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Top Reasons Why Amazon Sellers Fail

Top Reasons Why Amazon Sellers Fail

Disclose the key reasons behind Amazon seller failures and learn how to tackle them. Make your startup as an amazon seller successful with insights that will set your brand apart!

As a starter, before getting into this trading platform, you might be curious to learn the success story as well as the amazon seller failure stories of most brands. And want to explore the reason why a brand can be successful there or fail as an Amazon seller.

This guide will make you aware of the most common reasons why Amazon sellers fail.  Success stories will motivate you to build a thriving brand as a seller on Amazon while getting awareness regarding the failure lets you help maintain a successful brand as an Amazon seller.

So, let’s take a detailed overview of all the major reasons why Amazon Sellers Fail.

Table of Contents

Limited Product Choices

limited product choices

The major reason is that many amazon FBA failures are having limited product listings.  Having a product that caters to small ideal customers can be detrimental in the platform. Here thousands of brands are thriving with their millions of quality listings updating daily catering to the large client base.  

When your listing is too narrow, there is a chance that you become invisible in the eyes of the target audience. When they search for the product they want, they won’t get it in your listing and move to another seller.

limited product choices

For instance, when a customer searches for laptops of the latest generations such as 12th and 13th. They want a product available in different hard drive storage and RAM. Limiting yourself to only a single configuration will propel them to move to a different seller. They offer a great deal of flexibility during the time of purchasing with multiple customization options.

Bad Pricing Strategy

Another big reason for Amazon seller failure stories is the poor pricing structure. You need to justify that your product is worth buying with a price you set. Setting too high or too low prices can put the customer in uncertainty. Most new Amazon sellers make that blunder.

Although some products deserve a too high price as a startup it is very hard to convince them with this price range. On the other hand, too low a price makes them uncertain that the product isn’t delivering the quality they want or can have durability issues. So, the best way to deal with your pricing setup issue is to first understand what competitor set prices are and according to that set the prices of your product. Another mistake amazon seller make is either under or overestimating the seasonality.

For example, at Christmas, most products have high demand. This implies you can raise your product prices while keeping an enough sale. Amazon gives importance to fulfilling client orders more than receiving products from sellers during the holidays.

Also, most rivals can have stock outs concerns and it is not easy for them to restock them right away. This gives you a chance to put a high price tag on a product in a seasonal period when most competitors’ products sell out too quickly.  While in the summer season, it is vice versa. On things more, always trace the seasonality changes it will help you in making a good pricing strategy.

Low Product Quality

ineffective listing optimization

In the process of supply chain, quality assurance plays a big role. When it comes to Amazon shipment, amazon without giving a warning shuts down the Amazon wholesale account of the seller within a few days.

Amazon do this when quality issues from the client side or failed to obey the Amazon order and fulfill criteria. The quality issues can be incorrect labels, invalid colors, damage, and detached pieces once the product arrives.

Also, there can be inconsistency in product quality such as operator error, poorly designed packaging, and incorrect ingredients.

ineffective listing optimization

Also, before a product comes under Amazon responsibility, a product needs to go through a process called FBA inspection audit to ensure they meet Amazon’s quality standards. Thus, meets the criteria of Amazon FBA quality control to avoid severe consequences is must.

Ineffective Listing Optimization

ineffective listing optimization
ineffective listing optimization

Having a low-quality listing is another major reason why Amazon sellers fail. A vague listing can put the viewers in a bewildering position. In turn, you lose the opportunity to impress your customers. Because you don’t have a lucid product display with every visual and text detail in the listings.

The major concern that comes with ineffective listing optimization is the failure to put the right keywords in the correct place. To cope with it sellers must discover the relevant keywords and infuse them in the title, description, and backend search terms fields and even in the images if possible.

Another reason is creating useful content for the product in the description section. 

Your product description must cover the purpose, benefits, and cautious concerns of the product. It also covers the features such as material type, size, color options, etc. On the other hand, the images and videos (if needed) must be of high quality. This means must be visible to the audience on any device they are using.

Disorganized Inventory Management

disorganized inventory management

Regarding inventory management, there are certain factors to bear in mind. The first one is the evading high stock inventory in the Amazon warehouse. Let us remind you that Amazon has a policy of charging a certain amount for holding an inventory in a warehouse. You can lose a certain ratio of your profit by transferring it to Amazon as a storage cost. You can cope with this matter by sending only those products to the warehouse for storage. This helps you to cover the first weeks of sales.

