The annual Amazon Accelerate event for independent sellers on the platform taking place in Seattle Wednesday (Sept. 14) and Thursday (Sept. 15) is turning into something of a love fest as the eCommerce titan encourages embracing the months-old “Buy With Prime” pilot while taking wraps off several new ways to help indie sellers move more merchandise.
In one of several blog posts from day one of the event, Amazon said that Buy with Prime gives online sellers a way to address two key pain points: driving traffic and converting shoppers. To heighten engagement, Amazon is offering brands a customizable Buy with Prime page for their storefronts, along with co-branded social media ads on Facebook and Instagram to drive visibility and traffic.
There’s also a new “Buy with Prime Marketing Toolkit” to add Prime branding to seller marketing efforts, like a Buy with Prime badge for seller pages, giving assurance to shoppers.
Sellers Speak, Alexa Listens
Alexa is piping up as part of it, with a new skill to help brands connect with and convert shoppers by answering product questions with content provided by brands themselves.
Amazon said in a Wednesday blog post that its new Customers ask Alexa feature lets brands provide their own answers to customer queries about products in their categories
The company said brands registered with Amazon Brand Registry “will see the new Customers ask Alexa feature in Seller Central, where they can easily discover and answer frequently asked customer questions using self-service tools. All answers go through Alexa’s content moderation and quality checks before Alexa selects the most relevant answer to share with customers.”
This feature rolls out to a select group of brands starting in October will be available to all eligible brands by next year, Amazon said, adding it will come to the search bar late this year and to Echo devices in the middle of 2023.
“Amazon recognizes brands as experts on their products,” Rajiv Mehta, general manager of Alexa Shopping at Amazon, said in the post. “With this new capability, we have made it easier for brands to connect with customers to help answer common questions and better inform their purchase decisions.”
See also: Amazon Boosts Alexa Device Features, Capabilities to Improve Connected Commerce
Independent sellers are responsible for over half of Amazon’s total annual sales volume, and developments unveiled at the Accelerate event are aimed at boosting third-party sales efforts in a down year, with “Customers ask Alexa” making its debut in time for the holiday selling season.
By placing a big emphasis on Buy with Prime, Amazon is clearly hoping improve sales prospects for its indie sellers who have seen business cool down under inflationary frost.
Among other new features of Buy With Prime is “Premium A+ Content, a free self-service branding tool a result of suggestions that came from sellers for an even higher-level content management option. The aim of this new tool is to be the best-in-class product detail page experience available for supplemental marketing information using more real estate on the detail page and richer media content compared to Basic A+ Content,” the company said.
This builds on the attention-grabbing Thursday Night Football (TNF) play Amazon is making via Prime Video, which also features an Alexa skill allowing fans to ask Alexa questions about teams, stats and other details as the games play out in real-time streaming.
See also: Amazon Boosts Monetization Effort Ahead of ‘Thursday Night Football’ Kickoff
Inbox Influence
Breaking with precedent, Amazon is also equipping its legion of third-party sellers with the ability to send marketing emails directly to consumers in a bid to drive more sales.
That’s another big bit of news coming out of Accelerate, with Amazon introducing three new audience types within the Amazon Customer Engagement tool enabling sellers to target and acquire new customers through a less restrictive approach to email marketing for the platform.
“Brands are able to quickly acquire new customers in the Amazon store, but they expressed a need for improved tools to increase customer lifetime value,” said Benjamin Hartman, vice president of Amazon North America Selling Partner Services. “These improvements help unlock the value of remarketing as we further our commitment to helping sellers reach the right customer, at the right time.”
See it now: Data Brief: Amazon’s Prime Day Traffic Held Up While Walmart+ Weekend Fell 24%
Using Amazon Customer Engagement’s Tailored Audiences, sellers can select the audience attributes they feel would engage with their offers, and Amazon sends the actual email.
Amazon said it is “currently testing Tailored Audiences in a beta program, and the company plans to make it available to all U.S. sellers in early 2023.” The tool is provided to sellers at no cost in the Seller Central portal. It added that “Amazon also plans to enhance the messages’ design capabilities with custom HTML content and improved templates coming soon.”
The worry is that it could backfire, triggering a massive inbox influx for consumers, but it’s a risk the eCommerce giant is willing to take after seeing its sales growth slow in the second quarter for the first time in two decades, and with holiday gifting season about to begin.
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