2023: A Revolutionary Year at Amazon – Discoveries and Advances

 

 

Introduction

2023 has been an unprecedented year for Amazon sellers, marked by significant innovations and updates on the platform. These improvements have been focused on enriching software productivity, optimizing the customer experience, and strengthening relationships between sellers and buyers. Below, we will explore some of the most outstanding Amazon Seller updates that have made a difference this year.

Amazon Seller Updates in 2024

April: Boost Your Online Presence

• Improve Your Amazon Reviews: Active strategy to get positive reviews and stand out from the competition.
• Stand out on Amazon with your Unique Brand: Optimise SEO, engage with customers and highlight your USP to shine in the catalogue and differentiate yourself.
• Revolutionary Breakthrough: DALL-E image editing comes to ChatGPT, setting a milestone in digital creativity and offering powerful tools for all users. Ready to explore this new horizon?
• New Ad Campaign Tool: Transform your campaigns by efficiently adding keywords from broad to exact match in just a few clicks.
• Social Media and In-App Shopping Integration: Trigger direct purchases from social media with a single click in the app, simplifying and revolutionising your online shopping experience.
• Keys to Optimize PPC Campaigns: Separate campaigns by product line and move successful keywords to more specific matches, keeping the original ones intact.
• Effective Strategies for Amazon Campaigns: Use broad and phrase match to adapt quickly to changes on Amazon, while exact match requires constant SQP analysis.
• Prioritizing Mobile Optimization for Amazon: Analyze traffic and optimize for mobile if mobile is prevalent, avoiding missing key conversions.
• Mobile vs. Desktop Optimization at Amazon: Prioritize tailoring your listings for mobile, where most of your traffic comes from, to improve the shopping experience.
• Amazon and Generative AI: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy highlights generative artificial intelligence as key to the future, with AWS driving innovative applications and cost optimization.
• Amazon One: Innovation in Biometric Payments: Amazon expands its Amazon One payment system, enabling palm payments through an app that facilitates biometric enrolment and verification.

• Key Updates to Amazon Search Terms: Recent updates enable broad match and phrase match campaigns, crucial to staying competitive in Amazon’s dynamic environment.
• New Amazon Ad Format: “Flashing Skyscraper”: Amazon tests a new ad format on its product detail pages, highlighting information about reviews and offers three times to more effectively capture consumer attention.
• Amazon Against Fake Reviews: Dismantled fraudulent scheme in Spain, known as “Free Products”, offered refunds for 5-star reviews on Telegram. Global effort to ensure authenticity and trust in the platform, through investments in technology and experts.
• Amazon lowers referral fees: To 8.24% for clothing and accessories under €15 from 15 May, allowing for a wider catalogue at lower prices.
• Innovative Amazon Launch: Launches AI Image Generator, facilitating fast, customised image creation for advertising campaigns.

• Amazon Optimization: Improving CTR can double orders, with lead image and title being key areas for experimentation and upselling
• Amazon Shopping Innovation: Launched an interactive channel on Prime Video and Amazon Freevee in the US, allowing users to shop while watching content, with ‘shop the show’ technology for an integrated and entertaining shopping experience.

• New Amazon FBA Badge: Launched ‘Recommended’ to identify products ideal for Fulfillment by Amazon, helping to improve sales performance.
• Strategies for Launching Products on Amazon: Use tools like Epinium to optimize keywords and stand out with compelling images and descriptions. Take advantage of the Vine Programe and use discounts and influencers to maximize visibility and sales.
• New Amazon Logistics Centre in A Coruña: Announced opening in September in Cambre, with more than 7,000 m² to improve local shipments and create 40 direct jobs, in addition to collaborating with local delivery companies, expanding its expansion in Spain.

