller automation –grow business and increase selling efficiency• Integrates into workflows

Brokers: using the Amazon Marketplace Web Service (MWS)

sellcoolstuff.com

Orders

Manufacturers can upload their products to our website. We can update them with orders etc.

We can use MWS to upload products to amazon, get sales, reports etc

We act as broker

Customer

Fulfilment by Amazon• Send inventory to Amazon’s fulfilment centers. • When orders are placed on the Amazon site, or when a seller sends order

information for orders placed through another sales channel, Amazon will pick, pack, and ship the products to the seller’s customers.

• Frees sellers from having to manage the order fulfilment process, while still allowing sellers to maintain control over their inventory.

• Sellers can more efficiently create and send inbound shipments of inventory to Amazon’s warehouses and instruct Amazon to fulfil customer orders, creating a nearly virtual business.

• There is no additional charge for using the Amazon MWS Fulfilment functionality; only fees for the underlying FBA and selling services apply.