How to Understand and Leverage Amazon Seller Reports

Whether you are just getting started or have been in the game for a while, you need to base your decisions on data. This is the only way you can confidently in steering your business in the right direction. If you rely on your guts to make business decisions, you will likely find yourself right where you started. However, if you have reliable facts and industry information, you can be confident of taking your entrepreneurial steps from the most informed position. That is where you need to learn and use the Amazon Seller Reporting tool. The good news is that you can access all the information you need once you open a professional Amazon seller account. The information you get from the account will come in handy in the daily running of your seller business.

The valuable business data that you access using Amazon Seller Central reports will help you make the right advertising decisions, list content, pricing mechanisms, and a lot more. This article answers the following questions:

• How reports help you track business performance
• Which Amazon seller central report should you focus on most?
• How to read and effectively interpret the data in your Business Reports
• What are the conversion rates of Amazon seller reports?
• Are there Other types of Amazon Seller Central Reports
• Advertising reports
• Return reports
• Fulfillment reports
• How to grow your business with Amazon Seller Central Reports

Let’s get started!

Amazon seller central reports offer sellers such as yourself all the information, data, and insights to help them track your enterprise’s weekly or monthly performance. These reports avail data which includes but is not limited to:

• The number of items ordered
• How many potential customers view your listings?
• Your conversion rates
• The totals of your sales and
• The percentage of your Buy Box

In Amazon seller central, you will find numerous other reports covering stranded inventory (Learn how to use Amazon Inventory Reports on Seller Central here) advertising, FBA fulfillment, and return reports. All these reports carry a vital picture of how your business is performing and are instrumental in helping you see how your business is performing and make strategic decisions to bring your business back on the right track. In business and any other important sphere, nothing can beat a decision made from the point of information, and that is what these Amazon central seller reports will offer. As opposed to making your business decisions from gut instinct, there is no reason why you should not use the data available from the Amazon seller reporting tool and take your business on a growth trajectory.

The Amazon seller central reports present a lot of information and opportunities to help you take your Amazon business in the direction you want it to go. You need to regularly read these reports to get an idea of the kind of growth progress you are making. You want to stay ahead and not miss out on the opportunities of making more sales and profit in the process. With the information provided from the Amazon seller central reporting tool, you have a real chance of boosting your conversion rates and sales volume.

The Amazon seller reports will help you cut down on your ad spend and other running costs of your business. If you do not have performance data to reference, you cannot tell what is working. You might have several strategies in place to help you run your business. Even if you are making progress, you need to know which strategy is working. The great thing about Amazon Seller central reports is that you can get a CSV file of the same, open it in excel, Google sheet, or another spreadsheet program. Once you have access, you can analyze them either alone or with a professional.

At the end of the analysis, you can be confident of making the right decision. If, for instance, you find that your business listing had a high conversion rate in a particular period yet the visitors were few, that information will be interesting. You do not want to ignore such details as small because they are key to improving the traffic coming to your Amazon listing.

If you are a starting out or a professional seller, you will find many Amazon seller central reporting tools available for your perusal. While it is a good idea to go through all of them, you want to focus on areas that directly impact the performance of your business.

With so many reports, it is not surprising to find brand owners and sellers at odds on what report to focus on first to get the best services. Here we will focus on the reports that have proven to be of priority for most successful business people selling on Amazon. You focus on these reports, act on their information, and you are on your way to seeing a huge improvement in your business. Here are the key Amazon seller reports you might want to focus on for the best results. Let’s take a look at this.

Go to the Amazon Seller Central “Business Reports” section. Proceed to the Reports tab, and you will see “Business Reports.” The first thing you will see is your Sales Dashboard. Here, sellers get a quick informative overview of the total sales you have made on Amazon. You have the choice of viewing;

• Today’s sales
• Week’s sales
• Month’s sales
• Year’s sales
• Custom sales date sales

On the left side of the page’s dashboard, you will find different kinds of reports for your review. There are numerous Amazon seller reports, but one report that stands out is the “Detail Page Sales and Traffic By Child Item.”

The report extensively showcases the different metrics for all the products in your listing. The metrics include child variations (child items). You will find it particularly beneficial to see how your products perform and get a picture of how things stand.

Many Amazon sellers find this report highly valuable because it comprehensively shows how many views each product has received and their corresponding conversion rates. This data will come in handy when deciding how to price, market, and sell your products.

If you are selling in Amazon with a conversion rate of anything between 5-10%, you are doing good. While the conversion rate depends on the products on sale, you want to aim at that percentage rate nonetheless. To put into perspective, a good conversion rate on e-commerce sites is around 1-2%. Keep in mind that most of the traffic attracted to the site is not there to buy anything. However, when it comes to Amazon, customers visit the website to buy something, which explains why the conversion rate at Amazon is higher than regular e-Commerce platforms. That said, if you are selling something on Amazon and your conversion rate is anything close to 10%, there is something you are doing right. The percentage may mean that your product listing is:

• Well-optimized (Check out this article for Amazon product listing optimization best practices!)
• You have set a fair price
• Your items have good reviews, which make customers want to buy

Think of two products with impressive conversion rates; if one product has over 25 percent of customers viewing the item listing and making the purchase. The second product may have a low conversion rate of less than 2 percent. When you see such data, you know that the listing needs more work. If your business is registering a conversion rate of less than five percent, it is an indicator that you have an issue that needs addressing. The most common reasons for poor conversion rates include:

• Too many negative reviews
• Poor images
• Poor listing quality
• Too high prices

Numerous factors influence the decisions of customers at Amazon. So even if your conversion rate goes beyond 10%, there is always something you can do to make it better. If you look closely at the Amazon seller reports, you will find something that needs improvement. Top Amazon sellers understand the importance of meticulously combing the listing and noting issues that require improvement.

