Last week, Amazon began testing a new spot for ads: right on the offer page where you’re fighting other sellers’ offers for the coveted top spot in the list.
These ads appear alongside regular offers, but are different in several very important ways. Keep reading to learn more.
Big Differences
- The Seller Information column includes a direct link to the advertiser’s website. Some sellers may find this unfair, given that regular Amazon sellers are not allowed to include anything that even hints at an external website’s URL in their seller names under risk of account suspension.
- There’s no feedback. This is not like “just launched” sellers, who haven’t received any feedback. Instead the feedback section is simply missing. Given that only Amazon themselves don’t have feedback, there is perhaps a risk that some buyers will interpret this lack of feedback as an endorsement of sorts.
- There is text below the seller name and website stating “Not eligible for A-to-z Guarantee”. This will definitely put off some buyers, if they are aware of the advantages of the guarantee.
- There is no “add to cart button”. Instead, a grey “shop this website” button that takes buyers to the advertiser’s website.
Advantages for Amazon Sellers
There are two great advantages that 3rd-party Amazon sellers will likely have over these ads:
- FBA: External website ads will not show up when the buyer uses the “Offers with FREE Shipping by Amazon” checkbox, and they will not be attractive to Prime program members.
- Buy Box: external website ads will (most likely) not be eligible for the Buy Box, so sellers competing for it directly will simply be able to ignore such offers.
Questions to Consider
- Will websites be able to buy the premium top spot in the offers list regardless of their offer’s price (override the default sorting by landed price)?
- Will there be a single available space on the offers page, or will multiple websites be able to publish their offers alongside regular sellers, potentially capturing the entire first page?
- Will such offers be eligible for the Buy Box?
- How much will these ads cost?
And perhaps the most important question of all:
Will customers opt for these offers, or keep choosing the regular ones?
Time will tell. For now, this program’s viability is still being evaluated, so we’ll have to wait for the official announcement before we can assess its long-term impact.
In the meantime, we’ve reached out to our contacts at Amazon and will update you with new information as we receive it.
What do you think of these ads?
Emin Filip
At SellerEngine he is the Product Owner of Sellery, the premier repricing software for Amazon sellers. He makes sure that the needs of Amazon sellers are reflected in SellerEngine’s software.