Amazon Stores, often called Amazon Storefronts, have been around since September 2018. They serve as a brand’s dedicated space on Amazon, similar to a miniature version of their website, to allow customers to browse their products and learn more about their brand. Unlike a typical website, a storefront eliminates the need for FAQ sections, contact pages, and team information, focusing entirely on showcasing products and facilitating purchases.
In a recent analysis of our client portfolio at AMZ Pathfinder, we found that for brands actively investing in their Amazon storefronts, an average of 13.63% of their total sales came directly through the storefront. That’s a significant portion of revenue that shouldn’t be ignored.
For those not as focused on their storefront, the percentage is likely much lower – typically in the 5-10% range. However, the key takeaway is this: Amazon shoppers are engaging with brand storefronts, and the sales impact can be substantial, so it’s important to invest in making Storefronts a valuable part of your Amazon presence.
This blog will highlight how to create a successful Amazon storefront, how to leverage storefronts with advertising, and the data and insights you can glean from this often-overlooked part of the Amazon ecosystem. If you still need to give your storefront the attention it deserves, prepare to be surprised by its potential.
Key Components of a Successful Amazon Storefront
When it comes to building an effective Amazon Storefront, there are a few key elements successful brands have in common:
- Consistent Branding and High-Quality Design: The most impressive storefronts treat the page like an extension of the brand’s website. They use high-quality, on-brand images and videos, consistent fonts and colors, and an overall aesthetic that aligns with the brand’s identity. This creates a seamless experience for shoppers moving between the storefront and the brand’s external presence.
- Conversion-Focused Navigation: Shoppers should be able to easily find what they’re looking for on the storefront. Clear top-level navigation, prominent calls-to-action, and logical product organization are a must. The goal is to guide customers quickly to the products or information they need without getting bogged down in complexity. Simple navigation reduces bounce rates and increases dwell time.
- Well-optimized Product Listings: Use data-driven SEO strategies to refine product titles, descriptions, and backend keywords. This helps shoppers quickly locate products when searching for relevant keywords and items, whether they’re browsing on Amazon or even discovering your listings through external search engines like Google. In one of the sections below, you’ll learn more about sending traffic from Google to Amazon Store or product listings.
- Frequent Updates: The best storefronts aren’t static – they’re regularly refreshed to align with seasons, holidays, product launches, and other key events. Keeping your storefront dynamic shows customers you’re actively engaged and responsive to their needs. According to Amazon, on average, Stores updated within the past 90 days have 21% more repeat visitors and 35% higher attributed sales per visitor.
- Effective Advertising: Creating successful campaigns involves resonating with your target audience and utilizing Amazon’s tools to increase visibility precisely when potential buyers are ready to purchase. One of the most powerful ad formats for this is Sponsored Brands.
Sponsored Brands and Storefronts
Sponsored Brands ads, which were previously known as Amazon Headline Search Ads in 2015, are banner ads that display your brand logo, custom headline, and multiple products in prominent search result placements. In 2020, Amazon added a new video ad format to the Sponsored Brands suite.
There are three main Sponsored Brands ad formats to choose from:
- Product Collection: This format allows you to feature up to three products, driving traffic directly to your Amazon storefront or a dedicated landing page.
- Store Spotlight: Available only to sellers with an Amazon storefront, this format promotes entire product categories and storefront pages rather than individual items.
- Video Ads: These auto-playing video ads appear at the top of search results, within the search page, and on product detail pages, sending traffic directly to relevant product listings.
After choosing the best ad format for your brand, it’s important to note that Sponsored Brands ads can now direct customers to any page or subpage of your storefront. This added flexibility allows for more targeted advertising, ensuring potential customers are directed to the most relevant sections of your storefront.
Research by Dynamic Yield indicates that 76% of shoppers prefer using their mobile devices for purchases because it saves them time. With mobile now the dominant shopping channel, it is important to ensure your storefront is optimized for seamless shopping experiences across devices such as mobile and desktop.
Google Ads and External Traffic
Amazon has updated its algorithm to reward brands that drive off-site traffic. By bringing traffic to your storefront, you can improve your product ranking.
Running Google Ads to the Amazon Storefront can be a strategic move, especially with Amazon’s Brand Referral Bonus program. This program offers a 10% referral bonus for sales generated from external traffic.
Here are some things to take into account when deciding whether to send traffic to the storefront or directly to product detail pages:
- Product Detail Pages vs. Storefront: For many brands, sending Google Ads traffic to product detail pages may be more effective, especially if the goal is to drive immediate sales. However, certain products or promotional campaigns might benefit from the broader exposure provided by a storefront.
- Impact on Organic Ranking: While driving external traffic to your storefront can increase visibility, it may not significantly impact your organic ranking on Amazon. Most of the SEO benefits come from sales and traffic to product detail pages.
- Brand Strategy: Deciding whether to drive traffic to your storefront or an external website (like Shopify) depends on your overall brand strategy. Some brands prefer to keep traffic within the Amazon ecosystem to take advantage of the referral bonus and Amazon’s vast customer base. Others might opt to drive traffic to their own website for better control over customer data and experience.