March: Major Shifts & Seller Boosts

• Game changer with new fees for services: Amazon introduces fees for services in FBA, potentially increasing sellers costs by $10 million, what are these services?
  • Removal and Disposal Fees: There has been an increase in fees due to the rise in service costs.
  • Amazon FBA Prep Service Fees: An increase in fees for the FBA label service and opaque bagging service for envelopes, parcels, and standard-size units.
  • U.S. Multi-Channel Fulfillment (MCF) Fees: Adjustments in U.S. MCF fees and size tiers with an average increase of 3.5% across all delivery speed options.
  • Aged Inventory Overcharge: Increase for inventory stored between 271 and 365 days.
  • Inbound Placement Service Fees: For standard and large oversized size, there has been an increase in fees per unit.
  • Inbound Defect Fees: Additional costs for misrouted shipments, late arrivals, and multiple destination discrepancies.
  • FBA Returns Processing Fee: Starting June 1, 2024, the fee will be applied to products with the highest return rates, excluding clothing and footwear, to address operational costs and reduce waste.
  • Storage Utilization Surcharge: Applied to professional sellers exceeding a storage utilization ratio of more than 22 weeks.
• Amazon’s new “Buy Again” button: Simplifies repeat purchases and highlights with updated product images.
• Amazon Doubles Backend Keywords: Now allows up to 500 characters, improving SEO and visibility. In Epinium, we will equip you to excel with this change.
• Boost your Amazon launches: As of 1 March 2024, the FBA New Selection program offers increased rebates and free storage, making it easier to launch new products on Amazon.
• Listing Optimization: Optimize title, price, photo and highlights in Amazon listings to increase profits without investing more in advertising; key to maximizing revenue.
• Update 12 March 2024: 5%-50% discount range, sales history required, lower promotional prices; adapt strategies to take advantage of promotions.
• TikTok Shop breakthrough: Revolutionize social shopping and highlight importance of branding and quality content; essential to adapt strategies to drive traffic to Amazon.
• Amazon Prime Day: Registration open, increase sales. Until 17/05.
• Amazon, New Coupon Policy: Changes for sellers and marketers. Require offers under 90-day average price and above the most recent. More strategic and focused strategies.
• Amazon Refunds, How to Claim: Guide to claims for lost or undelivered shipments. Recover funds for errors or scams.
• Keywords in Images, Increase CTR: Improve visibility and clicks on Amazon. A change with a big impact.

February: Renewed Strategies and Success

• Keyword Character Limit Expansion: Amazon increases the character limit to 500 for backend keywords in the U.S., promising to improve SEO and organic ranking of listings, with plans to expand to Europe.
• New Mobile Video Functionality: Introduces the ability to expand videos directly into search results on mobile devices, highlighting the importance of including visual content in listings.
• Ad Revenue Growth: Reports a 27% increase in ad revenue, surpassing $14 billion, indicating a solid recovery in digital advertising and opportunities for marketers.
• Introducing Digital Shopping Advisor on Amazon Brandstore: This tool helps customers make more informed buying decisions, streamlining the process and reducing returns, benefiting both sellers and buyers.
• Empowering Brands with Amazon Posts: Sellers can leverage 1.2 million free impressions to improve visibility and engagement with customers, using AI to efficiently create content.
• Specific Images per Product Page Requirement: Amazon now requires three specific images per product page, a move that could increase sellers’ revenue by at least 10%.

• 5-Step Framework for Boosting Sales on Amazon: Introducing a strategic approach designed to improve sellers’ position on the platform and boost their sales.
• Amazon User Interface Update: New functionality that allows sellers to review how their products align with search terms, improving marketing strategy and expanding product reach.
• Amazon Selling Tip: Including people in product images increases trust and conversions by providing a size and usage reference. Improve your listing with this simple change to see transformed results.
• Optimise your Amazon Branded Store: A finely tuned shop attracts more visitors, increases order size and provides key data for growth. Stand out on Google, connect with followers and promote new products to boost your brand.
• New Amazon Test: Secondary images are now displayed directly on the front page of listings, improving the chances of conversion. Take advantage of this opportunity to highlight your products and increase sales.
• Amazon SEO tips: Optimise your strategy from title to A+ content to increase visibility. Pay attention to key areas such as title, search terms and brand storytelling for maximum SEO impact.
• Revolutionary Sora Tech: Sora transforms written stories into 60-second, emotionally rich videos, redefining digital storytelling and creative possibilities.
• New Amazon Ads API update: A dashboard that optimises your ads, allowing you to monitor performance by product type and region, all from a single platform, essential for improving the effectiveness of your ad campaigns.

