Amazon Product Launch: What you need to know to increase your sales

Last updated on June 5th, 2023

Written by Himanshi Raj

As a seller, you’ll publish your product listing on Amazon and wish it to instantly drive sales. One proven method to achieve that is implementing a successful product launch strategy on Amazon. Here we will brief you with what an Amazon product launch is, how it will benefit your business and a step by step instruction in executing an effective product launch. 

What is an Amazon Product Launch?

Firstly, a product launch can be defined as the first instance a seller publishes their product listing on Amazon. To have a successful product launch means implementing an effective Amazon product launch strategy that will drive sales.

Let’s take one strategy, for instance, the promotional giveaway strategy. A heavily discounted promotional giveaway is meant to increase your product sales and boost your product ranking on the Amazon search results. This strategy will then lead your page tomore clicks, impressions, and thus more sales. A product launch can last anywhere between a week to ten days, but it can go even longer depending on how well your initial sales are with respect to other products in the same category.

Why is the Amazon Product Launch important to your business?

When you first launch your product on Amazon, you will have no reviews of the product, no sales history and a low product rank.. The poor rank is because Amazon will place you at the bottom pages of the Amazon search algorithm since you just launched the product. As more people purchase your product, it will lead to it being noticed in the subsequent stages of the product launch. 

If you are not an established vendor, a successful launch strategy will bring your stagnant product, which could be on page 15, all the way up to the first few pages. Being ranked higher in Amazon brings you to the top pages in the Amazon search results; a milestone that every seller aims for. Most users tend to purchase products that appear in the first pages of their search results. Hence, it is absolutely vital that sellers understand how to launch a product on Amazon, because done  the right way, they’ll  be rewarded with higher sales rolling in.

Factors that will affect your Amazon Product Sales

Keep in mind that there are several factors that will affect your purchasing sales on Amazon.  Some of those, and in no particular ranking order, are mentioned below:

• Title description
• Your key product features mentioned in bullet points
• Product description
• Main image
• Secondary images
• Customer reviews and rating
• Price point
• Deals
• Sales history
• Sales ranking
• Q/A for a particular product (which also includes questions answered)
• Seller feedback
• Order processing speed
• Defect rate
• Category 
• Shipping speed
• Product variations and much more

Forbes has condensed the above factors to a few critical points which you can check out here.

Amazon product launch strategy

I remember seeing a funny meme about a candidate interviewing for their first job role. He wasn’t getting any jobs because he lacked experience. His counter was that he needed the job TO gain experience. A very similar conundrum exists for the seller on Amazonas well; to rank higher, your product should be selling well. To be selling well, you should be ranking higher. While there’s no clear way around it, you should aim to rank AND sell higher at the same time when you launch the product. Hence, here is a simple 2 step cyclical strategy:

1. Encourage your early buyers to leave customer reviews. 
2. Once you receive around five customer reviews, invest in paid advertisements as described in detail here.

It is important that you follow the above steps only after you have invested sufficiently in Amazon SEO or have consulted with an experienced account manager. Only then would you reap the benefits of a paid ad campaign. You must constantly engage with your customers by answering their questions and reminding them to leave customer reviews.

The following 3 stage strategy can act as a guide for  your product launch:

Stage 1

• Reducing product price is an attractive method to drive initial sales. Customers are almost always looking for a good deal.

The problem that comes with discounting a new product is that users first need to KNOW about the product, before they purchase it. Keep in mind that the initial product ranking will be low. A suggestion to tackle this issue is to develop a discount deal structure that ties your new product with one of your best selling products. Customers can get discounts if they buy both these products together. The drawback is that the new product should be complementary to the bestselling products otherwise most people won’t purchase them.

• Use external channels to get your product in front of prospective buyers. By this, we mean using the popular online marketing strategy of Amazon; email marketing. If you are a business that already has a database of email addresses, email your customers about an exclusive discount to your new product. The link in the email to the new product will increase your conversion rate. 

• Leverage social media platforms such as Facebook to find potential customers. For instance, you can find members within certain Facebook Groups who would most likely be interested in purchasing your product. After getting permission to post from the admin, post your product listing link in the group to direct members to your product listing. 

That was a more organic approach to increase exposure and sales. You can also use Facebook Ads to target users that most likely would purchase your products. If you aren’t experienced in advertising through Facebook, just be careful of how much you invest in it.

Stage 2

In this stage, you'll have  had a few sales coming in. Now is the hard part of asking customers to leave a review for your product. As mentioned earlier, reviews are important because of the following factors:

• Conversion rate: It is a very natural behavior these days for customers to scroll down and check the reviews of a product before making a purchase. Social proof is  very influential in the purchasing decision for many buyers.

• Paid marketing campaigns: What would be the point of directing users through ads to products with few or no reviews. Customers would be skeptical about purchasing these  products that have not been evaluated by other customers. That is why we suggest initiating a PPC campaign when your product has received around five reviews for a more effective marketing campaign.

Here our main advice would be to provide exceptional customer service for the first few buyers. This could mean providing faster delivery, giving early buyers a freebie, discounting another of your products upon this sale, etc. Many of the strategies are mentioned here. A  few days  after delivery, send an email to the initial buyers asking them about their experience with your product. If there are any issues, try to solve it immediately. Request a quick review from them to build your customer reviews. Keep in mind to respect Amazon’s TOS in this case and avoid black hat tactics to increase sales; it’s simply not worth it.

Stage 3

The final stage of your Amazon product launch strategy entails pushing your product through Pay-Per-Click marketing. These marketing campaigns help to increase a new product’s rank in the Amazon search results. If done correctly, PPC campaigns are a sure strategy to drive traffic to your product listing and generate sales. That is why it’s recommended to allow an experienced account manager to handle such an important strategy.

Final thoughts

In conclusion, while a product launch on Amazon seems daunting, there are various strategies, as highlighted in this article, to get your new product to the top pages of Amazon. From implementing email marketing campaigns to launching a PPC campaign, be sure to try out such tested methods with an Amazon specialist to guarantee an increase in your sales. You could also contact Jennette from Seller Interactive, a company specialized in Amazon SEO, at [email protected] and make sure to visit this page that directs you to Amazon product launch services.