How to get ahead of your competitors selling on Amazon
Amazon can be very competitive. Trust me I know this from experience. When I launched my 1st product on Amazon.co.uk there was only 1 other real competitor, and this competitors’ product was a slightly different design to mine.
However, by the time my products were manufactured in China and shipped over to the UK (nearly 3 months later) there was 1 other competitors with an almost identical product on Amazon. Still, 2 main competitors is fine. Fast forward 2 years and there are probably 20+ identical products to mine. This has driven the price down to a bare minimum and profits have taken a significant dip.
To stay near the top of Amazon for my main keyword phrases (i.e. the words people type in to Amazon’s search field to find products) I need to sell 15 to 25 units per day consistently, and to do that I had to slash my sale price from £14.99 to £9.99 (I’ve dropped as low as £7.99 but at that price I make a small loss per sale).
So what can I do to increase sales?
I could keep my prices very low, I could spend more on advertising, I could look to drive off-Amazon traffic to my listings, I could sell different products, or I could sell on Amazon Japan.
Selling on Amazon Japan may seem a little drastic and overly complicated, but actually it is the best option. Ultimately what selling in Japan does is open up a huge new market without adding more products to my range. For reasons discussed in this ebook Japan is the perfect place to sell online. Amazon Japan makes even more sense because it is a huge and relatively untapped market.
How to take a product from Amazon UK to Amazon Japan
You can read all about how I took my main product over to Japan here, but to cut a long story short we got to Best-Seller in our main category while only making 5 to 10 sales per day. There is competition, don’t get me wrong, but it is significantly lower than in the UK. To remind you it takes 15 to 25 sales per day (consistently) to get even close to best seller for this same product in the UK.
At the time of writing I have just made 14 sales per day for 3 days in a row. Not bad at all and all I did was start selling in Japan. Oh, and it sells for more than I do in the UK
Maybe it’s worth it for you too?
Need any help or advice. Just post a question in our dedicated e-Commerce Japan Facebook Group here.
Neil Curtis
WE SPECIALIZE IN:
- Amazon Japan Listing Creation & Optimizations
- Amazon Japan Advertising
Our goal is to help brands launch and grow sales on Amazon Japan.
PRICING SUMMARY
We want to make our pricing as clear and simple as possible, which is why we have fixed fees rather than complex commission based pricing or contact us for a quote links.
NEW LISTING SETUP OR OPTIMIZATION
$449 per product type + $30 for any additional variation
UNBOXING/ EXPLAINER VIDEO/ VOICE-OVER VIDEOS
$199 per video
ACCOUNT & ADVERTISING MANAGEMENT
From just $799/month or 5% of revenue
AMAZON JAPAN LISTINGS
LISTING CREATION / OPTIMIZATION PRICING
$449 per product type (Parent ASIN) + $30 for any additional variation (Child ASIN)
EXAMPLE PRICING CALCULATION
10 x product types with each product type having 3 colour variations.
- 30 products in total, 20 of which are classed as Child variations and 10 are classed as Parents
- (10 x $449) + (20 x $30) = $5090
Having a well written and keyword rich product listing is essential because:
- Shoppers need to be able to find your product on Amazon Japan.
- When they do find you product they then need to have confidence so they buy.
See a finished result for one of our clients on Amazon Japan - https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/product/B08RS5MKW5
This was quite a complex project with a lot of size and type child variations. But the effort was definitely worth it.
The Rising Sun Commerce Amazon Japan Product Listing Process:
We gather all the information needed to fully understand your product and brand. We need to understand your products' features and benefits in fine detail so that we can hone the copy of your listing. We can use your English Amazon listings as a guide, however Amazon Japan is VERY strict in the wording you can use and often your English listings would be rejected instantly.
2.
We conduct detailed keyword research using specialist software such as Helium10’s Cerebro tool to analyze the keywords used by your main competitors on Amazon Japan. We also use Amazon’s own Brand Analytics data to ensure we pull out all of the most important keywords. Finally, we manually read over your competitors listings to pick out common keywords.
3.
Our optimally written product listings are professionally translated by one of Rising Sun Commerce’s experienced native Japanese listing editors who carefully integrate the keywords from the extensive keyword research process as they translate your product listings - check out Shiori’s short video where she discusses a client's listing here.
4.
We annotate any text in your images into Japanese, because everyone knows that the images are one of the most important aspects of your Amazon Product Detail Page.
5.
We construct an upload (AKA flat) file and upload your listings to Amazon Japan. We complete as many fields as possible in the flat file to help with Amazon indexing and categorisation. We apply any keywords that are not integrated into the product listing into the Generic Search Terms (AKA back end search terms). Uploading the flat files to your Amazon Japan account can sometimes be a smooth process, but due to Japan’s quirks and glitches this can often be a bumpy process. We guarantee that your product listings will be uploaded to Amazon Japan, even if it takes multiple Seller Support cases and multiple revisions to remove and replace text or images to satisfy the Amazon Japan gods.
6.
We upload your Japanese specific images to Amazon Japan. This can be a complex process and often requires multiple attempts and Seller Support cases. It also requires Brand Registry access so there is additional admin required.
7.
Any appropriate listing videos will be annotated and/ or a voice over will be applied at no extra cost. The videos will be uploaded to your listings.
8.
Using your English A+ content as a guide we construct and upload A+ content for your product listings. Like the Product Detail Pages this can often be a tough process because Amazon Japan are irrationally picky about the words you can use. We have a database of banned words and phrases, but we are still surprised by Amazon when they pick up on a new term. Again, we guarantee your A+ content will be uploaded to Amazon Japan, no matter how long it takes.
9.
Finally, once the listing has been on Amazon Japan for a few days we do Keyword Index Checks to make sure the listings are correctly indexed.
The video below show how we make sure your products are fully indexed on Amazon Japan.
JAPANESE UNBOXING & VOICE-OVER VIDEOS
Using one of our trusted native Japanese creators we can commission custom unboxing videos for your products.
We ensure the creators discuss the main benefits and features of your product.
Alternatively, if you have a good promotional video in English, we can replace the English voice with a professional standard Japanese voice.
Having a video on your Amazon Japan product listing is a major benefit and helps show the shopper exactly what they will get and reinforces the main product selling points.
$199 per video