Welcome to Basilio Inc. The Market Validation Process. If you’re thinking about starting up your own business as an Amazon seller, stick around, because you’ve come to the right place.
In this comprehensive guide, you’ll uncover the power of market validation through insightful competitor analysis. Our data-driven approach enables informed decisions when launching product lines on Amazon, helping us understand our strengths and weaknesses for a proficient market entry. By focusing on delivering value to the marketplace, our strategies can benefit your business too. This book provides comprehensive insights and data-driven strategies to identify and compete effectively against worthy opponents, optimizing your efforts for maximum impact
Chapter 1 – Understanding the Shopper Experience on Amazon
Gain valuable insights into your competitive standing on Amazon using our comprehensive scorecard, which quantifies your competitiveness and helps you identify worthy opponents. To optimize your efforts, focus on competing against brands with similar or slightly superior capabilities to your own, as progress against these companies can yield significant results. However, avoid spending time and energy battling against top or bottom brands in your category, as it may prove counterproductive.
Market Validation Scorecard Metrics
Identify a Brand for Evaluation: Select a brand for evaluation, and you can begin with your own brand for practice.
Grading Criteria: Start with a base score of zero and assess the brand based on specified criteria, adding or subtracting points to arrive at a total score.
SERP for Your Top Keyword:
- Paid ads present on the first page (+1)
- Organic placement on the first page (+1)
- If both are present on the same SERP (+1)
Review Count:
- Less than 50 reviews (-1)
- More than 300 reviews (+1)
- More than 2000 reviews (+2)
- More than 5000 reviews (+3)
Star Rating:
- Star rating of 3.5 or below (-2)
- Star rating of 3.6-4.4 (+1)
- Star rating of 4.5+ (+2)
Product Listings:
- Title and bullet points not keyword optimized (-1)
- Title and bullet points rich with high-value keywords (+1)
- All keywords within the first 500 characters of bullet points (+1)
- High-value keywords beyond the 500-character mark (-1)
- No bullet points (-2)
- Short or incomplete use of all bullet points (-1)
- Long bullet points (-1)
- Bullet points average 100-120 characters each (+1)
Images and Videos:
- Listing has at least 6+ images (+1)
- Images are compliant (+1)
- Videos highlighting key features or explaining pain points (+1)
- Adequate addressing of who, what, where, when, why, and how (+1)
- Missing images (-1)
- Non-compliant images (-2)
- Lack of videos (-1)
- Inadequate addressing of key points (-2)
A+ Content:
- Product description field with no A+ Content (+1)
- Product description field with non-compliant elements (-1)
- A+ Content with minimal branding and effort (-1)
- A+ Content with branding and information-rich content (+2)
- “From the Manufacturer” section present (+2)
- A+ appearing in a section called “From the Brand” (+1)
Inventory and Buy Box:
- Low stock (-1)
- In stock (+1)
- Suppressed buy box (-3)
- Fulfilled by Merchant (FBM) without Seller Fulfilled Prime (+0)
- Fulfilled by Merchant (FBM) with Seller Fulfilled Prime (+1)
- Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) (+2)
Brand Store:
- No Brand Store (-2)
- No organization (-1)
- Easy to shop (+1)
- Multiple tabs (+1)
- Branded high-quality images and videos (+1)
- Optimized for Google and Bing (+1)
- Consistent with the brand’s website (+1)
Gauge Your Competitive Range: After completing the evaluation, refer to the gauge to determine the competitive range the brand falls into.
-15 to -6: Struggling brands making minimal efforts to compete, with potential issues like supply chain challenges, weak SEO, limited marketing, and compliance concerns.
-5 to 0: Brands in need of substantial improvements to enhance competitiveness, with mostly compliant listings and some correct practices.
1 to 9: Brands taking initial steps towards competitiveness, conducting research and making efforts to improve in their product category.
10 to 19: Brands investing considerable work and resources into their Amazon business, achieving substantial success with potential for further growth.
20 to 25: Brands fully embracing best practices, considering the scorecard their “competition playbook,” and focused on defending their top position.
26 to 30: High-performing brands to emulate, learning from their strategies to achieve similar success, but avoid direct competition until scoring 20 or higher.
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