Transitioning from Grocery Shelves to Amazon
Amazon is a Search Engine, Not a Grocery Shelf
This is a good and a bad thing for your brand. On the one hand, you don’t have to worry about whether there is space for you in the marketplace. On the other hand, there is no limit to how many competitors are there with you
Buying rice in a traditional grocery store means finding the appropriate aisle and scanning a shelf that offers anything from a single-serve box of rice pilaf, a plastic container with brown or white, and a 20lbs burlap sack. There will be some choices within these subcategories, but your decision will be pretty well narrowed down by what quantity and style you are looking for.
Buying rice on Amazon is a different experience. The search bar feature takes those subcategories —rice pilaf, jasmine, long grain— and offers a full aisle of options for each. Type in “basmati rice” and you will be offered shelves upon shelves of options. Refine that search to “organic basmati rice” and the shelf will reshuffle. A brand can eliminate competitors from the virtual shelf by identifying the health benefits, dietary specifications, or production methods that set them apart. The more specific the search, the smaller the shelf.
The caveat here is that too much specificity might leave you obscured. If “organic basmati rice” eliminates some amount of the competition, then branding yourself as “September harvested organic basmati rice from Western Uttar Pradesh” might yield you a 100% conversion rate for customers who search for exactly that, but it is a pretty slim target audience.
“Eye Level” Still Exists
If Amazon’s equivalent to an endcap is the “featured brand” appearing on top of the search results, then their version of eye-level placement is the row below this. These sponsored posts blend in with all subsequent offerings by keeping the same format as any other listing.
In contrast to grocery shelves, though, these listings come tagged with the word “sponsored.” This means that conscientious shoppers can identify who paid to be on that shelf. Just below these are the true top performers, those who arrived on the strength of sales and good reviews. This is the acreage you can only earn
But “Kid’s Eye Level” Does Not
Because Amazon’s search bar puts so much pressure on verbiage, the phrasing used has to keep your shopper in mind. No longer will a parent be walking down the aisle and have their little one point at the bright box showing some favorite cartoon character. The parent has a different set of criteria than their child, and it is more apt to be the words used that catch their eye.
If your customer will be sending their kids to school with your product, then you might do well to call out that you are an “allergen safe snack”. Even if they don’t type this into the search bar, these words may be the cartoon character that catches that parent’s eye as they scroll through.
Three Factors Customers Weigh Before Clicking Into Your Listing
This is the part that we’re all used to, the part where you need to stand out from the others left on the shelf. There are similarities to traditional grocery in terms of what will catch someone’s eye, but with some twists. it’s not always one-to-one.
The three factors that Amazon shoppers weigh before clicking on an item are Main Image, Product Offer — how similar the listing is to what they are looking for, and Price.
There is a subconscious aspect of in-store shopping, wherein customers can narrow their search by visual cues. Someone who wants to make a one-off dish for their family can skim straight past the sacks of rice on the bottom shelf. This isn’t as simple on Amazon, where all products can be made to look the same size by their image. So customers will look at your product offer —“32oz” in the description— and your price to quickly identify if this listing fits their criteria.
Becoming Retail Ready on Amazon
The clicked-on listing is similar to having been selected off of the shelf. The shopper wants to turn your product over in their hands, feel the weight, read the ingredients and have their eye caught with packaging they cannot help but put into their cart.
But if customers are consistently putting your product back on the shelf then Amazon will take note. They are, after all, working to give customers the best possible experience. It’s a danger of paying for those sponsored slots up top. Brands that are not retail-ready might sell more than they otherwise would, but their Amazon ranking could suffer in the process.
Customers can’t turn your product over in their hands, but that doesn’t mean they want you to try and replicate that exact phenomenon. If you have seven pictures on your Amazon listing, and all seven are various angles of the product, then an opportunity has been missed.
Angles are good in moderation. Consider, though, that this virtual shelf allows for the narrative to be told. A granola bar can be shown enjoyed on a mountain summit. Videos included and target markets implicitly nodded to. These are angles rarely available on grocery shelves.
Becoming retail-ready requires upkeep, creativity, and of course a good product. Most shoppers have short attention spans, and if your listing gives the customer a chance to hesitate, they might just remember that there are endless shelves of alternatives sitting one step back in their browser’s history. But it’s worth getting right. When used properly, Amazon offers your brand more growth potential than any brick-and-mortar marketplace in the world.