How to Make Amazon Product Bundles That Actually Sell

What’s one thing that shoppers love? Getting a good deal! Brands and retailers can offer customers enticing deals using an Amazon product bundling strategy. Apart from increasing average order value (AOV), bundles let you list unique ASINs, own the buy box, and compete on factors other than pricing. But there are right and wrong ways to go about creating bundles on Amazon. How you list your bundle matters. Watch the recap of our quick session to learn how it works, and how to use it to increase your orders and sales.

Pooja Kothari: So let’s talk about the fundamentals first. What basically is an Amazon bundle?
Now, according to Amazon’s guidelines, a bundle that consists of multiple single
items that can be identified by a unique ASIN, and sold together as a single
offering is an Amazon product bundle. And they go on by elaborating that
bundles must consist of items that are highly complementary, which means the
items in the bundles enable or enhance the use of other items in the bundle, or
provide convenience to the buyer by purchasing them together. Now, creating a
successful bundle on Amazon requires a lot of thought and planning, but the
results are worth it. So when, when I say bundling, it simply means taking two
products, putting them together and then selling them together on Amazon,
which indeed is one of the most effective ways to stand out and increase the
perceived value of your product. And so your customers choose you over your
competition.

But the question is, how do you do that? And what is the process like? How do
you know what product you should go for, what products are gonna sell
together? Well, that’s why we are here. I’m gonna explain the entire process and
guidelines, which will clear the air for you guys to practice bundling with ease.
So the first thing that I wanna talk about is bundles and multi packs. So let’s take
a minute to clear up a common misunderstanding about bundling. Now you
cannot bundle two or more of the same items. Amazon has an entirely separate
name for this, and that is multi-packs. As you can see here the three file
organizers come under multi-packs because they are similar products. Whereas
you can see a bundle on the other side, on the left hand side. Now a lot of
sellers mistakenly use the two terms interchangeably, and that can cause some
confusion. So just a quick reminder, bundle multiple single items. If you wanna
take other examples, other than what you see, you can say a shampoo plus a
conditioner will be a bundle.

Whereas a multipack is multiple quantities of the same item, which could be
two bottles of shampoo, for instance. Now, why should you use bundling? What
do you get from it? Since bundles take a little extra time and energy you’re
probably wondering what’s in it for me? There are many good reasons to create
unique bundles. Bundles typically benefit both buyer as well as seller. So it’s a
win-win situation for both parties. So the first reason why you should use
bundling is to move your slow motion inventory, basically clearing out your slow
moving inventory. Let’s say for instance, you got a cake mix that’s selling like hot
cakes but a jar of frosting that’s climbing up in sales rank, which is increasing its
sales rank. In that case you can use product bundling. So bundling is a great
strategy to improve the sale of struggling product lines, allowing you to attach
them to related products with higher customer traction. Now items that are
uniquely to be bought in isolation can be readily accepted as add-ons, at the
point of sale. Bundling products can add perceived value to both products being
sold, as well as to the customer.

And you can also couple a bundling strategy with a coupon marketing strategy,
for instance, or a promotion in order to increase the appeal of your product. And
this can add a sense of urgency to the buying process, making it probably look
like a seasonally appealing product or simply, you know, just to grab the
shopper’s eye. The next one is owning the buy box. Now let’s face it. This is the
main reason most sellers start making Amazon bundles. If you’re outsourcing at
the same stores as everybody else, you’ll invariably, and inevitably run up
against some buy box competition. And while sharing the buy box guarantees,
you are a portion of the sales. It’s never fun when the price starts to drop.
Sometimes even with a really popular item, you might find that you are not
selling through your inventory as fast as you’d like. And when you make unique
bundles, you essentially guarantee your sport in the buy box. And that is
because for any other seller to sell on your listing they would have to have all of
the same items and packaging as you, and many sellers are simply too lazy to
take the extra steps.