Making Sense of Storefront Data
The “Insights” tab within Seller Central provides useful data to help you evaluate the performance of the Amazon storefront. Think of it like the Analytics section of a website. Here are some of the key metrics you should be monitoring:
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Traffic Sources
See exactly where the storefront visitors are coming from, whether organic Amazon searches, Sponsored Brands ads, or external channels like Google. Tracking these traffic sources will reveal which of your marketing efforts are driving the most engaged shoppers to your storefront.
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Engagement Metrics
The “Engagement” section primarily shows how shoppers interact with your products and gives per-product statistics. It includes key performance indicators (KPIs) such as dwell time, bounce rate, add-to-cart activity, views, clicks, CTR (Click-Through Rate), purchases and conversion ratio.
You can better understand shopper engagement by tracking these KPIs and making data-driven decisions to improve your storefront.
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Dwell Time
This metric measures how long visitors are spending on your storefront pages. Higher dwell times generally indicate more engaged, interested shoppers who are taking the time to browse and interact. Aim for an average dwell time of 60 seconds or more, as this suggests customers are finding your content and offerings compelling.
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Bounce Rate
The bounce rate tracks the percentage of visitors who immediately leave your storefront after landing on it. A high bounce rate (over 50%) could signal issues with your page design, navigation, or overall relevance to the shopper’s intent. Strive to keep your bounce rate under 40% for best results.
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Add-to-Cart Rate
While you can’t complete purchases directly on the storefront, you can track how many visitors are adding products to their carts. This is a strong indicator of purchase intent, and you’ll want to monitor this metric closely, looking for opportunities to optimize your add-to-cart experience.
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Views
This metric tracks the number of times your products have been viewed. A high number of views indicates good visibility and interest in your products.
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Clicks
This metric indicates the number of times visitors have clicked on your products. Higher clicks can signify effective product listings and compelling visuals or descriptions.
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CTR (Click-Through Rate)
This is the ratio of clicks to views, expressed as a percentage. A higher CTR indicates that your product listings are effective at converting views into clicks. Aim for a CTR above the industry average for better performance.
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Purchases
This metric shows the number of purchases made through your storefront. Monitoring purchases helps you gauge the effectiveness of your sales funnel and the overall success of your product listings.
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Conversion Ratio
This ratio indicates the percentage of clicks that result in purchases. A higher conversion ratio reflects the effectiveness of your product pages and the overall shopping experience.
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Individual Page Performance
Go through the data on a page-by-page basis to identify your highest and lowest-performing storefront content. Which pages are driving the most traffic, orders, and revenue? Understanding these variances can inform future updates and help you allocate resources more effectively.
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Store Quality Report
One of the more recent developments in the Amazon storefront ecosystem is the introduction of the Store Quality Report. Amazon starts by assigning your storefront an overall quality rating – either high, medium, or low. This rating is Amazon’s assessment of how your storefront stacks up compared to their benchmarks and best practices.
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Peer Benchmarking
This compares your storefront’s key metrics, like dwell time, to the performance of other “peer” brands. However, Amazon doesn’t provide clarity on how these peer groups are defined.
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Recommended Actions
Based on your quality rating and performance data, the report offers specific recommendations to enhance your storefront. These can include adding new content features, improving navigation, or updating your creative assets.
Overcoming Amazon Storefront Challenges
While Amazon Storefronts offer numerous benefits, there are still some limitations, and there are ways brands can work around them:
- Undefined Traffic Sources: The “Other Sources” category in traffic data is not clearly defined, making it difficult to optimize. Thankfully, with proper tags set up on the backend, all channel sources can be identified, allowing brands to determine which channels are driving traffic and which are underperforming.
- Low Add-to-Cart Rates: Many visitors prefer to go to the product detail page rather than adding items to the cart directly from the storefront. However, even if customers add items to their cart from the product listing, the store still serves as an excellent cross-selling opportunity. This leads to higher organic traffic and increased profits.
- Lack of Checkout Button: Currently, storefronts only offer an “Add to Cart” option, requiring users to visit the product detail page to complete the purchase. However, using the proper module for product tiles that do not have variations allows customers to see the “Add to Cart” button directly on the storefront.
- No Expanded Multilingual Support: For brands selling in global Amazon marketplaces, the lack of visibility into performance for non-English storefronts is a major challenge. While you can create Spanish, French, German, and other language versions of your storefront, there’s no way to separately track traffic, engagement, and sales for these localized pages. It’s an all-or-nothing view that makes optimizing for international audiences difficult.
Conclusion
Amazon Storefronts are a powerful tool for enhancing your brand’s presence on Amazon and driving sales. By leveraging high-quality visuals, effective navigation, and regular updates, you can create an engaging and successful storefront. For brands yet to embrace this opportunity, investing in a well-designed storefront, integrated with strategic advertising and data-driven optimization, can lead to substantial returns. Keep an eye on the storefront analytics to continuously improve and adapt your Amazon selling strategy.
If you’re considering creating a new Amazon Storefront or making your current one fresh and engaging, we’re here to help. At AMZ Pathfinder, we specialize in crafting and maintaining storefronts that resonate with your audience. For more information about our store building and product listing optimization services, please visit AMZ Pathfinder’s website or reach out to us by scheduling a time to talk with Juan from our team on our Contact Us page.