Halloween is around the corner, and we know this is a favorite Holiday for many (including Amazon Sellers)! Costumes, candy, decorations – the list of Halloween-related swag being sold on Amazon goes on. In the spirit of this holiday, we wanted to share the Top 5 SpooOOooky Situations that an Amazon Seller may find themselves in. But before you start stress-eating a large bowl of fun-sized Halloween candy, just know that we’ve provided some tips and tricks for how to overcome these SCARY predicaments.

 

1. Your products are out of stock

Picture this – you discovered that your Minions costume on Amazon is selling like hot cakes! (Maybe it’s because you collaborated with Mayanalytics and developed a killer advertising strategy?). Orders are flowing in and you can hardly keep up with the demand. But suddenly, your heart drops when you realize that you are completely out of stock of your popular product. Not only that, but now you find that you’ve been spending advertising dollars for a product that you can’t even sell.

Here’s what you do:

This is where inventory optimization and alerts come in! Monitor your inventory levels and scale down your advertisements before your products are low in stock. Lead times have especially increased this year, so expect long delays in manufacturing and shipping. Plan ahead, something that Mayanalytics can help you with.

2. Your listing gets shut down.

Did your Amazon listing suddenly become haunted and get shut down? Out of seemingly nowhere, you see the dreaded “inactive”, “ineligible” language in your Seller Central account. You do your best to suppress your panic as you try to figure out how and why this happened.

Here’s what you do:

Contact Amazon Seller Support to start the appeal process. Be persistent, but the key here is to also remember the golden rule: be nice, polite, and professional to whoever you communicate with (even if you feel like turning into a werewolf out of sheer frustration)! You want to make sure that whoever is working with you is engaged in your appeal. Find out why your listing got shut down (if you don’t know already), and then be very specific about what you’re doing to address the situation. Avoid sweeping statements. An example would be that you’re not simply saying “I’m going trick-or-treating” but you are describing what costume you are going to wear, what time you are going to leave the house, which houses you plan to collect candy from, and so on. Amazon is going to want to know exactly what you’re doing to solve the problem and how you will prevent it in the future.

3. You receive a flood of bad reviews caused by a manufacturing error.

Receiving bad reviews is stressful enough, but even worse is when it is due to a manufacturing error. The stitching of a Halloween costume wasn’t done properly, or there are cracks in what are supposed to be waterproof products. It could be that the product was put in the wrong packaging (a medium shirt in small-sized packaging). Maybe the products were damaged in transit. Now you’re just unsure of which inventory is good and which is bad. You’ll have to put in a removal order for all of your inventory to manually check it, now you’re out of stock. This definitely not a simple fix.

 Here’s what you do:

There are two parts to this problem – appeasing the unhappy customers (and providing great customer support!) as well as making sure the manufacturer error is fixed and/or prevented in the future. As we know, reviews are crucial for your Amazon business. 

First, be sure to put on your “friendly Customer Service” hat and respond directly to negative reviews, offering a solution to the customer. In the Amazon Seller Central account, you can now see negative feedback and contact the customer directly. This is a relatively new feature.

Second, make sure you have your Quality Assurance process established – when you receive your products from the manufacturer, before paying the remaining balance, you do inspections. It is up to the seller to decide what percentage of products are inspected and what the inspection process entails. Luckily, Movley can help you with this.

4. You experience a drop in sales, month-over-month.

Another hair-raising situation is when you experience a mysterious drop in sales, month-over-month, and you’re not exactly sure why. You’ve tried your best to do everything right, from optimizing your listing to perfecting your image photography. What could it possibly be?

 Here’s what you do:

 Take a deep breath, relax. This could be due to seasonality, or due to weaker demand before a big holiday (Black Friday). Check your newest customer reviews to make sure that things haven’t changed. Look at sales per ASIN to identify where the decrease came from. It’s a bit difficult to look at this data in Amazon Seller Central, but this is where dashboards from Mayanalytics can help you!

5. Rapid Decrease in ROAS (Return On Ad Spend)

Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) usually indicates if your advertisements are profitable and your advertising dollars are being used effectively. But a sudden decrease in ROAS seems blood curdling. With so much information at your fingertips, it can be hard to see the haunted forest for the trees. How do you exactly go about fixing this situation?

 Here’s what you do:

This is a tricky one because there are many reasons that could be driving this decrease. One, optimize your ads. Analyze your bids, budgets, conversion rates, and targets. How long this will take depends on how many products you have and what your catalogue looks like. Reanalyze your listings to see if there is anything that could cause a drop in our conversion rate, such as recent bad reviews that came in or your product is outdated and photos need to be updated. Second, make sure it isn’t due to a simple reason like a product that has low or no stock available. Click here to learn more on how Mayanalytics can help you optimize your advertising efforts on Amazon.