1. Intrigued by Amazon Flexible Customer Financing? Here’s how it works…
Launched last month, Amazon’s new flexible customer financing (FCF) programme lets buyers spread the cost of their Amazon purchases – interest-free, and with no credit checks needed – for between 3 and 48 months.
But how does it work?
It’s for eligible products priced between £80-3,000.
Amazon describes eligible products as “physical products in stock on Amazon.co.uk” within that price range.
But, to get those payments interest-free, a customer’s total order needs to be £100+.
It appears at various checkout points…
Buyers will see the new monthly payment option when they:
- Add to Basket
- Are in their Basket
- At Checkout
How do they pay?
At checkout, they pay an initial payment made up of the first monthly instalment plus all delivery costs. Amazon charge the card on dispatch.
And for Sellers?
Sellers receive the full cost upfront, less a fee based on the length of the line of credit that the customer takes out.
Our Pro Tip – Buyers taking long lines of credit will obviously make this much more expensive for Sellers, so it’s definitely worth calculating where your maximums lie to see how/if the programme could work for you.
Venture Forge Team
Amazon will also charge a programme fee to join the scheme, though this won’t be applied until the trial period expires on 1 June 2023.
I’m interested – where can I get more information?
Head to these help pages for more:
- Flexible Customer Financing (FCF) Terms and Conditions
- Flexible Customer Financing for sellers selling on Amazon.co.uk
Or tap here to speak to our Amazon experts!
2. Expand into Amazon Europe with “just a few clicks”
How? Meet the aptly-named European Expansion Accelerator (EEA), Amazon’s new initiative that lets Sellers list their products across nine European stores with a few clicks in Seller Central.
With the ability to expand into any number of the nine stores all at once, EEA is described by Amazon as an “automated expansion solution that connects standalone Amazon tools, eliminating the need for Sellers to navigate several different tools, and reducing the time it takes to expand their business into multiple European stores.”
How does it work?
With EEA, Sellers will be able to log into Seller Central, identify where they’re not yet selling and click to expand into those stores.
By combining previously faffy processes under a single tool trigger, including:
- Account registration and set-up
- Translations
- Listing
- Shipping setup
- Product eligibility checks; and
- Catalogue customisations
… all these expansion elements can now be carried out in under three business days.
EEA takes your Seller preferences from your main store and replicates them across your new stores.
It also enables “continuous expansion for newly listed products and communication” by using store-specific recommendations.
Yay! Let’s expand into Europe with just a few clicks!
If you know that European expansion fits well with your brand’s gameplay and you’re primed and ready to go on all fronts – strategy, logistics/delivery and taxes – EEA could be great news for you.
But if you’re not 100% sure, take some time out to think about how best to scale your brand into Amazon Europe to get the best possible returns for your business – and then make those few clicks.
Useful stuff for you
- Click here to revisit our expert webinar “Scaling your Brand into Amazon Europe – Strategy, Taxes and Delivery”
- Click here to speak to our strategy experts and identify how EU expansion looks for your brand
3. Hooray for an easier Amazon split-test setup
Good news for anyone who uses Manage your Experiments on a regular basis, as Amazon simplify the process…
We all know that split testing is a crucial part of optimising your listings and content – Amazon say that A/B testing can help increase sales by up to 25%, based on observations from Seller experiments.
We all also know that it can be a massive pain in the bum to set them up, especially in bulk.
So good news from Amazon HQ, as they announce a simplified setup experience where the optimal settings for your split tests are preselected – leaving you with more time on your hands to drive those sales and grow those profits!
What are these new default settings?
When you’ve entered the B version of your experiment, click “Schedule Experiment” and the following settings will be selected by default:
Duration > Experiment to Significance – the split test experiment will end automatically when it’s collected enough data to identify a winner.
Publication > Auto-publish – once your test is complete, Amazon automatically updates your product listing for you.
Start > As soon as validation is complete.
But I don’t want those settings…
Don’t worry; you can tweak your experiment manually in View Settings.
Want expert help to set up split tests that give you the valuable information you really need to succeed?
Click here to chat with our Amazon specialists…
4. Amazon Ads + Pinterest = a match made in sales heaven
Pinterest users just love shoppable content, so anyone running Amazon Ads can be very happy that the social shopping platform has chosen Amazon as their first third-party ads partner.
Pinterest hopes that the partnership with Amazon will bring more great brands and products their way, and also want their users to be able to benefit easily in-app from Amazon’s seamless buying experience.
Amazon want to leverage the highly intent-led searches of Pinterest’s 463m+ monthly visitors to deliver strong ads performance, with more shoppable content opportunities that drive traffic and sales back into the marketplace.
This milestone partnership will add to the great brands already on the platform and provide more comprehensiveness, shoppability, and a best-in-class buying experience for users, along with greater performance for brands and advertisers.
This aligns with our goal of making every Pin shoppable, so that we can enable as many users as possible to bring their dreams to life.
Bill Ready, CEO, Pinterest
The partnership is expected to begin a phased roll-out later in 2023.
Is your brand ready to get the best from Amazon’s Pinterest partnership, right from the off?
Click here to speak to our Amazon Ads experts today.
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