Our Amazon.com store, which integrates tightly with our website order manager, constitutes less than 1% of our sales, but has really grown this year, particularly in the last 6 months:
Products Revenue
May 24 $609.59
Jun 43 $1,130.41
Jul 71 $1,757.28
Aug 89 $2,293.96
Sep 108 $2,809.32
Oct 138 $3,564.28What’s interesting is that I set this up at the beginning of the year and have made virtually no changes at all. I didn’t add new products, modify pricing, or do anything to stimulate growth. Inventory and pricing sync in real time, but that’s it.
What this reveals is that Amazon has very tight control over what appears in search with regard to 3rd party merchants. As our track record grew and positive customer reviews started to populate our profile, Amazon’s algorithm became more “comfortable” featuring our products in search results. More exposure -> more sales. I believe Amazon is far beyond eBay in this area.
Assuming Amazon hasn’t made changes since I left, you’re sort of correct. Amazon uses Behavior Based Search, which means that search results are re-ordered based on purchases made by a customer after a search query. So if lots of people search “ps3” and then buy the PlayStation 3 80GB edition, that will move up to the top of search results for “ps3” even though there may not be any mention of “ps3” in the catalog data.
So in your case, for whatever it is you are selling, the search system is creating stronger and stronger relationships between what you sell and what people are searching as your sales increase. Customer reviews doesn’t affect the ranking at all (although customers may filter results to only show 4/5 star rated products).
