So much goes into a successful product listing on Amazon: perfect pictures, ideal keywords, A+ content, good ratings, glowing reviews, and more. But there is one critical element to a product listing that is sometimes overlooked by vendors and sellers. Product type is a key element of products that can enhance success if used correctly or leave them in obscurity if poorly chosen.
Key Takeaways
- Product type categorizes and groups similar products
- The details for different product types enable Amazon features to help shoppers find the right product
- Amazon is always adding and updating product types for vendors and sellers
- Updating your product type and details
What is Amazon Product Type?
The concept of product type is self-explanatory but has a high impact on the success of a product. Making sure that like items are listed together creates consistency and a smooth shopping experience for customers, especially if they are browsing rather than using the search bar.
The product type you choose for a item will determine the template of relevant information that you can input into the listing. If you choose the wrong listing, providing critical information shoppers need will be more difficult or you’ll be required to provide information that is irrelevant to your product. Worse, your product may never show up for a customer who would otherwise buy it in a heartbeat.
As Amazon puts it “Selecting the right PT…helps you describe your product more accurately and improves your listing convenience by only being asked for data on product-specific attributes.”
Features that use Product Type
Successful listings leverage every tool they can to reach shoppers and convert them to sales. Some of these tools are enhanced by proper product type.
- Product Overview Experience: For many product types, the detail pages have a section right above the bullet points that provides relevant information for the product. This allows shoppers to quickly judge whether the product meets their needs or not. If that information is blank, it creates a hurdle that many shoppers may not want to jump to buy your product.
- Tabular Spec View: Much of this product type specific information is also displayed directly in search results. If your product doesn’t have that information there because of improper product type management, shoppers may not click on it even if it is at the top of the search results.
- Boosted Search Results: Product type is also a part of Amazon’s search algorithm. So, if your product happens to be under the wrong type, the keywords within your listing may not matter as much if it is in a category that isn’t specific enough, or wrong altogether.
Should I Update My Product Type?
Choosing the right product type when you initially list the product is key to a good product launch. However, Amazon continues to update its systems and processes, including product type. They regularly add available product types and update the product type templates as well.
Regularly checking the available product types will ensure that you can get your products into more specific or appropriate categories when Amazon introduces them.
Even if you are in the best product type, Amazon may have made new information required for those products. If you don’t have all those required values entered, updating other aspects of your product will be much more difficult.
How Do Vendors Update Product Type?
Often, Amazon will automatically update product types for you if their systems deem that another category better fits. This is convenient unless they move it to a product type that isn’t accurate for your product. This could be because of keywords or other information in listings that mislead Amazon’s automated systems.
If you have a product in the wrong type, you will have to file a case through Vendor Central Support, requesting the change in the item category.
If there is a product type update that requires more information for your product, you can add that information through Edit Product Details in your Vendor Central catalog. To add that information for many products, download a NIS spreadsheet through your catalog, fill out all the red boxes, and resubmit the product.
In conclusion, product type is a crucial element of a successful product listing on Amazon. Proper product type categorization can enhance your listing’s visibility and increase sales, while a poorly chosen product type can have the opposite effect. The experts at Earnlytical can help businesses maximize their e-commerce potential on Amazon by leveraging the best tools and strategies. Contact them today to learn more about how they can help grow your business.