The following are key listing features you ought to look at so that you can improve your listing:

• Images: Check if your main item image is clear and against a white background. If you have supporting images and product infographics, make sure they convey the intended message. To improve your image listing, you need to look at how your competitors have put up their images. See how they stand out more than yours and adjust accordingly.
• The Listing Title, Description, And Bullets: The idea is to have your listing copy as clear and as informative as possible. You want to leave the reader desiring to get more information. Make sure that you have also clearly stated the product features and how they will benefit the buyer. As you look at your listing, ask yourself these questions and identify areas that need polishing.
• Product Price: Check your competition and find out about their prices. You don’t want to set your prices higher than your competitors. Price plays a key role in conversions. The moment the customer feel your product is overpriced, they opt for the next cheaper product. The listing quality also comes in here because customers perceive high-quality images and impressive copy to mean the product is worth purchasing.
• Product Reviews: The same way reviews matter in sales on other platforms, you need good reviews to sell on Amazon. Over 70 percent of online shoppers choose the products they buy based on ratings and independent customer reviews. If the product you are selling on Amazon has more poor reviews, it needs urgent attention. It would help you as a seller if you found out the defects in your product and why the customers feel it is inferior. Once you identify things that need fixing in your product, your next step is to deliberate steps to improve it. Find customers who left negative reviews even and reach out to them. Working on getting better reviews is especially recommended for sellers who are brand registered.
• A+ Content: Amazon sellers enrolled in the brand registry can get A+ content created for you. You can replace the old and potentially less appealing product description and try out the A+ content and see its impact on your product conversions. The A+ content allows sellers to create custom descriptions with images, text modules, and infographics. The descriptions give your customers more information in an appealing way.

Check out this article for a deep dive into improving your Amazon Best Seller Rank, as well!

When you analyze the metrics in your Buy Box Percentage, you know if there is an issue that needs fixing in your listing. The buy box percentage can be particularly helpful for sellers in wholesale or arbitrage because such sellers share the Buy Box with several other sellers on the same listing. Low Buy Box Percentage means the offer may not be available for sale as required by customers. For instance, a Buy Box percentage of 30% will tell you that only 30% of potential buyers will go to add cart as per the offer.

For sellers in arbitrage or wholesale, this indicates that too many sellers are marketing the same listing or the price attached to the product is too high.

In theory, the Buy Box percentage should be 100% for individual sellers or private label sellers. If your ownership of the Buy Box is not 100%, find out why because this could be why your sessions and conversations rates are not as you would expect. Remember that if you don’t own the entire Buy Box, you will find it hard to make a sale. Look at the following factors which affect the Buy Box.

Depleted or Low stock- If you are out of stock, your listing will be without the Buy Box. The same applies when your inventory is too low. Buyers cannot purchase unless your inventory list is set as active, which only happens when you have stock.

If your account fails to measure up to the platform’s expectations, Amazon will most likely remove the Buy Box on the listing. One common thing that affects the health of your account is if you violate one of Amazon’s policies. When such happens, the health rating of your account will go down. If you want to check the health of your account on Amazon, click the “Performance” tab and proceed to the account health tab section.

High refund or defect order rate: If you have frequent returns or other issues with what you are selling, Amazon can limit you and keep your rating down until your resolve your product issues.

Amazon seller central reporting tools are available in different types, and each of them serves a particular purpose. Here are a few highlighted more Amazon seller reports you might want to check out.

The Amazon seller advertising reports allow Amazon sellers to see the performance of their product promotion efforts on the platform. The reports help you learn the search items that are doing well and driving traffic to your listing. On the other hand, you also get to know which items on your advertising efforts are underperforming. When you run the advertising reports, you get insights to help you optimize your ad campaigns to help make them more profitable. Click “Reports” and proceed to the tab with ‘advertising reports’ to see the advertising reports.

As the name of the reports tells it all, the return reports allow you to see the number of item returns. You have the option of customizing your search to a specific timeframe. This way, you will know the frequency with which your business is getting product returns. The reports also have insights on the seasons your customers are more likely to return the products. This data can help you in identifying the reason why your customers are returning the items. You can then devise a plan to reduce the number of returns. To view your return reports, click “Reports” and look for “Return Reports.”

If you need to learn more about your FBA inventory, you will find numerous reports in the fulfillment reports section. You will find reports including Long-term storage Fee reports, Promotions Performance, Subscribe and Save Performance, Stranded Inventory, and Inventory Age and Health. Check out the section in the Seller Central to see what you can find and make your decision accordingly. Go to “Reports” and click fulfillment to access your reports.

One of the most important things you can learn to improve your business is accessing, interpreting, and making decisions based on Amazon seller reports. You want to remain relevant and updated on what is happening in your industry and right there on Amazon. The required strategic information is already there in the Amazon seller central reporting tool, and there is no reason to stay uninformed. The information in the reports will come in handy when you want to stay ahead in keeping your business performing and your metrics healthy. Use the Amazon Seller Central reports to:

• Know your metric numbers
• Be proactive in your decision making
• Be competitive
• Grow and make more money