Top 10 Highlights from Amazon Accelerate 2022

It’s no secret that Amazon continuously innovates to improve the shopping experience for sellers and shoppers alike. Still, the company recognized that merchants (otherwise known as sellers, brands, or retailers on the Amazon platform) are looking for ways to broaden their reach beyond the Amazon platform. Amazon has historically been reluctant to send shoppers anywhere besides its platform but has recognized the need for further growth and success. Read on to learn more about the new expansions announced at Amazon Accelerate 2022.

1. Testing to Optimize

Manage Your Experiments allows sellers to run A/B Tests on individual product listing pages, comparing two versions of content against one another to identify the best performing version. Learn more about A/B Testing on Amazon here.

So what’s new? In October 2022, sellers will be able to utilize new capabilities for A/B testing to optimize product listings, including the ability to test bullet points and descriptions, which was not an option before. 

Another addition to testing capabilities is the “experiment to significance” option, which allows Amazon to determine when the campaign ends (after accumulating statistically significant data). Rather than analyzing results from a specific timeframe, the “experiment to significance” option focuses on consumer interaction.  

2. Tailored Audiences

A new capability within the Manage Your Customer Engagement tool was added to allow Amazon sellers to increase their email marketing reach and build stronger relationships with shoppers. Using the new “Tailored Audiences” tool, which is currently in beta but will be available to eligible sellers come 2023, sellers can proactively send email marketing campaigns to shoppers to increase brand awareness, customer loyalty and overall engagement.

Previously, shoppers had to follow the Brand Store to receive email campaigns from the brand. With the new additions, brands can now target three different audience types: repeat customers, recent customers and high-speed customers.

Put simply, when a shopper purchases on Amazon, they are automatically added to the seller’s email list and categorized appropriately. This update will help sellers build deeper relationships with repeat shoppers earlier, maintain current relationships and potentially increase overall sales. You can learn more about tailored audiences on Amazon’s blog.

But that’s not all that’s new to the Manage Your Customer Engagement tool. Since sellers on Amazon have expressed difficulty interpreting experiment results, Amazon rolled out a new feature that sends notifications during the MYE process if the new content versions do not lead to meaningful results. Also, sellers can authorize Seller Central to auto publish winning content to product detail pages if it is at least 66% better in November 2022.

3. Buy with Prime – Marketing Expansion

In April 2022, Amazon announced a new way for brands to grow their DTC store through its Buy with Prime (BwP) program. This invite-only program is a way for brands to connect with their off-Amazon audiences and provide them with Prime benefits. 

Here’s what’s new: Amazon amplified this program by adding a new Buy with Prime page within the Brand Store, to which sellers can drive shoppers through Sponsored Brand ads. With the ability to customize the page, shoppers can preview products and complete their purchases on the brand’s DTC store.

Additionally, Amazon has offered to invest in co-branded BwP Facebook and Instagram ads with approved sellers. Though this is an invitation-only beta opportunity, Amazon’s decision to fund and manage these ads shows the value and impact they believe BwP can have for sellers.

Sellers can utilize a new BwP badge in product listings to show they offer Prime benefits on their DTC store, further enticing shoppers to purchase from the independently run DTC site. You can dive into the new Buy with Prime additions here.

4. Premium A+ Content 

A new upgrade to the standard content management system (CMS), available to all brands worldwide, now supports larger modules on product pages. Modules include video, interactive features, image carousels and Q&A. 

5. Amazon Marketing Stream

While Amazon Marketing Stream was introduced as a beta program a few months ago, it wasn’t until now that this push-based marketing and metrics system can share data visualizations to improve a brand’s overall business performance. The provided heatmaps, callouts stack ranking, and more can be utilized to further optimize advertising copy, leading to sustainable growth on the Amazon platform.

6. Improved Seller Experience

Amazon Accelerate offered a few notable updates that improve the experience for Amazon sellers.

• A newly consolidated FBA dashboard: With a list of actions to grow sellers’ businesses, the new dashboard summarizes shipments and defects, identifies SKUs that need replenishment, and highlights any excess inventory/shipping needs.
• Account Health Assurance Program: This program prevents account deactivation with good ratings as long as sellers work with Amazon. To be eligible for this program, sellers must maintain high account health and have a valid emergency number on file.
• Call Me Now Button: This button is available on the account dashboard for compliance-related issues handled by another Amazon team.
• Customer Ask Alexa: This self-service tool lives on product pages to answer customer FAQs, though is only available to select groups in October 20222 as an invite-only program before expanding to all eligible sellers in 2023. Learn more about Alexa’s capabilities here.
• Pricing Health tool: With the pricing health tool, sellers can now view competitive pricing and see if any offers are at risk of being delisted due to non-competitive pricing. In addition, updates to this tool now allow sellers to bulk update pricing.

7. Amazon Global Logistics (STAR)

It’s no surprise that Amazon strives to provide opportunities for sellers to grow their business, which is why they launched the Marketplace Product Guidance for selling internationally. Recently enhanced to provide selection recommendations by identifying high-demand products, Marketplace Product Guidance can increase the likelihood of success globally, with automated pricing across all Amazon stores. 

The “List Once, Sell Globally” feature allows sellers to bulk upload products for global selling. Here’s how it works: 

1. Choose a template 
2. Select a product 
3. Select the marketplaces 
4. Generate template
5. Fill in template 
6. Voila! 

Behind the scenes, Amazon will purchase your inventory and ship the products to the appropriate fulfillment centers. On the shopper’s end, products will still be listed as “shipped from and sold by Amazon.” With this, sellers can leverage local fees rather than the cross-border remote fees. We can expect new listing language choices and additional global management tools to apply fixes across all marketplaces. 

8. Amazon Local Selling

Two new updates in the local selling category are BOPIS and Amazon Today. Buy Online Pick Up In-Store (BOPIS) is now available for sellers to utilize brick-and-mortar stores for local pickup, further connecting local sellers to shoppers. Amazon Today is geo-targeted to list your in-store inventory on Amazon and provides same-day delivery for shoppers.

9. Veeqo US Launch

Amazon announced the US launch of Veeqo, an inventory/shipping tool available to sellers at no cost. This multi-channel shipping software was built to help cut shipping costs while increasing the speed of fulfilling customer orders. Sellers can connect their sales channels (i.e., Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and Shopify) and access discounted shipping rates on UPS, USPS, DHL and FedEx. You can read the official release here.

10. Seller Payment Services

Amazon introduced two new updates to improve the steps that sellers must take to transfer their funds from Amazon into the sellers’ bank account. 

• Amazon Seller Wallet: This digital wallet makes it easier for global sellers to hold, view, convert and transfer store proceeds from their US store directly into their bank accounts, all within Seller Central. Dive into how Amazon made it easier for sellers to manage their funds. 
• Express Payout: Provides sellers with the convenience of moving and receiving funds within 24 hours instead of the usual 3-5 business days. Learn more here.

Wrapping things up

The ecommerce space has been rapidly growing, and Amazon continues to lead the way with its commitment to improving both the seller and buyer’s shopping experience. In fact, Amazon went beyond providing better experiences for sellers as the new tools can help to increase customer lifetime value.

Want to see more from Amazon Accelerate? Don’t worry if you missed out; you can watch Day 1 highlights here and Day 2 highlights here. There was a lot to unpack at Amazon Accelerate 2022, but our team is eager to explore these new rollouts with you!