This blog was updated on March 12, 2004.
Stores are one of the most powerful tools that brand owners can use to drive sales on Amazon. Building a custom online storefront gives you an immersive place to introduce audiences to your story, mission, and products. In this article, we will discuss how Stores work, why they are important, and the best practices of building an Amazon storefront that drives sales.
What is an Amazon Store?
A Store is an online storefront on Amazon dedicated to your brand. Stores introduce customers to your product catalog through customized rich media, including text, images, and videos. The Store Builder in Seller Central provides predesigned templates and drag-and-drop tiles that you can use to tell your brand story. Pages are automatically set up for desktop, mobile, and tablet browsers – no coding is required.
One of the best things about Stores is the ability to control its look and feel. Your storefront can look entirely different from the typical Amazon layout. This helps reinforce your brand and offers a more engaging experience for shoppers.
What Are the Benefits of Having an Amazon Store?
Creating a Store gives you a dedicated space on Amazon to introduce new products, showcase bestsellers, and even provide personalized recommendations for customers. Think of it as your brand’s Amazon real estate. Unlike your product detail pages, competitors can’t advertise on your Store. It is a mini website for your business. You even get your own Amazon.com web address to use in marketing campaigns (amazon.com/yourbrand).
You can drive traffic to your Store from your brand website, social media channels, or sponsored advertising – both on and off Amazon. Stores are also discoverable through shopping results on Amazon. Shoppers can share your Store with their friends via Facebook, Twitter, and other social media channels, which helps promote your brand and products through word-of-mouth.
Amazon Stores include a dashboard that provides important analytics, such as daily visitors, page views, and sales generated from your Store. If you promote your Store in external marketing activities, you can also add a tag to the URL to analyze traffic sources to your Store.
Who Can Create a Store on Amazon?
Stores are available for brand owners, vendors, and agencies. FBA sellers will need to enroll in Brand Registry before accessing the Stores feature. This program unlocks a suite of tools to help you build and protect your brand, creating a better customer experience. To enroll in Amazon Brand Registry, you will need:
- An active registered trademark for your brand that appears on your products or packaging
- The ability to verify yourself as the rights owner for the trademark
- An Amazon Brand Registry account, which you can create by simply signing in with your existing vendor or seller Amazon account credentials
Registering your brand gives you access to a host of benefits and tools not available to other sellers, including:
- Greater control over your product listings
- Amazon support for case management and resolutions
- Exclusive search and reporting tools
- Proactive brand protections
- Access to A+ content and Enhanced Brand Content
- Exclusive visibility options like Sponsored Brands and Vine
How to Build an Amazon Store: The Basics
Creating your Amazon storefront is simple with the Stores Builder. Login to your Seller Central dashboard and click STORES in the menu bar. If your brand is enrolled in Brand Registry, you will see a link to create your store.
The Stores builder has four main sections: 1) Page Manager, 2) Preview Window, 3) Tile Manager, and 4) Status Bar. When creating and editing your Store, most of your activity will take place in the Page Manager and Tile Manager sections. These are the tools you will use to build your Store layout, upload content, and connect product listings.
Stores Builder: Page Manager
The Page Manager allows you to add, edit, move, and delete pages from your Store.
- Store Settings: Here you can edit your brand display name, change your brand logo, or delete your Store.
- Add page: Creates a new page.
- Page Navigator: Displays the hierarchy of pages in your Store. Clicking on a page will open it for editing.
Stores Builder: Tile Manager
The Tile Manager allows the Store creator to add, edit, move, and delete tiles from the current page.
- Content Tile List: A listing of all of the content tiles on the current page. Clicking on a tile will open it for editing.
- Add a Section: Allows you to add a new section filled with tiles.
- Section Settings: Click on the section group to open the section settings and be able to delete the group.
Tips for Building an Amazon Store that Drives Sales
The purpose of a Store is to help customers find the products they’re looking for and build a deeper connection with your brand. This means you need to design your Store with navigation in mind. The goal is to simplify the shopping experience. Make it easy for customers to find what they want by building your pages strategically.
