Pop Quiz: What Do Trusted Payment Options, Supply Chain Automation, and AI-Driven Innovations Have in Common?
These are essential elements that can contribute to the success of any business. That’s why Amazon has introduced an exciting new set of features designed to help independent sellers optimize their operations and drive growth in the fifth annual. Amazon Acceleration sellers conference in Seattle. Amazon has a strong history of partnering with independent sellers around the world, helping them leverage its innovative and profitable resources to become successful brands. Today, more than 60% of sales in the Amazon store come from independent sellers, most of whom are small and medium-sized businesses. Selling on the Amazon Store unlocks a powerful, proven business engine for independent sellers, giving them 24/7 access to hundreds of millions of Amazon customers worldwide. Many of these sellers flocked to Accelerate to learn about new developments, meet one-on-one with Amazon experts, network, and much more.
This year’s announcements did not disappoint. Whether it’s increasing productivity with AI-powered tools, fully automating supply chain services, or leveraging the trust of the Prime brand, Amazon helps businesses large and small businesses, streamline their operations, attract more customers and grow their businesses across all channels.
Let’s take a look at these developments and find out how they can help your business succeed.
Boost Growth Productivity with New Generative AI Tools
Amazon has been harnessing the power of AI for years, and at Accelerate, Amazon unveiled a powerful set of generative AI tools designed to power seller growth. Taking center stage is a new AI-powered generative sales assistant called Amelia Project.
Project Amelia, built using Amazonian baseprovides independent sellers with business insights, recommendations and personalized solutions to streamline operations and increase productivity. By answering questions, providing real-time metrics, and diagnosing business challenges, Amelia helps sellers manage tasks like inventory and sales forecasting more effectively. Over time, Amazon says Amelia will evolve to anticipate sellers’ needs and even act on sellers’ behalf, allowing them to focus more on growth.
In addition to Project Amelia, Amazon has deployed several other generative AI tools that help create high-quality product listings faster, generate rich content, create personal recommendations to customersand even produce video ads. Together, these innovations simplify operations, reduce time spent on manual tasks, and help salespeople more easily reach and interact with customers.
Amazon applies this innovative thinking across the entire seller experience, including ensuring a trusted shopping experience. For example, earlier this year, Amazon launched Project PI, which uses computer vision in fulfillment centers to discover defects like damaged products or issues like wrong color or size before products are not shipped to customers. Project PI also leverages generative AI to identify root causes and provide advice to sellers on preventative measures (changing packaging, updating listings, etc.) to improve the overall customer experience.
By integrating AI into the selling experience, Amazon enables sellers to operate more efficiently, maximize their reach, and improve the overall customer shopping experience.
Increase your sales by 20% with Amazon’s fully managed supply chain service
What if you could leverage the power of Amazon to manage your entire supply chain by partnering with Amazon? For independent sellers, this is now a reality. Amazon announcement its end-to-end, fully managed Supply Chain by Amazon service is now available to sellers. It offers sellers a complete solution for global and domestic logistics, warehousing and multi-channel distribution. The service simplifies operations, allowing sellers to move products from factories to customers faster and more efficiently, resulting in an average 20% increase in sales conversions, according to the company.
Sellers simply provide product details and pickup locations and Amazon oversees the rest, including carrier pickup, inventory consolidation, strategic replenishment, and placement in fulfillment centers closest to customers, as well as as continuous optimization based on analysis based on demand, inventory levels and costs. Sellers can choose between using individual services or letting Amazon manage the entire process, from carrier pickup to fulfillment center restocking. Amazon estimates that sellers can reduce the total amount of inventory needed to stay in stock by about 20% by simply switching from two inventory pools to one, and this percentage increases during seasonal or volatile demand. By managing supply chain operations, Amazon allows sellers to focus more on creating quality products and less on tedious and labor-intensive logistics.
Amazon seller Steve Neufer, co-founder of Juvo+, is already taking advantage of this. “Amazon is a great partner for businesses of all sizes because they help us do just that. This frees up time and energy to focus on building brand value, understanding customer needs, and creating great products,” he said. “Becoming a supply chain expert is not how salespeople win; we win by making better products for the customer.”
Grow your business across all sales channels
Independent sellers around the world often sell products on their own brand sites or other channels. Now they have stronger support thanks to Amazon’s expanded reach. Buy with Prime And Multi-channel execution (MCF). Buy with Prime, available in the US, leverages the Prime trusted brand to drive traffic and sales directly to merchant websites, while Amazon MCF allows merchants to use Amazon’s fulfillment network to prepare, pack and ship orders across Amazon’s fulfillment network and channels beyond. Amazon.
So far this year, orders to buy with Prime have jumped more than 45% year over year, with a 16% increase in revenue per buyer. New features announced at Accelerate a few weeks ago include PayPal integration for payment and advertising solutions, including Amazon DSP for Buy with Prime and partnerships with Google Shopping Ads and TikTok Ads, to help merchants drive traffic and sales. Additionally, the service has expanded its brand offering, adding notable names such as IZOD, Elizabeth Arden, Dollar Shave Club, and more.
Amazon MCF also continues its rapid growth, now serving more than 200,000 U.S. merchants with a 70% year-over-year increase in orders so far this year. Improvements include a 40% faster standard delivery option as well as the introduction of MCF fast badges and estimated delivery dates in Google Shopping and TikTok ads. These updates allow merchants to scale more efficiently, reach a wider audience, and improve conversion rates.
Want to know more? Watch Amazon Accelerate General Sessions on request to learn how Amazon’s latest innovations are helping independent sellers thrive.
