Top 5 Amazon News for August 2022
Each month, we monitor Amazon news and updates to seize opportunities as well as to avoid potential problems before they become an issue for us and our clients.
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Here we share the top updates and news for August 2022:
1. Policy change to comply with export import trade regulations related to the products sold in the Amazon.ca store
Amazon announcement:
“To ensure compliance with domestic export requirements and international trade requirements, effective September 27, 2022, sellers will not be able to ship products listed for sale in the Amazon.ca store to countries other than Canada.
Ensuring that all products comply with international trade requirements helps customers to build trust in the products, and the sellers.
To continue selling products internationally and exporting them from Canada, you must enable your account to sell in the country you wish to export to, and submit your listing and ask for approval if necessary in that store. To register your account in other Amazon stores, you have three options:
- Open a storefront in the local Amazon stores where you intend to export, and upload your listings on this store.
- Set up an Amazon Global Selling Account.
- Set up a North America Unified Account to sell on Amazon.ca (Canada), Amazon.com (USA) and Amazon.mx (Mexico).”
ProMerit Tip: Exporting from Canada to other countries requires sellers to follow a few extra steps in order to be able to ship products listed for sale.
Please note that listings must comply with trade laws in both the country from where they are sold, and the country of destination.
This incurs extra costs, such as acquiring tax registration in the country of destination.
Brands should assess the individual impact on their own product sales.
2. New feature: Small Business Badge
Amazon announcement:
“We’ve launched the Small Business Badge to make it easier than ever for customers to identify products from small business brands and artisans in Amazon’s store.
The badge can be found in search results and on detail pages for products from eligible small businesses.
If you’re registered with Brand Registry or Amazon Handmade and your business is eligible to be identified as a Small Business in the Amazon store, all products within your registered brands will now automatically receive the Small Business Badge.
Ahead of Prime Day, we’re encouraging customers to “Support Small Businesses to Win Big”. From now until July 11, for every $1 a customer spends on products from eligible small businesses with the Small Business Badge, they’ll receive one entry in the sweepstakes to win thousands of great prizes.”
ProMerit Tip: The main purpose of this badge is to promote a product, and let the customer know that it belongs to a small business.
To assist these businesses, Amazon organizes special events and promotions for the Amazon stores of brands with the badge.
Amazon is automatically onboarding eligible businesses, and those who may not have received the badge yet may request it. This is one more reason for businesses with the badge, who have not yet created a store, to build one now.
3. Now available: Same-day handling time as default setting
Amazon announcement:
“On March 31, 2022, we launched same-day handling time for your account. You will now be able to configure your selling account for same-day handling time as the default setting. This will shorten the delivery date shown to customers when they purchase products and will increase the likelihood of a purchase.
Setting same-day handling time will require you to ship and confirm all orders received before the cut-off hour within the same day. For orders received after the cut-off hour, you will have the next business day to handle these orders.
Note: the default cut-off hour is 2 p.m. local time but can be edited in shipping settings.”
ProMerit Tip: To make the most of same-day handling time, make sure to ship all orders received before cut-off time, the same day, in order to maintain a high shipping performance level and improve the delivery lead time displayed on your product listing.
Also, make sure to frequently monitor your shipping performance under the menu: Performance -> Account health -> Shipping Performance.
4. Important: Product dimension attributes required when you create ASINs
Amazon announcement:
“From July 26, 2022, you’ll be required to enter new dimension attributes when you create or update ASINs for 91 product types.
Complete and accurate product dimensions improve the customer experience and help customers discover the right products for them.
For more information about the 91 product types that will be affected on July 26, go to Updated dimension attributes for product types.”
ProMerit Tip: Amazon now requires new dimension attributes to be entered when you create and update ASINs through the ‘Manage Inventory’ and ‘Bulk inventory’ templates.
As of July 26th, this is being requested for 91 product types, and all remaining product types will require it from September onwards.
These 91 product types include hammocks, barbecue grills, casseroles, hair_iron, bottles, food_storage_bag, thermos, camera_lenses, and others. As a result, we’ve already begun including this in many of the SKUs we sell.
5. Brands: Start earning a bonus and make the most out of your non-Amazon Marketing
Amazon announcement:
“If you use non-Amazon marketing such as social media, paid search, email, and display ads as part of your marketing strategy and haven’t activated your Brand Referral Bonus, you could be leaving money on the table.
The Brand Referral Bonus program improves the return on your non-Amazon marketing investment by offering a bonus based on product sales driven by non-Amazon marketing.
While bonuses vary by product category, on average, Brands leveraging the Brand Referral Bonus program as part of their marketing strategy earn a bonus of 10% of product sales driven by non-Amazon marketing.
Brands have even seen improved conversion from leveraging the Brand Referral Bonus on their own direct to customer websites and leading the consumer to complete their purchase on Amazon.”
ProMerit Tip: The Brand Referral Bonus program credits brands with 10% of sales on average, from traffic you have driven to Amazon.
Each category has its own estimated bonus rate. For example, ‘Tools & Home Improvement’ has a 10% estimated bonus rate (except for base equipment power tools which is an estimated 8%).
Please carefully read the terms and conditions to make your own estimate for this program, as it has some restrictions and rules, such as the 2-month delay to credit the earnings, in order to accommodate order cancellations and customer returns. Understanding what “qualified traffic” means is also relevant, as you need to connect an off-Amazon advertisement you run, to a ‘tag’ created with Amazon Attribution.
We hope this article is helpful for your businesses. Please note that the above announcements have been sourced from Amazon’s official channels as well as from some well-known business blogs.
If you have any questions related to our services, please contact us. Remember to sign up for our newsletter to receive more exciting news every month!
