The visibility of products on Amazon and eBay (by Romina Giovannoli)

Amazon and eBay are the two most used marketplaces for traffic and turnover volumes.

Amazon, founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos, is considered the largest online store in the world. On this marketplace it is not only possible to sell and buy products, but also to buy items and services that it produces itself.

eBay, founded in 1995 by the Franco-Iranian computer scientist Pierre Omidyar, is a large showcase that allows the buying and selling of products between companies and individuals; has no own brand products.

Sellers who intend to sell on these two marketplaces must keep in mind that competitiveness is a preponderant factor, because the search algorithms of these two platforms tend to give visibility to the sellers who have the lowest price and who have the highest sales rates. So the decision of which products to offer within eBay and Amazon must necessarily pass from a benchmark between potential competitors in which the proposed prices and their strengths and weaknesses are analyzed. It should not be forgotten that, at the same time, a good positioning on these two marketplaces cannot be separated from an efficient account; that is, an account characterized by good order management, low percentages of canceled orders, good reviews and feedback from buyers.

Logistics and shipping are also very important because a small series of disputed sales by customers can lead to the temporary closure of the store on Amazon and a significant loss of positions on eBay. Therefore, given that users do not buy on marketplaces for loyalty towards a company but for the variety of products or the lower price; the loss of ranking positions on eBay and the loss of the BuyBox on Amazon leads to an immediate collapse in sales. Basically, the correct fulfillment of orders must be guaranteed because the game is also played on logistics.

Amazon and eBay have internal search engines that use internal criteria to scale positions and gain more visibility on the platform.

Amazon's search engine is exclusively product-oriented because its focus is on selling. It makes the user see the best product at the best price because only in this way can he be able to convert more users into customers, to retain them and push them to buy more and more products. The uniqueness and quality of the contents are irrelevant aspects; for which a page with richer and more descriptive content may be more likely to convert users into customers but this will not directly affect the ranking because each unique product has only one page within the Amazon platform that many times corresponds to the page of the top seller of that product. All the other sellers, in a sense, follow the description of the main seller despite having their own descriptions.

The main factors affecting ranking on Amazon are:

• the conversion rate: since the first positioning factor is the sale. And as the number of sales increases, the page immediately gains visibility;

• images: because quality photos entice the user to buy;

• the price: one of the first factors that influences the user's decision and is strongly connected to the number of sales;

• Reviews: products with a high number of reviews are preferred by users in the decision phase and have a better chance of being sold. Therefore the correlation between the number of (positive) reviews and the ranking on Amazon is intrinsic;

• the position in the Amazon bestseller ranking: a logical consequence of the main factor, sales. Amazon draws up rankings among the top sellers and makes them immediately visible to users to further increase sales. The rankings can be of different types (categories and subcategories) so the visibility is directly related to the single macro or micro category.

Amazon compared to Google has about three times the search volumes on product keywords which are very often accompanied by the name of the brand (for example, Nike shoes, Swatch watches) which can present different variants such as D&G perfumes and Dolce and Gabbana perfumes. ); so it becomes very important to understand which term is most typed by users.

On eBay, the positioning of individual products is based on an algorithm, called "Best Match", which provides the best search results to searches for certain products by users. The Best Match algorithm is supported by the Cassini search engine, internal to the eBay platform.

Best Match and Cassini consider a number of factors for the purpose of positioning on eBay which are:

• relevance of the products with respect to the user's research;

• competitiveness of the final price (including taxes and shipping);

• popularity of the product;

• visits obtained;

• clicks received;

• offers received;

• purchases generated.

To these factors are added parameters that analyze the conduct and performance of the seller. With these parameters the "tender" for the positioning of the advertisements is much more qualitative and the quality of the service offered by the seller assumes a certain importance. Here are some of them:

• return policy of the goods;

• seller popularity and rating;

• delivery times and policies;

• clarity of the terms and conditions of sale;

• useful information about the product;

• Click-Through Rate and Sell Through Rate.

So the positioning on eBay depends on a mix of good practices and the seller's ability to grow sales as eBay, like Amazon, gives greater visibility to sellers which ensure greater chances of conversion. If from the benchmark of similar (or identical) products sold by competitors it is deduced that there are no margins to compete with them, it is better not to enter the product because the poor performance will negatively affect the results of the entire eBay store.

On eBay, free shipping is a determining factor for positioning purposes because Cassini favors free shipping and buyers look for free shipping despite knowing that those costs are spread within the proposed price (psychological phenomenon).

An account with many positive reviews has a better chance of being positioned at the top of the results because Cassini rewards them. So to keep your status high, bearing in mind that customers are always demanding and never miss an opportunity to highlight the slightest defect as soon as the opportunity arises, it is necessary:

• scrupulously describe the terms and conditions of sale of their products;

• communicate with buyers in a timely manner;

• fulfill orders on time;

• introduce flexibility in the return policy for orders placed.

A certain attention, when placing a product on eBay must be paid to the choice of the category, which is not a ranking factor but affects it indirectly. So choosing the right category allows the product to have greater visibility.

On eBay, the title and description of an advertisement are like an advertisement, that is, they allow you to inform buyers and get their attention. Thus a good title and an accurate description clarify the ideas about the object and increase the likelihood that potential buyers will find and buy it. Keep in mind that an erroneous, inaccurate or misleading description that prompts someone to buy can have negative repercussions due to negative reviews that end up affecting the visibility of the product.

As on Amazon, images are also important on eBay because the platform rewards the advertisements that contain them.

Finally, it is important to underline that Amazon and eBay are e-commerce sites in all respects and as such contribute to positioning on Google for certain keywords. Thus, if by working on the optimization of the internal account of these two marktplace you get the positioning and visibility for users who use their internal search engine, at the same time with a little foresight you can improve the ranking. of the eBay and Amazon pages on the main search engine: Google.

Romina Giovannoli

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The article The visibility of products on Amazon and eBay (by Romina Giovannoli) comes from ScenariEconomici.it .

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This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/la-visibilita-dei-prodotti-su-amazon-e-ebay-di-romina-giovannoli/ on Sun, 09 May 2021 08:00:35 +0000.