The add-on badge can annoy your customers and cost you sales. If this is the case for you, try some of these hacks to get rid of it.
Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) is one of the greatest services available to online sellers. The ability to harness one of the most sophisticated storage and distributing systems in the world for your own products is an enormous bonus for most sellers. However, it does come with one contentious issue: the add-on badge.
As a seller, you don’t have any control over whether your product has an add-on badge attached to it, but if there is one, it could cost you customers and eat into your revenues.
But don’t lose hope, there is some good news! There are steps you can take to remove it. Here’s everything you need to know:
What is the add-on badge?
Amazon uses the add-on badge to set a minimum threshold beyond which products are eligible for free delivery. This threshold is set at a $25 purchase minimum. The add-on badge is generally applied to low price items and will require buyers to add on other items in order to reach that minimum threshold. It doesn’t matter what products you add, just as long as the sum total hits $25.
In theory, this option is great for both Amazon and the seller. It ensures products remain profitable for Amazon to ship and encourages customers to buy more.
Unfortunately, this not exactly how the add-on badge works in practice. If you see a listing asking you to spend more before your original item can be shipped you’re just as likely to either abandon the purchase altogether or shelve it until you need another item that will take you over the threshold. As a seller, that badge can function as a great big anchor pulling down your sales and, in some cases, annoying your customers.
Fortunately, there are ways to remove it.
Going nuclear
First comes the nuclear options of cutting back on your offerings. This will undoubtedly get rid of the add-on button, but they could also damage your sales.
Stop using FBA
FBA gives sellers the advantage of qualifying for Amazon Prime and two-day free delivery. But it also means your cheaper items may attract the add-on badge. The simplest way to avoid this would be to stop using FBA, but that would mean you’d miss out on all the benefits of FBA which presumably attracted you to it in the first place.
Stop selling cheaper items
You could simply identify those products which attract the add-on badge and stop selling them. If Amazon thinks they aren’t profitable to sell on their own, then neither should you. This might be a good option if your customers are only buying this item in single units or if it has low-profit margins for you. Order management software can be very helpful in making this decision. It can show you the status of all your orders and help you analyze which products are your most profitable. If a cheaper item is causing you all of this add-on grief without delivering much profit, it’s a clear indication that you may be able to get rid of it.
Creative selling
Cutting back on your own offerings, though, could be like cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Instead of removing listings, you could adjust your selling technique. This shift could begin with increasing the price. Yes, Amazon generally rewards those sellers who stay price-competitive, but you may be able to get away with a higher price in the right circumstances. Try experimenting with a higher price-point to see if it removes the badge.
You could also try selling your cheaper items in bundles. This is a great way to shift low price stock in packages of related products and may encourage your buyers to spend more with each purchase.
Sneaky shortcuts
The final approach is to make use of some of Amazon’s shortcuts. These often involve gaming the system and fooling Amazon into removing the badge.
Use Alexa
Encourage your customers to make their orders via Alexa. For some reason, Amazon’s voice search doesn’t come with an add-on badge. The chances are this is just an oversight, but it does give you a chance to trick Amazon by using its own technology. For now, at least.
Push items that are up for restock
If a popular item is up for restock, you could use it to move your add-on items.
When a customer purchases an item that is currently out of stock along with the add-on item, the add-on item will arrive as scheduled and the other item will ship once it is restocked. This gives buyers the option of purchasing the add-on item now while purchasing an item they likely would have wanted anyway.
Pre-ordering
This works in more or less the same way as pushing items up for restock. Promote pre-order items to push the total beyond the $25 threshold. Once again, the buyer will get the product instantly but will only receive the pre-order item when it is ready.
As this piece demonstrates, there are ways to remove the add-on item badge from your Amazon listing. If you find that your products are being lumbered with the add-on badge, have a look at your sales and order data. If you see a lot of customers ditching their orders when they reach the cart it’s a sign that the add-on item badge could be putting them off. The product reviews may also offer a hint. If you see people expressing dissatisfaction at being made to order more products in order to qualify for free delivery, it’s a good sign that you have a problem and need to act.
The add-on item badge is and will continue to be, a contentious issue for Amazon sellers. As with so many things in the Amazon marketplace, though, there are hacks to resolve the issue. It’s all a matter of understanding how Amazon works and tailoring your approach to suit the needs of your customers and your business.
0 Comments