Has anyone seen an eCommerce Templates store design that closely mimics the desktop and mobile layouts of the Amazon main page and product pages?

It's understood that you'd need all-new design elements (logo, colors, fonts, images, etc.) to avoid confusion and a lawsuit.

I'm asking because we've discovered that more customers seem to expect online shopping that's as close as possible to the Amazon experience.

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Explanation--
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For the past year our company has tested some limited marketing of its manufactured goods, using an alternate brand name, on Amazon.

The good news:

- Amazon seems to have crazy low friction; if your product is somewhat unique, customers could buy large quantities even if the Prime price is higher than what they'd pay, with shipping, on your own website.

- Paid advertising on Amazon has cost less than one-fifth (20%) as much per conversion as advertising with Google AdWords, likely because customers visit Amazon intending to buy.

The terrible news:

- Likely because buying is easy and returns are free, Amazon customers often ignore critical product information, even if posted prominently on your descriptions and product images. For example, if your description says "DO NOT use on cats - only safe for DOGS" in the first line, you can expect repeated published comments questioning why the product can't be used on cats, reviews (that Amazon won't let you remove) from reckless customers who tout how well the product works on their cats, and "product is defective" returns, at your expense, from customers who ignored your warnings and made their cats sick with the product.

- A surprising percentage of Amazon customers return products with the pretext that the product is "defective" or "not as described on the website." They do so because this gives free return shipping; saying that they failed to read the description and bought the wrong item does not. During any period, should 5 out of 100 customers return a product as "defective" or "not as described" Amazon will close your listing - potentially forever - until they approve the plan you submit to correct the issue. This could make it insanely risky to build a stock of products to be sold on Amazon. Note that on our own website the product return rate has been below 1% for many years; with Fulfillment by Amazon the return rate (including "product is defective," "Amazon didn't deliver the item soon enough," "I bought the wrong item," etc.) has been many times higher.

- As noted by others on this Forum, unless you've got products that are unique and difficult to copy, if successful Amazon could launch its own versions and drive you out of business.

- Listings we created on Amazon quickly dominated SEO for our category, and definitely have some negative impact on sales of comparable products on our own website. We recommend against listing any products on Amazon under your original brand name unless you want your own website to go out of business.

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Having said all that, if you've got a product that's difficult for others to copy, Amazon could provide great feedback, from lots of potential customers, about how to improve your products and marketing.

For example, early-on it appeared obvious that many Amazon customers returned our products as "defective" because they failed to read the printed instructions. So we created a big illustrated Quick Start card, containing only those bullet points needed to prevent physical harm and unnecessary returns. This seems to work, so we created versions of the Quick Start card for products sold on our own website.

We'd be grateful to hear about others' experiences!

HA!

Ran as fast as I could from Amazon in 2016, never looked back... no longer support the monopoly monster ii is fast becoming.

3rd party retailers are pushed out, stolen from & taken advantage of. The only winners are Amazon and the manufactuers/distributors. The 3rd party sellers in my cateogry that were there back in 2008 when it was great, have left, jumped ship. Asta la vista.

So much less stress.... :)

Julie
Owned & loved by 7 German Shepherds

For those considering a move to Amazon, we're finding significant new challenges, *if* your Amazon listings are successful.

1. Previously I said that you'll need a unique product that's difficult for others to copy if you want to avoid the relentless downward spiral of price competition, made possible by Amazon's low-friction marketplace, that drives sellers' profits to zero in order to maximize Amazon revenue.

However, last week we got a big surprise when the person who manages customer service for a brand we don't sell on Amazon got a call from someone who said they're with Amazon corporate.

Not realizing that the brands are owned by the same manufacturer, the Amazon employee had identified our Amazon products as lacking sufficient competition, and is actively recruiting new competitors to sell on Amazon and put us in that downward death spiral along with everybody else.

2. If selling through Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) there's considerable lag between shipping the products to Amazon, and Amazon enabling your Buy button. We're allowing about 12 days of extra cushion for this, in addition to the weeks of inventory we keep at Amazon so that we're not in a constant state of urgent boxing and shipping.

Combine this with the 12-26 days after a product sale that we wait for the funds to appear in our bank account, and managing cash flow can become a real headache.

No worries, though. Each day when we login to our Amazon Seller account a widget appears that offers to loan us back our funds that Amazon is holding, for a significant fee.



Wow.

Wow, indeed! Do you think that in the long run it's going to be sustainable to sell on Amazon? I guess not.

Andy

Please feel free to review / rate our software

The only reason we feel somewhat safe selling on Amazon is that our direct Ecommerce Templates store, with different branded products, will likely keep us employed when (not if) the day comes when we can no longer afford to sell on Amazon.

