While the process to get started with Buy with Prime is fairly straightforward, there are some important components businesses should plan for after turning on Buy with Prime to help make sure they’re set up for success.
To better understand the elements that make up a successful Buy with Prime launch, we spoke with Garrett Schwegler, a merchant onboarding manager with Buy with Prime. Here are some tips and advice Garrett offered to help you get the most out of Buy with Prime from day one.
What is a perfect launch?
A perfect launch consists of some specific actions you’ll need to take within 60 days of adding Buy with Prime to your ecommerce site. Garrett and his team consider three pillars that would help determine what these actions would be:
- How can Buy with Prime reduce friction and improve efficiencies for merchants?
- How do we create a great shopper experience?
- What does it take to help merchants be successful with Buy with Prime?
After running a data analysis of launched Buy with Prime merchants, the onboarding team landed on five key actions that new and recently launched Buy with Prime merchants can take to help increase their chances of success. These include:
- Activating Buy with Prime on all eligible SKUs, especially top-performing products
- Customizing the Buy with Prime button to fit your site’s user experience
- Automating and streamlining key business operations by installing Alloy apps
- Adopting Multi-Channel Fulfillment (MCF) to simplify logistics
- Conducting A/B testing to measure Buy with Prime’s performance on your site
Below is a breakdown of each of the actions that can help ensure you have a successful Buy with Prime launch.
Activate Buy with Prime on all eligible SKUs
Offering a wider selection of your catalog, including top-selling SKUs, can help increase the chances that a customer will find your Buy with Prime products and convert, which could result in higher conversion rates and unit sales. That’s a big deal, because Buy with Prime has been shown to increase shopper conversion by an average of 25%* with 1-2 day shipping and transparent delivery times. Garrett recommends offering Buy with Prime on all of your eligible products to help maximize your opportunity for improved sales and conversion rates.
*This data point measures the average increase in shoppers who placed an order when Buy with Prime was an available purchase option versus when it was not, during the same time period.
Customize the Buy with Prime button
The Buy with Prime button signals to shoppers that they can check out using their Prime benefits for eligible items on your site. While there is a standard look and feel, we recommend using our customization features in the merchant console to match your site design and user experience. Some elements you can optimize include size, corner-radius, background colors, and delivery date font-face, font size, and font color.
To learn more about how to use the Buy with Prime button on your site, we got some insights from our Principal UX Designer, Kim Lewis. She advises:
- Placing the Buy with Prime button next to the Add to cart button and other purchase actions on the page
- Matching the Buy with Prime button corner-radius, height, and width to your other buttons for visual consistency
- Making it clear that any other shipping offers on the product are not related to Buy with Prime. For example, make it clear in your shipping FAQ the difference between Buy with Prime and your other shipping options
Get more advice from Kim about how to create a shopping experience consumers trust.
Install Alloy apps
Two Alloy apps are available to help you manage your product catalog and create a consistent shopper experience across your product pages. If you use an ecommerce service provider that doesn’t already have native integrations with Buy with Prime, Garrett recommends that you install the apps, called the Order connector app and the Catalog updates app, quickly after activating Buy with Prime on your site. “Using these apps can help you save time and reduce the friction of having to move data between systems manually,” he says.
What does the Order connector app by Alloy do?This app syncs Buy with Prime customer and order information with your ecommerce site so you can access your Buy with Prime customer and order information in one place.
What does the Catalog updates app by Alloy do?This app updates product variations and pricing from your ecommerce catalog to your Buy with Prime catalog to create a consistent shopper experience across listings that helps build trust and preserve conversion.
Adopt Multi-Channel Fulfillment
If you’re an Amazon seller, you may have used Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) to help take the logistics out of selling on Amazon.com. Multi-Channel Fulfillment (MCF) takes it even further by offering fulfillment services for orders placed off of Amazon.com, including your own website, ecommerce marketplaces, and social media stores.
Garrett likes that MCF powers Buy with Prime fulfillment for a couple of different reasons. First, MCF provides fast, reliable fulfillment, meaning orders can be delivered to customers as fast as one day, with greater than 97% on-time delivery every day, rain or shine. Second, MCF can also help streamline inventory management. That means you can save time and money by using a single of pool inventory for all your sales channels, including Buy with Prime orders on your site and those on your Amazon.com store. If you already have inventory in Amazon fulfillment centers, all you need to do is authorize Amazon to use your inventory to fulfill Buy with Prime orders. If you want to use MCF to fulfill other products on your ecommerce site or other channels, you can set that up, too.
Learn more about how Buy with Prime, which leverages MCF, can help take the headache out of fulfillment.
Conduct iterative A/B testing
To help maximize the impact that Buy with Prime can have on your site, Garrett stressed the importance of testing different features and functionalities. He recommends running A/B tests on elements like:
- Buy with Prime button optimizations
- Reviews from Amazon for Buy with Prime displays
- The search navigation to Buy with Prime collection pages on your site
As part of the broader Performance Impact Analysis service, ongoing A/B testing can give you the insights to help inform the strategy for improving the way your customers experience your brand. Additionally, the findings you gain from each A/B test can give you the confidence to make changes to your site that can positively impact your Buy with Prime product discoverability, conversions, and sales. If you’re a current Buy with Prime merchant, speak to your sales representative if you’d like our help running tests.
When it comes to adding Buy with Prime to your ecommerce business, the launch is just the beginning, emphasized Garrett. Buy with Prime and Buy with Prime Partners are available to work with you to help optimize your site to better support your customers, and A/B testing is just one element of that collaboration.
Read more about proving the value of Buy with Prime with A/B testing.
“Having people to talk to at Amazon is a unique component offered by Buy with Prime,” Garrett notes. “At Buy with Prime, we give merchants a seat at the table. We want to help people grow their businesses. Working with them to discuss ways to optimize their site experience and make Buy with Prime work for their business is really making a difference.”
If you’re interested in getting started with Buy with Prime, sign up today and a sales representative will get in touch to help guide you through the onboarding process..