Each page in your Store is comprised of a header and footer surrounding a number of content tiles. Your Store can have three levels with multiple pages at each level. The number of pages and tiles you use will depend on the quantity and diversity of your products. For example, a brand with 1,000 ASINs will have a larger, more complex Store than a brand with only 20 products.
Regardless of the number pages you build, the design of your Store will determine how well it performs. Use the following best practices to help ensure your Store connects with customers, tells your brand story, and converts sales.
Design a Compelling Home Page
- Add branded content: Add lifestyle imagery, videos, short brand descriptions, and/or brand slogans to differentiate your brand. Branded content helps customers know that they are in the right place, especially those browsing your Store for the first time.
- Consider adding tiles that link customers to your category pages: This is recommended if you sell several different categories of products. The home page is the landing page for your Store’s organic placements on Amazon. Customers click on these organic placements to 1) learn more about your brand and/or 2) discover the different products your brand offers.
- Highlight featured ASINs: The home page is a great space to feature ASINs. Featured ASINs can include (but are not limited to) your best sellers, new arrivals, or seasonal offerings.
Add ASINs to your Store
- Group ASINs when you add them to the Store: Organize your ASINs to keep child variations of the same product close together, add products top to bottom based on ASP (average selling price), or list your ASINs top to bottom based on sales performance.
- Use the product grid: This feature is best when you want to upload ASINs in bulk, hide out-of-stock products automatically, adjust individual ASIN placements, and provide a balance between product and branded content.
- Use product tiles: These are best for providing visibility to the detail page images, ASIN title, star rating, number of reviews, bullet points, price, and “Add to cart” button (recommended for pages that contain only a few ASINs).
Create a Dynamic Shopping Experience
- Provide unique header images for each category page: Header images help customers understand where they are shopping at all times in your Store. If you plan to drive additional traffic to your Store with advertising, having a unique header image provides a strong first impression when customers land on the page.
- Add interactive creatives: Stores support a number of interactive tile types, including video, background video, and shoppable images. Customers can learn information about your brand and products faster and in a more enjoyable way with videos. Use shoppable images to drive discovery to one or multiple ASINs within a lifestyle image.
- Include lifestyle imagery: Add lifestyle imagery to showcase how your products are meant to be used and enjoyed. Add these lifestyle creatives on the home page, category pages, within header images, and as shoppable images.
An Example of How an Amazon Brand Store Increased YoY Sales Over 600%
Rastaclat manufactures hand-made accessories inspired by art, music, sports, and street culture. Established in 2010, the company has grown rapidly and now offers an wide catalog of more than 100 products.
As demand grew, Rastaclat began relying on third-party sellers to generate sales on Amazon. Unfortunately, the brand quickly faced an influx of counterfeit products as well as MAP policy violations from resellers. Naturally, this resulted in lost revenue. Rastaclat partnered with Channel Key to regain control over their brand and maximize profit potential by launching their entire catalog on Seller Central.
Channel Key developed an brand Store with over 170 pages of A+ content, resulting in Rastaclat’s top parent category ranking #1 organically for Men’s Bracelets and three additional parents ranking on the first two pages.
Through multiple marketing and advertising levers, Rastaclat generated over $250K in sales during the first six months of their brand Store. With continued optimization, conversions increased by 11% YoY and sessions increased by 164% YoY. In total, Channel Key’s brand Store strategy increased Rastaclat’s Amazon sales by 604% over a period of 12 months.
Channel Key Takeaway
Maintaining a branded storefront on Amazon is an effective way to distinguish your brand. Stores enable you to move customers from the crowded search results to a section of Amazon where there is no competition. This is your opportunity to create a unique shopping experience that tells your brand story. Unlike product detail pages, Stores allow you to spotlight your top-selling items in creative ways using custom images, videos, text, and shoppable images. Best of all, there is no cost to create a Store. If you are enrolled in Brand Registry, launching a Store is a free and powerful way to provide a unique shopping experience for customers.