It's comforting to think that when we sell a product on our ECT storefront, PayPal makes the funds available instantly, before we ship, and when we request a PayPal funds transfer the money generally appears in our bank account within 24 hours.

When we sold only directly through our ECT storefront, I don't remember cash flow being such a huge concern.

Back many moons ago, Amazon needed 3rd party sellers to gain traction. It's no secret that for many years, they lost money. It was a gamble that paid off handsomely for Jeff Bezos.
In recent years, there are more and more stories of Amazon competing with sellers products that do well. Pushing them down, or out all together.

With that said, many stores can benefit from omni channel selling. Last year we launched a few products on ebay and so far they are doing fairly well. We will ramp it up this year.
Amazon would be the last on my list to try at this point though.

As stated, I no longer sell on Amazon but they keep my seller account active, won''t close it, they don't charge me. Guess they hope I may come back one day...I sold on there for nearly 9 years, with 90-100% positive feedback.

Anyways, every month I get several emails from them stating product XYZ will now need approval.

"As part of our ongoing efforts to provide the best possible customer experience, we are implementing approval requirements for the ASIN XYZ. Effective on xxxx-xx-xx, you will need approval to list the affected products. If you do not obtain approval to sell these products prior to xxxx-xx-xx, your listings for these products will be removed. "

And every month I get an email that are they closing off an entire product line.

"As part of our ongoing efforts to provide the best possible customer experience, we are implementing approval requirements for XYZ Brend in the XYZ category. Effective on xxxx-xx-xx, you will need approval to list the affected products. If you do not obtain approval to sell these products prior to xxxx-xx-xx, your listings for these products will be removed. "

Honestly, even if I tried to go back, I'd have nothing left to sell.. All of this gating is a way to keep 3rd party sellers from competing against Amazon and the brands that sell on there that want to control/cut out 3rd party retailers.

Julie
Owned & loved by 7 German Shepherds

When we sold on Amazon, the payments used to be good.
Payments every 2 weeks.
Now they hold funds to cover possible A-Z guarantee claims for at least 2 billing cycles.

When we analyzed our profit, we found Amazon was making more than we were.
Coupled with the stress of returns and Amazon hoop jumping that others have mentioned above, getting out was the best thing we have done.

One of our vendors noticed that when we left Amazon it impacted them greatly.
They asked me to help them get back on. Two months of jumping through hoops they finally got back on.
One month in they asked me to help them raise the prices on all their products as they realized they weren't making money.

Dean
www.stxop.com

In my opinion Google and Amazon are running the same scam from opposite angles.

Amazon's "low friction" marketplace is a near-monopoly that motivates sellers to bid down everyone's margins, for the benefit Amazon revenue.

Google AdWords is a near-monopoly that drives sellers to outbid each other for clicks, at the expense of profits, to maximize Google revenue.

Like a Las Vegas slot machine, the surest way to win is not to play.

I remember talking to a google account advisor years ago when Google Shopping went to a paid platform (they called me, believe it or not) that told me I need to up my bid to at least 50 cents per click or no one would see my products.

If I remember correctly, Google's suggestion for starting out on Google Shopping that was posted on ecoomercebytes not too long ago:

At least a max bid spend of $100 per day.

IOWs, you need to spend at least $3000 or more per month in order to even be seen.

Total scam... worse today then back then.



Julie
Owned & loved by 7 German Shepherds

I have backed off our google shopping ads a bit. For over a year, we were at $500.00 per day.
But our return was not where I wanted it. The best I could get it was close to $3 for every $1 spent. Often it was less than that.
Every quarter, a rep will call and walk me through adjustments. Some good some not.

Now, I have it backed down. I think it's about $200.00 per day, and I dropped my bid to well under $1 per click. We are not generating as many sales, but our ROI is now much much higher. over 5-1

One thing I did too was modified the feed script from Mike to where we actually feed only our most popular products. With the new ECT feature that allows us to sort products by sales or popularity, this is a breeze.

We also do very well in google organic results, so while I have my beefs with them, it's like buying insurance. A necessary evil.. LOL

Don't ever do what a Google rep suggests!
They do not know what they are doing.

There is a fine line that when something works well, you simply crank up the spend until the return changes.
There is a science/art to Adwords.
I have gotten mad at my results (my fault) and shut it down.
Nothing but crickets, so it is a necessity for my site.

For those interested in doing Adwords correctly, get the Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords by Perry Marshall.
Best $10 you will ever spend on your website.

Dean
www.stxop.com