ManageByStats This Week – Issue 1821
“Information for the informed Amazon seller”
ManageByStats This Week covers a selection of industry and Amazon news, along with updates, tips and tricks for ManageByStats.
FIRST WORD
Another release this week; the new KPIs, or Key Performance Indicators. This is a new dashlet option that gives you four key metrics for seeing quickly, at a glance, the health of your Amazon business. See ManageByStats In The News and Tips & Tricks for more on the new KPIs.
Also in this issue we cover some important information in What Users Are Asking, and hit some great info on the Buy Box and Advertising best practices in The World of Amazon.
Have a great week!
MANAGEBYSTATS IN THE NEWS
This week’s news has to do with KPIs, or Key Performance Indicators. “(KPIs are) the next evolution in our quest to blend at-a-glance management info with deep-dive information and stats,” said ManageByStats CEO, Philip Jepsen. “KPIs give you a quick look at how you’re doing overall. By providing an option to display these key measurements, we’re now letting users customize their dashboard to be that much more effective.”
Check it out in the news …
Key Performance Indicators Now Part Of The ManageByStats Dashboard
TIPS & TRICKS
Following along with the news release of the new KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), we thought we’d give you some tips on adding them to your Dashboard.
KPIs are a set of metrics selected directly on your Dashboard like other dashlets. Hover over a white space on the Dashboard, click the “+” sign and select KPI from the Add Dashlet dialog:
The selected KPI statistics displayed are Sessions, Conversion Percentage, Profit, and Average Review:
Tracking trends for these four metrics gives a good indication of the real-time health of the business. Sessions and Conversion Percentage show traffic to Amazon listings and how well those listings are turning into sales. Profit show the profitability of the account, and Average Review gives an indication of how the products are doing in terms of customer response. These four metrics have been shown to be key for taking the pulse of any Amazon business.
WHAT USERS ARE ASKING
“I’m showing an error on my Dashboard that says MBS has lost a vital connection. How do I fix that?”
During setup, when you first sign up for ManageByStats, you grant MBS developer access for the Amazon API. This is then good for a year. Starting one month before the expiration date, you’ll receive weekly email reminders and Seller Central notifications to take action. If you don’t renew the developer access and it expires, you’ll see a message like this on your ManageByStats Dashboard:
We’ll give the steps for renewal here, but you can do them even before access has expired. You can renew at any time. Watch for Amazon’s notifications, and when you see the first, follow the steps below to renew.
To renew developer access (and this applies for any provider you’ve granted access, not just ManageByStats), log into your Amazon Seller Central and go to:
Settings > User Permissions
Then go to the bottom of that page, to the section titled:
Amazon MWS Developer Permissions
Look for the ManageByStats entry and check the expiration info. If needed you can renew by clicking to Renew Access:
Again, you can do this at any time. Renewal of access resets the expiration date to one year from the date of renewal.
WHAT USERS ARE SAYING
“I am a new user of the Manage by Stats program. Although I’m still learning this powerful program it has made my life easy right away. As soon as I log in I get an overview look of how my business is doing and if there are any inventory issues that need my attention. I particularly find useful the customer list. I can use this to locate customers much easier and then find the order on Amazon. This makes handling customer service issues much easier. The stat graphs come in handy and give me a picture of how things look and whether I need to put attention on anything. I know there is a lot more to this program and I am learning it. It will help in determining profitability and how to manage paying my partners that are or getting involved with my business.”
- Tim F
THE WORLD OF AMAZON
Advertising Best Practices
Ever wonder what Amazon has to say about best practices for Advertising? Here’s their own take on the subject. Note, you’ll need to be logged into your Seller Central to use this link …
Advertising Best Practices: A Guide for Amazon Sellers
Winning The Buy Box In 2018
Amazon generates over $100 billion in sales every year. Of those conversions, over 90% occur using Amazon’s buy box. If you sell on Amazon and want to increase sales online, understanding and optimizing the Buy Box is pivotal …
GENERAL INTEREST
Amazon selling mistakes are bound to occur when you first enter the private label business. The first year or so is usually spent learning the ropes of how and what to sell on Amazon. Even those who strike gold and end up becoming Amazon contenders make those initial blunders.
This week we share a short podcast on some of the mistakes you can learn from and avoid …
Amazon Selling Mistakes To Avoid
HUMOR
A man finds his dog with the neighbor’s pet rabbit in its mouth. The rabbit is dirty, dead, and quite chewed up.
The man panics and takes the rabbit into the house, gives it a bath, carefully cleans it up, blow-dries its fur – anything to remove evidence of what happened – then sneaks over and puts it back in the cage at the neighbor’s house, hoping they’ll assume it died of natural causes.
A few days later the neighbor asks the man, “Did you hear Fluffy died?”
The man stammers and says, “Um, no. What happened?”
“Well,” the neighbor replies, “we found him dead in his cage, took him out and gave him a proper burial. Then, the day after we buried him, someone dug him up, gave him a bath, cleaned him up and put him back in his cage. There are some real weirdos out there!”
RECENT CRITICAL HEADLINES (AS SEEN ON REDDIT)
Authorities were quick to point out they were acting on what they say was probable cause when calling in several Amazon sellers for questioning. The sellers had radically increased their sales overnight and foul play was suspected. It was later confirmed they’d merely started using ManageByStats …
What do having a supercomputer transplanted into your brain, being able to see the future, having Jeff Bezos as a close personal friend, and using ManageByStats all have in common? They all give you an unfair advantage toward booming your business on Amazon …
FUNNY REVIEWS
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“I never lose. Either I win or I learn.”
– Anon
LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!
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All the best,
Your ManageByStats Team
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See the Affiliate page under Settings in your ManageByStats.