And that leaves you all alone in the buy box, snagging like a hundred percent of
the sales. The next one will be higher margins of course. Now, if you haven’t
selling for a while, you probably notice that it doesn’t make, you know, sense to
sell low priced items through Amazon FBF that’s because some of the fulfillment
fees are fixed and they come out as, you know, your selling price, whether it’s
like $7 or a hundred dollars or 110. Now bundles are a great way to package up
several lower priced items and actually turn them into profit because the FPF
fees are only deducted from one item of your bundle instead of each individual
item, and you will be able to make higher margins. So, let’s take a look at this
particular example, the locker accessories. Now if you assume that you get each
of these pieces for like $3, which makes the total cost as 15. At the current buy
box price of around $40, it leaves you with a profit of around 11 after the fee,
which is not bad at all.

Now let’s take the example of only the rack. So say for example, if you were just
selling the locker shelf and you decided to list it at, for instance, $10, in the
scenario with the applied FBA fees, you will actually end up losing up to a dollar
or so. And that’s really bad for you, but this requires your customer to buy all
the five items separately for $10 each, if you wanna actually make profit. Okay.
So with the Amazon bundle they have so much more inside the package and you
make more money, which is super cool. The next one is to give the best solution
to your customer. So, giving a customer a discount is already solving one big
problem, but if you create smart, thoughtful bundles, you can really make a
customer’s life easier, and that will make your offer stand out from the crowd.
Now, for instance, with a given situation and what’s going on in the world,
you’ve decided like a lot of people to pick up healthy new habits. And you are
following virtual yoga sessions, for instance. So you had to Amazon to get a yoga
mat because you’re not convinced that you wanna borrow one from the studio.
Now, while looking at the yoga mats, you come across this particular listing,
wow. The mat only costs like $27. So getting all of this for around $35 is a great
deal. And Balanced Form has offered real value to the buyer, not only in the
price discounted, but it’s great for someone who’s starting off now and has
everything they need for yoga. So you could also try to attempt that kind of
product bundling by giving value to your customer, which is very important. The
next is Amazon rules. There are certain rules that Amazon has laid down. And
before you create your first bundle, you need to understand the rules of Amazon
product bundling policy. And I will take you through the rules one by one. The
first one is there are specific rules about books, movies, and video games.
Amazon strictly says that you cannot make a bundle of items in the books,
movies, and video game category. You can include one of these items in a
bundle, but it cannot be a primary item.

Amazon gives the example of bundling a yoga mat with a yoga book and yoga
DVD, which is what you can see here. The next one is picking the right category.
So your bundle can only be listed in one category, even if the product in it is
from multiple categories, which happens very normally. You need to pick the
category of the highest price items when you create your listing, which is what
we suggest the next one is UPCs and product identifiers. Now this is one big
threat. You know, this is a big one that trips up a lot of wannabe bundles. As for
Amazon, each product within the bundle has to be a unique product which
means each item needs a unique ASIN, prepackaged products with a single ASIN
do not count. And in most cases you will be eligible to apply for an exemption
from Amazon for your bundle. You can follow Amazon’s page where the link will
be sent to you right after the webinar.

The next one is brands and generics. Now, do not include general or generic
products in your bundles, which are completely unbranded. Amazon doesn’t
want you to mislead the customers into thinking that a generic product belongs
to the same brand, as one of the branded items in your bundle. So, and speaking
of brands your bundle can have items that are of different brands, like with
category selection. It’s very similar. Use the highest priced item to dictate how
you brand your bundle. The next one being a bundle, never dies. It’s forever. It’s
there. Once you create a bundle, you cannot change the items that are in it. So if
you wanna redo it you want to add or remove something from your bundle,
you’ll have to create an entirely new bundle. So that’s the rule. The next one is
on the titles, bullet points and images for your product bundles.
Now, Amazon has very strict guidelines with this one as well about what must be
included in the title and product feature bullets for bundles. The main point is
that there is a need to know that the title must include the word bundle.

