Thank you for taking the time to read this proposal. I am a longtime fan of The Refill Shoppe; its Ventura location is near and dear to me and I am a supporter of the brand’s eco-friendly goal of “Making a difference, one bottle at a time.” For those unfamiliar with your work, I encourage them to visit your website, and to learn more about The Refill Shoppe’s history and accolades. As simple living and waste-free initiatives gain more ground, I’m sure The Refill Shoppe enjoys a healthy, loyal following of likeminded customers who look forward to refilling their soaps and shampoos at your Ventura storefront. But I believe The Refill Shoppe’s mission can be more effectively spread through online advertising. Your main customer demographic is comprised of eco-conscious millennials, as well as the late 30s to 40s crowd. The majority of these customers prefer to do their shopping online. In fact, Clickz.com reports that shoppers searching for personal care, baby care, clothing, home decor, and home electronics products divide their shopping fairly evenly between physical stores and e-commerce sites. Why not meet your customers’ needs in both places? Logistically, you can’t (or at least shouldn’t) sell your soaps and other liquid products over the Internet, but you can advertise, sell, and ship your more durable and alternative lifestyle-centric products (i.e.refillable glass bottles, bath salt sets, silicon storage bags, dishware, etc.) to customers as a vendor or seller through Amazon.com. Using Michael Erickson Facchin’s SEMrush article, “What is Amazon PPC?: A Complete Beginners Guide to Optimization,” I will first break down the basic differences between selling your products as a Vendor versus as a Seller through Amazon: Vendor First-party sellers (typically bigger businesses) sell their products in larger quantities directly to Amazon.com. Amazon then sells these products under their own brand. Vendors also have the opportunity to decide how they wish to advertise to potential customers. Seller Sellers, or third-party sellers, control how their products are viewed by customers and can manage their own orders without Amazon’s help. Seller Central is geared towards small businesses or individual sellers that want to sell directly to customers (rather than through Amazon) via Amazon Marketplace. Below is an infographic from SEMrush outlining the main differences between being a Vendor and Seller on Amazon. I recommend that as a small, niche business, The Refill Shoppe take advantage of the Seller Central category when listing and selling its products on Amazon. Allow me to tie this in with Amazon’s pay-per-click (PPC) advertising feature. The above referenced SEMrush article explains what PPC is and why it is beneficial for your business: “PPC advertising is advertising you pay for to show up on Amazon to increase the visibility of your product … Like Google Ads, Amazon PPC is a bidding system where the seller bids on search terms in hopes to appear for them on the Amazon search results page (SERP).” In other words, sellers that use Amazon’s PPCs pay for each time a prospective customer clicks on the ad. There are three primary categories of PPC ads used on Amazon: Sponsored Product Ads - These ads usually appear to the right-hand side of the screen before organic search results Headline Search/Banner Ads - These are visible at the top of search results Product Display Ads - Available only to Vendors, these types of ads are placed on product pages that vendors choose Before jumping into PPC ads, be sure your product descriptions are accurate (lest you experience bad customer reviews), provide high-quality images of each product, and ensure your prices are competitive. To optimize your business’s Amazon ranking, research keywords that will most likely draw visitors to your products. Cast a wide net. Depending on the product you’re selling, you’ll want to bid on keywords or phrases like “refillable,” “eco-friendly,” “refill,” “bottle,” “jar,” “reusable,” etc. You can also optimize your search terms by providing descriptive words, again, depending on your product. The success of a Amazon PPC campaign boils down to the cost-per-click compared to how many sales a company makes. This is called conversion rate. According to SEMrush, the average conversion rate among Amazon sellers is 9.67%, while the average cost-per-click on an ad is about 78 cents. As long as the cost of running ads doesn’t cancel out the revenue or make the ads not worth pursuing, you’ll be able to see a return on investment (ROI). Two special conversions to look out for are micro and macro conversations. For The Refill Shoppe, a micro conversion (steps a user takes that bring them closer to making a purchase) can include clicking an ad, visiting a product page, and putting said item into their shopping cart. A macro conversion (the actual purchase of a product) happens when they finish their order. Here is a brief example of similar sustainable companies with goals that match The Refill Shoppe’s who’ve taken advantage of display ads: When I type “reusable soap bottles” into Amazon’ search bar, there are sponsored ads from Gleur, Boroux, and Jagurds, all brands that offer products that are similar to what I’m looking for. Although it’s true I might’ve found these products on my own by clicking through product page after product page, having a time-saving ad appear on the first page will make me more likely to look at the product in the ad and put it in my cart. On the other hand, Dapple Baby’s plant-based, non-toxic dish soap may not be exactly what I’m looking for, but because its more eco-friendly centric products are in line with The Refill Shoppe’s it appears on the banner ad when I conduct my search. The key is using the right keywords and phrases and enough product descriptors. Who knows, there are plenty of people out there who will realize that they need this product
You might be thinking, why get into PPCs? Yes, it’s an investment of time and money, but with the expansion of the online marketplace and the less locals shop at brick-and-mortar storefronts, many small businesses can’t afford *not* to find new, alternative ways to sell products. But that entails going beyond simply selling on Amazon as a third-party seller; it would behoove companies to take advantage of PPCs. Bobsled Marketing writer Tom Crosthwaite shares this sentiment when it comes to the ever-growing online marketplace: “...it becomes more of a challenge to rank organically (even for established brands) due to the increased competition across every product category,” he writes. “By utilizing Amazon’s paid advertising tools a brand can rent pieces of prime real estate across the ecosystem in an attempt to gain more impressions, clicks and conversions. By not investing in PPC you are giving competitors an opportunity to eat into your market share. (“Winning on Amazon - The 4 Parts of the Bobsled Iceberg”). Additionally, Amazon is growing increasingly important to online shoppers. In fact, roughly 56% of Internet shoppers in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and France are relying on Amazon.com to begin their product searches. To put it simply, PPC advertising enhances the shopping experience for retailer and customer alike. Customers enjoy the benefits of easily discovering new products and brands thanks to advertisements that blend well with their searches while businesses enjoy a relatively simple targeted marketing strategy. By using this Amazon PPC proposal as a guideline for expanding The Refill Shoppe’s e-commerce presence, I am confident your company will be able to more rapidly influence the consumer market to adopt more sustainable habits, one product at a time.
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