Mining Amazon for Marketeting Data
As an entrepreneur with a focus on selling products, your company’s lifeblood depends on getting to the right people at the right time. You have to identify your target market, meet them at their point of need, and then convince them to convert. You need information to get that process started and that means intensive market research.
Market research itself is an expensive and time-consuming task with difficult metrics and problematic data interpretation. Details can be scarce, but macro-trends are much easier to come by. It’s time to jump on the coat-tails of Amazon.com’s global database and dig for information.
What’s Hot and What’s Not
Start by searching out the product you’re actually selling. Once you’ve identified the sub-category as specifically as possible, backtrack into the category browsing screen and take note of what products Amazon offers you. Popular items with a high turnover rate get shuffled to the top of the category list, conveniently sorted by “Best Sellers”, “Hot New Releases”, and “Most Wished For”. This represents a snapshot of your target market’s actual purchasing behavior, allowing you to refine your own merchandise offerings and see how they compare.
Cross-sell and Up-sell
When you look at a the individual product listing, Amazon offers you additional purchasing options in the form of lists based on customer behavior. Similar products appear under the heading of “Frequently Purchased With” and “Customers Also Viewed”. This allows you to identify competitive products at a glance and select potential impulse purchases at your own point of sale. Pay particular attention to products on the “viewed” list that also had a higher ranking on the “Best Seller” list.
Keywords and Discoverability
Scan the product listing for keywords and unique phrases. Well written ad copy aids both internal and external search engines. Do a quick search for your specific product and see what turns up in the meta description, then compare that with the human readable content. Quality copy is not only accurate to the product, but it contains phrases that closely match search requests.
Read the Forums
Find out what consumers really think about your products. Amazon’s system of reviews and discussion boards empowers consumers to speak their mind and dialog with each other in a focused way. If the product is flawed or problematic, you’ll quickly find out. Positive responses also let you feel out consumer satisfaction.
Amazon works hard to sell products indiscriminately. Pay attention to their hard work for a valuable glimpse at your own slice of the market.