Amazon also asks that the title should include the number of items or a full list
of each item. And for the bullet points, the first feature bullet also needs to
include the total number of items in your bundle. So that’s how you go about
your listings for your product bundles. Now creating product bundles on
Amazon. Very quickly I have put up the link for you here. Product bundles can be
created on your seller central account, and you just need to go inside your
managed inventory where you’ll find, create a bundle, and you’ll be able to do
that. Creating enticing bundles that sell, which are very important bundles that
your customers will actually want to buy. Now, if you’re used to online arbitrage,
there’s one thing about bundling that’s a little scary, that there are no ranks.

In that case, we recommend considering product rankings to make sure that
your products actually sell. So how can you make sure that your brand new
bundle will sell well on Amazon? So let’s go about it. The first thing is to study
your top products or your fast moving products. If the individual items of your
bundle are low ranked and selling really well you should go for those. There’s a
huge probability that the bundle would also be popular. Look at the listing pages
for your low ranked items, or just browse the best sellers on Amazon and see if
they have a frequently bought together box, as you see here. You can also check
from this section called customers who bought this item also bought. So when
you scroll down you will see this to research other popular products related to
your primary item. Next is creating a bundle that serves your customer. Now
imagine that you’re looking for a manicure kit and you came across these two.

I mean, you would wanna compare these two, all the products that you see and
then buy. Now, if you see the second one here, it’s like a proper manicure kit
that comes with all the complimentary items. Whereas the first one, if you see
the bundle has two same items, the first thing, which is a multi-pack, it’s not a
bundle. And after that, they have thrown like some random rubber bands in a
manicure kit, which you do not want to do. You want your items to be
complementary and your customers to be seeing that. So what do we conclude
by this, that let Amazon guide you not to go for items which are not
complementary within your bundle. If there are two same items, it is not a
bundle. The items should enhance each other. You should not go for some
random item within your product bundle just to complete it. And packaging is
very important.

So make sure that your packaging looks enticing to your customers so that they
want to buy your products. And as long as you create bundles that are really
adding value, your listings will stand out from the competition and you will get
more sales, of course. And now that we’ve spoken about product bundling and
the basics and how you do it now, you can start making profits using different
bundle types as well. Coming to that, what are the different types of bundling?

The first one being gift or theme product bundling. What I can recall about it is
the Valentine’s product bundles or the newborn baby product bundle, or maybe
a kitten product bundle or a puppy product bundle. A gifted or a theme bundle,
basically collects compliment items under a single product offering. As I give you
an example, a new baby bundle, which might include many items that new
parents will need when bringing the baby back from the hospital, right?
Similarly for a new kitten, it might contain food bowls or a bed or some toys,
etcetera. The convenient product bundles, for these bundles are designed to
combine everything a person might need for a project or an activity. For instance
if it is a going to school product bundle, it’ll be a calculator, pencils, testing
materials, books, etcetera, or maybe be a costly cleaning kit with sprays and
creams and other things. And then you have branded and generated product
bundles as we discussed earlier branded items, as you know, cannot just be
more than one of the same item. There could not be more than one of the same
items since that is considered as a multi-pack. And to generate bundles, you
need to bring together all the items in a single category. Like for instance, house
painting supplies, or an electronic repair kit, all the items in this bundle need to
be unbranded and not mixed with other brands to lower the quality of your
brand by association.

And in the end I’d like to tell you that there are a lot of analytic tools that can
help you craft, tailor bundles, and will also help you assess how your bundles are
performing. You can turn to those tools for instance, to DataHawk for your
Amazon bundling strategy to AB test different combinations and iterate on
success. By staying up to date on what works, you can double down on what
works and dynamically grow your branding strategy every single day. And the
more insights you have, the more deeply you will understand which product
means the most to your customers and your target audience. And that everyone
is the key to success for Amazon product bundling in 2020. Thank you so much,
everyone. If you are an experienced bundler, I’d love to hear about that. And if
you have any questions regarding this webinar, please feel free to write to us.
And if you have any tips for the new bundles in our group please feel free to
drop comments and write to us on LinkedIn. Thank you so much for joining in. I’ll
see you next time