In the U.S. alone, 150 million unique visitors hit the Amazon marketplace every single month. To get their attention and persuade them to buy from you, one effective method to continually optimize your listing performance is to run split tests.
What split testing is
Split testing (also known as A/B testing) is essentially an experiment. You’ll create two or more variations, such as different product titles, featured photos, or product descriptions, and see which variation in the set performs best.
On your own e-commerce site, you direct a portion of traffic to one test variation and another portion of traffic to a different variation. In this way, you can compare how shoppers behaved. For example, did one set of visitors stay on the site longer or convert at a higher rate?
On Amazon, however, splitting traffic is trickier to do. You’ll need to rotate the variants over time and compare the results. For example, you might test Version A for the first three days of the week, update your listing to Version B, and then monitor Version B for the next three days of the week. Of course, this example reveals a limitation: shoppers may behave differently on different days of the week. And, because the subjects of your experiment are actual Amazon shoppers as they are shopping, if your new variant performs worse than your old one, you risk losing sales and could potentially endanger your search ranking.
An alternative to traditional Amazon split tests
PickFu is a different way to split test that takes place entirely outside of the Amazon marketplace. PickFu is polling software that acts like an online focus group: you ask your market research question, choose the kind of people you’d like to respond to it (such as females who frequently exercise or dog parents over the age of 34), and PickFu brings 50, 100, even 500 respondents to your poll.
An advantage of testing outside of Amazon is that your product doesn’t even need to be for sale yet. You can test names for products before they launch, or test product variations such as color or design options before going into production. You can also compare your variations to competitors, which you can’t do on Amazon.
How high-volume Amazon sellers use PickFu for market research and listing optimization
PickFu can be used in myriad ways, with users constantly finding new applications. These are common scenarios for Amazon sellers:
Before product launch
● Validate the idea or price point of a new product
● Discover the most appealing name for a product
● Find which color or design options of the product are most likely to attract customers
● Get feedback on product packaging and logos
For Amazon product listings
● Choose the most attractive main photo
● Perfect the product title according to consumer preferences
● Hone the language of the product description
● Collect feedback on how to improve branded content, such as videos and infographics
For product improvement
● Understand what product bundles or bonuses are the most desirable
● Perform competitive testing of your product listing vs. category leaders
A million-dollar example of how PickFu helps Amazon sellers
Thrasio acquires and operates million-dollar Amazon FBA brands. In 2018, the company acquired Angry Orange, a citrus concentrate that neutralizes pet odors. Despite its lack of quality branded content, Angry Orange sold over 100 units per day at $22.95 each.
The team at Thrasio hypothesized that with a strategic brand overhaul, overall market share could be improved. John Hefter, Thrasio’s VP who led the acquisition, found Angry Orange’s existing bottle unattractive. “It looked like it belonged in a vape store,” he said.
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