The opposite situation can also lead to disorganized inventory management that is under-stocking especially the demanding ones. Under-stocking frustrates the client to move on to the competitor’s seller. 

disorganized inventory management

So, to properly manage your inventory, you can trace the demand level closely to right away available those products that have high demand. You can have about at least 3 months’ stock in advance at Amazon during any given period. This way, you can cover rises in demand and escape understocking.

Inadequate Marketing and Promotion

inadequate marketing and promotion
inadequate marketing and promotion

Amazon helps its sellers to increase sales and boost visibility with Amazon ads. Its marketing tools can support sellers reach more clients and grow the brand as an Amazon seller. The seller can set up the campaigns as per their budget and bids. Also, sellers can build sponsored band or product ads within a certain time after listing the products for which they receive a credit to build Amazon coupons

Amazon ads help in fine-tuning your marketing campaigns. They offer tracking and ad spend and performance reports helping the sellers what works best for them. As per the 2022 benchmarking report, sellers who used sponsored product ads paid 13% to 79% less per click compared to alternatives such as Adobe Advertising, Meta Business Suite, and Google Campaign Manager 360.

Most sellers aren’t aware of this incentive that amazon offers to them. This makes the sellers fail to appear product in highly visible paces such as on product detail pages, SERPs results, and on the amazon site.

Ignoring Amazon's Policies

ignoring amazon's policies

Sellers can face dire penalties for ignoring or violating Amazon’s policies and most sellers still do this blunder. Either they aren’t aware of the policies or just overlook them which impacts the individual seller as well as the marketplace.

One of the major consequences is Amazon account suspension, a sudden stop to doing business on the platform which could lead to a major drop in sales. Another consequence is that product de-listing means some of your products won’t ever be visible on the platform for purchase. This also can have a direct influence on sales especially if the product is the demanding one.

ignoring amazon's policies

Also, there can be chances that Amazon withholds a certain amount of sales you earn before the violation, creating emotional distress and financial strain.

Moreover, in severe policy violations, Amazon even can take legal action against you such as counterfeit product sales, intellectual property infringement, etc. Therefore, always do in-depth Amazon policy research and prioritize learning them before moving onwards in starting your brand as an Amazon seller.

Unsatisfactory Customer Service

unsatisfactory customer service
unsatisfactory customer service

The last one is the 24/7 responsive customer service. Recall client is the king. Tackling all their queries is the foremost priority of every brand. Therefore, for a solid client service representation exist a separate department to deal with and resolve all the queries of the clients.

Still, most Amazon sellers won’t recognize the worth of this department and fail to properly satisfy the client’s needs by ignoring their reviews and feedback. Every client’s opinion is important and resolving them on time is a matter of life and death. It validates you value your clients.

Failing to react to their queries can leave undesirable feedback allowing the client to move to somewhere else. Also, possible issues can arise such as refund requests because of product quality failure, shipping delays, and incorrect product delivery.

Addressing these issues on time is highly important, to maintain the reliability and credibility of the brand. This can lead to future purchases via word-of-mouth.

FAQ's

Most Amazon FBA sellers fail because they don’t have the knowledge and resources essential to survive such as how Amazon works, the policies need to follow before listing the products, or how to market them. Also, they lack a strategy about how to reserve some money to buy bulk inventory or cover other costs such as storage, shipping, or advertising fees. Without knowledge of these things, sellers failed to thrive in the Amazon store.

The accurate ratio of unsuccessful Amazon sellers is tough to determine. But as per Jungle Scout, the Amazon software provider 63% of Amazon sellers are successful within one year of a startup while as per TrueProfit around 46% of Amazon sellers have a success ratio between 11% to 25%. For details, you can take a look at Jungle Scouts website report section for Amazon FBA failure rate.

Most Amazon FBA sellers need to go through a tough time particularly when the vendor or supplier is unable to meet the guidelines and shipping and routing requirements of Amazon and client quality requirements. This leads to unfavorable reviews and product return impact on sales. Around 95% of Amazon sellers struggling to upkeep the business within the initial year. As well, the high failure ratio is due to the reason we discussed above.

Conclusion

These are the most common mistakes most FBA sellers make. Before you start your business as an Amazon seller, you can learn from these and avoid them during your startup.

While it is a bit intimidating, to deal with these mistakes. You need time to understand them by performing careful research regarding pricing strategy, inventory management, listing optimization, and customer service practices. This way you can succeed as an Amazon seller.

Once you are aware of these failures and know how to stop them, you can keep yourself away from becoming another example of why Amazon seller fails.

If you want to avoid these mistakes within the first year and want to build a solid brand in the Amazon store, get e-commerce consulting from IT Verticals to receive firsthand knowledge and advice surrounding Amazon e-commerce. Contact us.