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New York, US
Photo by Hal Gatewood on Unsplash
Amazon storefronts are a powerful way to boost your brand recognition and sales.
They serve as unique opportunities on Amazon's platform to showcase your products through a personalized lens. As the seller, you can mold your storefront to suit your brand's identity, using features like logos, banners, and categorization to customize your platform and connect with your customers in an authentic way.
As you build your own storefront, you may wonder what differentiates one from another. What factors shape a storefront's success?
To better understand this, the Tiny Mammoth team researched the top 100 best-selling storefronts of 10 product categories on Amazon. Here's what they did right, and what you can do to improve your storefront and boost sales.
We graded these top-performing storefronts using two categories: utilization factors and appeal factors. Each has its own rubric, and in this article, we'll explore utilization factors.
What are Utilization Factors?
Utilization factors are what we determined all storefronts should have to get the most out of storefront creation.
How Did We Grade Utilization Factors?
We’ve graded each factor based on whether it’s included by the storefront. If the storefront didn’t have that factor, it received a zero. If it did, it received one point. We’ve narrowed down nine utilization factors to consider, so the highest grade a store could receive is a 9/9. Due to subjectivity, we did not judge the level of attractiveness within the utilization factor grading process.
What Are The Specific Factors?
The 9 Utilization Factors we determined a storefront should have are:
1. Banner Design: When shoppers discover your storefront, your banner acts as their first impression for your brand. You can use brand colors, fonts, and other brand-complimenting features to showcase your brand’s identity. To receive a point for this factor, storefronts should have a brand-relevant banner design. This may include a badge, color gradient, logo with popping or inverted colors, or slogan. For example, the skincare brand Neutrogena’s banner is its logo with the colors inverted, which we’ve qualified as a design. We did not grade this category based on our aesthetic preferences for banner design, but instead on having a brand-relevant and intentional design present.
2. Menu Flair: Stores that receive this point must have a menu logo, which is found under the bottom left corner of the banner, next to the menu page selection. Though this may seem small, brands should use every opportunity to increase their brand and logo exposure.
3. 1 or More Videos: Videos add an interactive, eye-catching element to boost customer engagement and build brand loyalty. Brands scoring this point should include one or more videos, which increases customer interaction.
4. Shop by Grouping Tile: Scored storefronts include an image or tile that links customers to a family ASIN or another storefront page with the specified products on the tile. For example, Shop Snow Gear, For Newborns - 4 months, etc.
5. Quote Tile: For this factor, storefronts must have a brand or product-relevant text shorter than a paragraph. It may be a slogan or caption that stands out from other text. It is normally the only focus of that image (or “tile”), but it doesn’t have to be in order to score. For example — Our philosophy: do what you love, don’t cut corners and 30-day odor control guaranteed. Adding a quote tile helps build the relationship between customers and your brand by sharing a piece of your brand’s values.
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6. Minimal Use of Amazon Stock Tiles for ASIN Collection: This means the storefront uses a minimal amount of the tiles to the right in their storefront layout. The stock tiles look the same as if you were scrolling through listings on Amazon. Minimizing your use of these and opting for a more intentional custom design makes your storefront feel like an enjoyable, personalized shopping experience, versus having the customer feel like they just typed in the search bar and began browsing.
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7. Follow Banner Tile: Storefronts should include a tile pointing toward the “follow” button on your Amazon storefront, solidifying your connection and securing return customers.
8. Seasonal or Promotional Selling Point: Storefronts that sell specialized products, like Disney-themed items, may include a tile pointing out fall-focused products or products related to specific events, like the release of a new movie.
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9. Product Detail Badges/Awards: These badges highlight any awards a product has won, or highlight key product features and details.
What Did We Find?
After evaluating each storefront, we concluded the following:
Highest Score: The highest recorded score was 8 points, which was only received by one storefront. We were impressed by top-scorer TrailBuddy’s detailed and user-friendly storefront.
Average score: The average score recorded was 5 points, which 24 storefronts earned.
These results imply that the average top-performing storefront is meeting 5/9 or slightly greater than half of our utilization factor standards.
We broke this data down further to explore what the most common missing attributes comprised. We found:
66 storefronts were missing a video.
78 were missing quote tiles.
89 stores were missing product detail badges/awards.
90 were missing a “Follow Us” banner.
These numbers showcase commonly missed opportunities for storefront creators like you to take advantage of. Here’s why this matters: the storefronts we studied are already successful, even without including every feature we’ve listed. But in order to stay competitive and continue growing sales, stores can incorporate commonly missed features like these. Instead of letting your success stagnate, consider what features you can improve to connect with your customers even more effectively.
What Can You Do?
By collecting this data, we’ve outlined important features to ensure you incorporate as you develop your storefront. Use these 9 utilization factors as a checklist when you’re building your storefront, and try to integrate as many as possible. Even simple features like a “follow us” banner or a video highlighting your product can have a big impact on your storefront’s success. Consider the following:
1. Banner Design - Is my Amazon banner brand-relevant, eye-catching, and high quality? If you’re unsure, experiment by A/B testing: choose one banner to leave up for a designated time period, then switch it to another for the same amount of time. Evaluate which performs better.
2. Videos - Do I have one or more videos on my storefront? This may include a product video showcasing item (s) you sell, or might be a branded video serving as an opportunity to highlight your brand’s message or backstory. Customers like being engaged, and using a variety of forms like images, text, and videos will help your storefront stand out. To effectively connect with your customers, use simple phrases that present your messaging clearly and concisely.
3. Product Badges - Do I have product badges on the items I’m selling? Use product badges to highlight important features, denote your best sellers, or showcase any awards your product has received. While you don’t need to use a product badge on every item, take the time to incorporate them on any item you deem worthy. These serve as another visually engaging way to show off your product and entice them to learn more.
4. “Follow Us” Banner - Do I have a clearly marked, eye-catching “Follow Us” banner? When customers follow a brand’s Amazon storefront page, deals from that brand will appear on their home page. Encourage your customers to follow you so they stay connected to your brand and products, keeping the avenue for engagement open. When designing your banner, keep it clear and concise. Experiment with cohesive colors and fonts that pop off the screen and catch their attention.
FAQ
How do I create a storefront?
Creating a storefront is an intuitive process with many opportunities for customization. We'll be exploring the process in-depth in an upcoming article.
Can I edit my storefront after creating it?
You can! After publishing your storefront, you can edit it at any time through the Settings button. We recommend that you keep your storefront up to date, using the utilization factors we explored above to highlight any seasonal sales, product releases, or updated brand messaging.
What happens if I don’t make a storefront?
Storefronts aren’t required, but you face disadvantages with how you connect to your customers if you opt not to create one. When a brand doesn’t have a storefront, Amazon replaces the storefront link that appears beneath the product titles with a new page including similar products, both from you and your competitors. This means your customers will be shown more competitor products when your brand lacks a storefront, which could cost you their sale.
What’s Next?
We’ve broken down our extensive data exploration into three articles. In our next article, we’ll explore the second category that we’ve used to grade top-performing Amazon storefronts, appeal factors. To continue learning what we found in our storefront success research and how to integrate those findings into your own storefront, read on.
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