• Updated Coupon Panel: Offers unprecedented personalisation and targeting, with options such as audience-specific coupons and retargeting coupons. Adapting quickly to these innovations is crucial to seize opportunities to improve customer retention and increase sales.
• Amazon Search Revolution: Choose product variations from search, improving the shopping experience and listing visibility.
• From Posts to Branded Ads: Transform successful content into one-click advertising campaigns. Maximising organic engagement on Amazon.
• New Category Insights: Analysis of trends and popular keywords to refine strategies and improve visibility on Amazon.
• Updated Sponsored Brands on Amazon: Incorporating video and vertical images to better connect with mobile users and significantly increase CTR.

January: Digital Transformation and Strategic Advances

• Innovation in feedback-based tools for listing optimization and financial forecasting: Amazon uses user feedback to refine product listings and provide more accurate financial forecasts.
• Expansion of backend keyword limit to 500 bytes for detailed descriptions: Amazon now allows more keyword space in the backend, improving product description and search.
• Introduction of “Search this page” feature to facilitate instant customer searches: Improves customer experience with a feature that simplifies finding specific products on a page.
• Adjust advertising strategies based on daily variability to maximize viewability: Advises modifying ad campaigns based on time of day to increase ad effectiveness.
• Focus on mobile optimization with clear images, attractive titles and quality A+ content: Stresses the importance of optimizing listings for mobile devices with high-quality visual and textual content.
• Amazon’s use of AI to detect fake reviews, ensuring trustworthiness: Amazon employs artificial intelligence to identify and eliminate fraudulent reviews, protecting the integrity of reviews.
• Amazon and Walmart’s “Keep It” policies revolutionize returns management, affecting costs and sellers: These policies allow customers to keep products from select returns, reducing logistics costs and affecting seller dynamics.
• Investing in Amazon branded stores as a strategy to increase revenue by at least 10%: Creating and optimizing branded stores on Amazon can mean a considerable increase in revenue for sellers.
• TikTok Shop challenge: opportunity for Amazon sellers to explore new markets with creative content: Amazon sellers can use TikTok Shop to reach new customers, creating engaging content and generating sales with positive ROI.
• Launch of AI Shopping Assistant by Amazon, enhancing customer-product interaction through advanced technology: Amazon introduces an AI-based shopping assistant to answer product queries, enriching the shopping experience with cutting-edge technology.

Amazon Seller Updates in 2023

December: Creativity and Globalization

• Improvement in offer recommendations in Sponsored Display.
• Overlapping audiences to identify new and similar audiences.
• Support for guaranteed programmatic deals in Magnite Streaming.
• Launch of Amazon Video Builder to promote multiple products in a single video ad.
• Automatic headline localization for sponsored brand campaigns.
• Language translations for custom Sponsored Display creatives.

November: Visual Enhancements and Analysis

• New standard visualization in Amazon DSP to upload multiple image assets in 3 types of creatives.
• Budget scheduling based on time of day in sponsored ads.
• Replacement of 360-degree images with 3D models.
• Relaunch of the B2B Product Opportunities page.
• New customer loyalty analysis panel.

October: Advertising Innovation

• Introduction of Sponsored TV with no minimum spend.
• Expansion of sponsored products to premium apps and websites in the US.
• Availability of Amazon Brand Lift in France.
• Launch of AI-generated image generator for sponsored brands (beta).
• Page view metrics and Amazon Ads Multichannel Planner.
• Availability of Creative Testing (beta) and Audience Research (beta) in Canada, Germany, and the UK.
• Goal-based offers in Amazon DSP.
• New features in Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) and Amazon Publisher Cloud (APC).
• Interactive audio ads.

