Does any of this resonate with you?

● Invest time and resources in growing your business

● Growth is underwhelming and not keeping pace

● Why is that?

By the end of this presentation...

● Are you retail ready? What it means and why it’s critical to conversions.

● Why you must align stakeholders in your organization to achieve ecommerce success and the unique dynamics of optimizing conversions on an eCommerce platform.

● How to approach SEO, metadata, and your ecommerce catalog as digital annuities and long-term investments you must cultivate and protect.

Who am I

● Vice President of Enterprise at Jungle Scout

● Led teams at Amazon● I left Amazon to work with some of the

largest brands on earth, developing and executing their ecommerce strategy and tactics.

● From there I started my own company, Downstream, providing powerful Ecommerce technology that allowed brands and sellers to amplify their retail ecommerce growth.

● Recently, my cofounder and I had a successful exit, with the sale of Downstream to Jungle Scout.

Who is Jungle Scout

● With over 500k Customers, $22B in assisted ecommerce sales annually, and a global presence, Jungle Scout is the market leader in ecommerce intelligence.

● Check out our reviews on Trustpilot, G2, Capterra, and Google.

● Join our growing audience of over 2M ecommerce professionals on○ YouTube, Facebook, Instagram,

Twitter, and LinkedIn

How to get retail ready

● Formula for growth: traffic x conversion = sales

● We focus too much on traffic● Retail ecommerce success requires a

holistic approach

Conversion optimizationhas 5 elements

1. Price2. Promotion3. Content4. Operations5. Trust

Price

● Is it competitive?● Benchmark against “Amazon’s Zeitgeist

Pages” e.g. Best Seller, New Releases, Movers & Shakers○ https://www.amazon.com/bestsellers

● Are you winning the Buy Box consistently?● Is it “fit for channel”?● This starts with pack size

○ Is the pack size conducive to a shopper's needs?

○ Is the pack size conducive to shipping? ○ Is it profitable?

Promotion

● Are the best sellers constantly running a deal or a coupon?

● There are added traffic benefits to running low-dollar/always-on coupon campaigns ○ It will ensure you are constantly

surfaced in many merchandising widgets both on and off platform

Content

● Is the content clear, accurate, and compelling?

● Strong hero image● Prioritize B+ images

○ Above the fold○ Much more critical

● Provide unique, descriptive, customer-friendly information that encourages consumers to spend more time on the product’s detail page

● Copy (bullets, description, etc.)● Opportunity to mitigate known issues

that drive returns and poor reviews

Operations

● Is there enough inventory?● Suppression?

○ You're either in search or suppressed

● Ensure you don’t go out of stock● Reduce vendor lead times● Ensure appropriate weeks of cover● Optimize other operational aspects

which create value destructive events

Trust

● Traditionally brands served as a shorthand for trust — not anymore

● Search data from Amazon shows brand search has declined dramatically in favor of non-branded search

● How many positive reviews does your product have?

● Amazon’s recent crackdowns on false reviews will provide a more realistic representation of customer feedback

Aligning stakeholders

● Growing an ecommerce business requires a collaborative effort between marketing, sales, operations, and many other stakeholders

● Optimal ecommerce growth can’t be achieved in isolation○ Gain team alignment○ Set expectations up front

● On Amazon your operational metrics are also marketing metrics >>Ensure your team understands that the implications of their decisions are different on an ecommerce platform

Thinking long-term

● Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN) carries a trove of associated digital baggage○ Accumulation of largely invisible

metadata documenting every consumer interaction - every price change (both on and off Amazon), every rating and review, historical fluctuations in inventory, and much more

The “Flywheel” and catalog inertia

● Jeff Bezos is said to have drawn what he called the “Amazon Flywheel” on a cocktail napkin as an analogy for○ The Virtuous Cycle of Selection○ Customer Experience○ Lower Prices

● The phenomena of small flywheels exist across ecommerce

● As a product listing gains maturity, it develops more consumer behavior history, more clicks, more conversions, and more relevant search

The “Flywheel” and catalog inertia (cont.)

● Understanding the association with consumer behavior, metadata, and how each ASIN is populated in search and merchandising is critical

● The accumulated invisible metadata:○ Positively influences your product

listing○ Not easily acquired = quite valuable

● Gathering inertia creates a self perpetuating feedback loop

The “Flywheel” and catalog inertia (cont.)

● New products cold-start from a static state

● Amazon has introduced a program called “Born to Run” in an effort to address this

● For this reason we want to avoid value-destructive events whenever possible○ Unnecessary hard conversions to

new product GTINs ○ Stockouts○ Poor reviews○ Listing suppressions

Thank you!Let’s connect

Jungle ScoutTwitter: https://twitter.com/junglescout

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/junglescout

Connor FolleyTwitter: https://twitter.com/Co2n2r

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ctfolley