Selling on Amazon is hard, but you can make it even harder on yourself if you make a critical mistake that I've seen repeated for 15 years now. I am a Amazon Consultantand the most common mistake I see that results in several years of stagnant growth is copying big brands.

Here's what happens:

1. They look at top sellers of big brands that move significant volume each month.

2. They copy their images, A+ content, headline and bullet points.

3. They copy their ad copy, images and video.

4. They do their own thing Amazon Store they look almost the same.

5. Sales do not increase.

In the discussion, the logic given is: “We want to reverse engineer successful brands and emulate them to accelerate our success.”

The problem is that they are imitating the wrong things.

Here's why this is a mistake and what to do instead.

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Why copying big brands to increase sales on Amazon is a mistake

If you're reading this, chances are you're not a big brand selling on Amazon. You are likely looking for tips to find your way to that place, which is why copying them is a mistake.

You're not a big brand, so same rules increase your sales on Amazon it doesn't apply to you. Most importantly, you can't make the same mistakes they do.

Here's why copying big brands to increase sales on Amazon is a mistake:

1. Big brands are known, liked and trusted – you are not

Acquaintance, likeability and trust are key ingredients in the recipe for a sale. Big brands are talked about by every Amazon influencer, seen 10 times a day in social media and search ads, and even appear in your Netflix ads.

No amount of listing optimization can overcome that. The massive online presence of big brands translates into their visibility and sales on Amazon.

2. The presence of big brands outside of Amazon results in visibility on Amazon

Speaking of Amazon Influencers and presence outside of Amazon, you probably already know that Amazon crawls the web and measures the online presence of brands and products sold on its marketplace. Key performance indicators such as brand mentions, your website's domain authority, and the amount of traffic coming from Amazon to Amazon specifically for your product listings all affect how high you'll appear on Amazon, to not to mention how much you sell.

Appearing on videos and articles like “The Best Tasting Cups for Home Coffee Quality Coffee” with link clicks on the Amazon listing sends signals to Amazon that the product should rank higher for keyword searches like “k- French Baked Cups”.

Brushing through a Amazon listing and listing or using the product through your preferred Amazon seller tool will not reveal this.

While you're taking notes on the colors and images they use in their A+ content or the bullet points they've written, you'll end up making the same mistakes they do.

3. Great brands make startup mistakes because they can

The reason you get big brand listings into your favorite Amazon seller tool and see a high volume of monthly sales isn't because of their listing optimization, stellar copywriting, or color psychology craftsmanship.

You might be surprised to know that big brands make the most basic mistakes in copywriting, imagery and listing optimization. It's just not a priority.

Their investment is outside of Amazon, not in Amazon. This results in them still gaining significant sales while doing so Amazon startup mistakes like poor images, wooden copy, no keywords and poor A+ content.

So what should you do?

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How to increase sales on Amazon

If you approximate the big brand listings on Amazon as your own, you'll be imitating the wrong aspects of why big brands are successful.

To drive explosive growth at Amazon, you'll want to use a combination of what made them a great brand in the first place, while also focusing on fundamental sales best practices that you can't afford to miss. you ignore them because you are not a big brand.

Focus on this:

1. Copywriting, imagery and color psychology best practices

People buy because thrill, and justify their purchases with logic. These elements should be considered in your copy and images.

Your product relieves a pain, solves a problem or fulfills a desire. Be able to communicate how you do this quickly and easily.

These are the most important basic skills for effective Amazon listing optimization.

2. Outbound traffic to Amazon listings

Simply put, Amazon loves it when you send traffic from outside of Amazon to Amazon to your product listings.

Focus on getting featured in the “Best of” and “Top” lists on YouTube articles and videos because it's easier to click back to the Amazon listing from those sources than on social media platforms that don't make it easy to leave the platform .

Speaking of off Amazon…

3. OFF presence on Amazon

Build traffic to your brand's website through SEO to show Amazon that you're vital and relevant, which translates into likely converting a sale in the eyes of the algorithm. Don't stop there – build your social media presence, partner with Amazon Influencers and build your brand through PR.

You have the power to send signals to Amazon, so the next time a customer is searching for your keyword, you should appear at the top of the search results instead of your competitors.

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