September: Delivery Solutions and Metrics

• Delivery troubleshooting solution for all self-service customers, including Open Exchange Inventory.
• Launch of Amazon Attribution Re-marketing for audiences targeted from external advertising traffic to Amazon.
• Conversion of currency metrics for sponsored ads from any country.
• New delivery metrics: delivery risk and budget at risk.
• Adding 3D content to product listings to increase conversions.
• ASIN performance comparison for brands.
• Sales trends on specific product listings.

August: Discounts, Attributes, and AI-Generated Content

• Percentage-based discounts through Manage Your Customer Engagement.
• Expansion of Sponsored Brands signals in Amazon Marketing Stream globally.
• Requirements for 274 new attributes for 200 product types in listings starting from August.
• Deactivation of return reviews and AI-generated content generator for product descriptions.
• Line item moderation to verify line item settings.
• Creation of video campaigns where your brand store is the landing page.

July: Personalized Promotions and Report Repository

• Creation of custom brand promotions.
• Report repository in Payments for requesting date range reports and tracking.
• Launch of sponsored product campaigns with preset configurations.
• Introduction of a self-registration assistant for Fire TV.

June: Simplified Training and Publishing

• Free certification in Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) for analytics professionals, with a 6-week course.
• Ability to create and manage posts directly in the Amazon Ads console without requiring an active store.
• Measurement of brand marketing impact through Amazon Brand Lift for Canadian advertisers.
• Improvements in reach and frequency measurements in Amazon DSP, including audience measurements without duplicates.
• Integration of an inventory overview in the Amazon Logistics panel.
• Removal of the requirement to be a registered brand to add videos to listings after 3 months of selling on Amazon.

May: Audience Expansion and Measurement

• You can activate and create custom audiences in Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) using SQL queries for Amazon DSP campaigns.
• A new feature has been introduced in the store info panel that allows detailed tracking of metrics such as views, clicks, add to cart, conversions, and purchases at the product level.
• Amazon Ads podcast ads are now available in the UK through Amazon DSP. The availability of Sponsored Display audiences has been expanded for advertisers in Belgium.
• A beta feature called «Brand Impression Share» has been launched, showing the percentage of impressions received in search for your brand terms over time.
• Amazon has updated its daily budget policy for Sponsored Products, Brands, and Display, allowing spending up to 100% higher than the average daily budget on a given day.
• The most recent status information for Amazon Ads services, such as campaign creation, management, and ad delivery, is now available in Sponsored Ads and Amazon DSP.
• New on-demand learning content has been launched in Amazon Marketing Cloud.

April: Unifying and Empowering Advertising Strategies

• April brought us the Amazon Ad Server, merging visual experiences and connecting advertisers with advanced advertising solutions. Unified advertising management across different countries and the expansion of designated market areas illustrate Amazon’s effort to provide tools that support business growth and expansion on its platform.

March: Expanding Frontiers and Enhancing the Experience

• Expansion of error alerts in Amazon DSP and launch of screen ads on Fire TV in several European countries.
• Updates in order number visibility on product pages and adjustments to FBA inventory assessment.

February: Refining Advertising Strategy

• New capabilities to recreate Sponsored Display campaigns with campaign copy
• Enhancements in creative building with step-by-step controls, and unification of omnichannel metrics in Amazon DSP.

Final Reflections and a Look to the Future

The review of Amazon Seller updates in 2023 shows us a platform in constant evolution, always striving to improve the user experience and optimize results for sellers. The improvements on the platform have not only made it easier to manage and analyze advertising campaigns but have also opened new avenues for creativity and customization in e-commerce.

We wonder, what will 2024 bring? If this year has been indicative of anything, it is Amazon’s ability to innovate and adapt to the needs of its vast user ecosystem. We eagerly await the next surprises that Amazon has in store, always with the certainty that they will be designed to further drive success and satisfaction within its platform.