The Power of Premium A+ Content on Amazon: A Deep Dive with Fatos Fatin from Maxamaze

Oleg Zaidiner: Hi, hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Inators, where we talk about selling on Amazon, all the tricks, tactics, and how to get forward. Today, we have an amazing guest, Fatos, from Maxmaze. When we first met, I was really excited to learn all about listing optimization. Even though it sounds like a foundational topic, I believe it's a huge and important area, and I'm really eager to learn a lot from you. So just to start, welcome! Can you introduce yourself and how you got into the Amazon space?

Fatos: Thank you, Oleg, for having me, and happy New Year to everybody. I'm Fatos, the CEO and founder of Maxmaze. I had a long history running businesses off Amazon for many years and then came into the Amazon space three years or so ago, started as a private label seller, which I still do, and then Maxmaze, I founded in 2012. That was an extension of my private label business initially, but now we're an agency specializing in building premium content for Amazon listings, everything from photos, videos, A+ content, and we're seeing amazing results for our clients, which is fantastic. Listing optimization is a real key area that I think so many sellers overlook because it's like having a shop. If you had a physical store, you would have a beautiful shop window, beautiful display, really helpful sales staff. Essentially, your Amazon listing is your shop on Amazon. So in the same way that you would invest in your bricks and mortar store, your Amazon listing also deserves all that investment because if you don't have a good shop, your business is not very likely to succeed. So it really is foundational, and we just find that so many Amazon listings out there are desperately needing to be optimized.

Oleg Zaidiner: Yeah, thank you for the introduction. It's, of course, like for what we do as a conversion, this is how we measure the quality of the listing, right? This is the main thing to measure, like if the conversion doesn't work, nothing will work on Amazon, right? And to make the conversion, it's of course, it's pricing, it's positioning, and how you present it, right? Do you focus on both, like both positioning and making it look holistically together and look good and everything, or you just do...

Fatos: Yeah, I mean, exactly, you're right, it's all about conversion because you can spend a lot of money on PPC, but if you're sending traffic to your listing and your main image isn't going to get the clicks, then it's not doing anything anyway. But if you get past that first barrier where people click on the main image, then they go onto your listing but you don't convert, your PPC money is going to be wasted. That's the first thing, and the second thing is that if you don't convert, it becomes even harder because your listing doesn't get shown so much, and therefore you need to spend more money, more people hitting your listing, bouncing off, and you just end up in this downward spiral. So yes, absolutely, conversion is key, so that part needs to be absolutely, you need to crack that part of it. But we do, to answer your question, we do, so it's both your main image, so making you stand out on the search results page so that in that sea of different listings, shoppers will click on yours as opposed to somebody else's. That's the first goal, to get people to click on your listing by optimizing your main image, and then once they're in your listing, having a fully optimized listing to maximize the chance that people are actually going to buy, you're going to convert.

Oleg Zaidiner: Sure, just a technical point, I see some clicks from your mic, is it your mic, is it okay? It sounds like something clicking on your microphone, or just...

Fatos: I'm not using a headset; I'm just using the microphone on my PC.

Oleg Zaidiner: Good, but I think now it's better, you moved something, it got better. I can plug in headphones, it's fine, it was just some mechanical distraction. Okay, we'll clean it out anyway. So, let's get back, I think now it's better. Okay, absolutely, the main image is clear, and as you said, if your conversion is not good, it's not only cost more money, and we see it's getting some statistics on the Amazon side that this listing people don't buy, and it's getting even like worse and worse. What I really wanted to ask you, and you mentioned we have amazing stories with A+ premium content, and we see like it's now available to everyone if you qualify, you need some qualification in general, but people still approach it more or less the same way. Maybe you can share with us some tips and tactics and whatever works for you.

Fatos: Sure, so I will walk through some slides quickly to go through the enhanced features of Premium A+ content, but to answer the question about eligibility, which is at the end of my slide presentation anyway, but we can skip to it now. Initially, premium A+ was only available to very big sellers, and it cost a lot of money, and then about a year and a half, two years ago, it became available to all private label sellers, subject to certain conditions. Initially, you needed to have a minimum of 15 sets of A+ content submitted and approved within a 12-month period, and you also had to have Brand Story uploaded on all of your listings. Recently, the barrier has been lowered, so it's even easier. Instead of 15, you now need to have five sets of A+ content approved, and always Brand Story applied on all of your listings. So as long as you meet those two conditions, anybody who is a private label brand registered seller should have access to premium A+ content.

Okay, so I've got some slides that we can go through just to cover some of these points. Premium versus basic A+ content, there are two key upgrades from basic A+ content to premium. The first change is that the module sizes are much larger, so it takes up more space on the screen, and the more space it takes up, the more you've got your shopper's attention. Especially this is really important now because so many people are shopping on mobile, so they've got a small screen, and if you can take up as much space as possible on their mobile screen, you're much more likely to capture their attention. So more real estate is the first key upgrade. The second one is that there are many more interactive features. On basic A+ content, whereas you just scroll through and you see images, on premium, there are carousels that you can click on, so things move around on the screen. There are hotspots that you can hover over, you can upload a video, so people can actually watch a video while they're in your A+ content. Just very recently, the comparison chart has become shoppable, so anything on the comparison chart, you can click on it and go to the listing. So everything about premium A+ content is just working to get shoppers to buy. So if you're not using premium A+ content, you are really doing yourself a disservice because it's free, you don't have to pay for it, and it's just an extra tool that's going to give you just a bit of extra oomph to try and get those sales. Any little bit to get the sales. So definitely, these are the main upgrades, and why do they matter? We've just briefly talked about this, more engagement with your customer because you're capturing their attention. If you can stop them scrolling, you know, with basic A+ content, they're just scrolling, with premium, they're going to stop because they're going to click, they're going to look at things. So you're engaging with them more. You've got more space because the module sizes are bigger, but also just think about it, when you add a carousel, a carousel is like an extra slide, and you can add five carousels, so you're adding so much more space where you can give more and more information to your shopper, and more time on page. You know, the longer people spend on your listing, looking at your listing, combine all of those three elements together, and you're going to get higher conversions. So more and more people who've been engaging with your premium A+ content are going to end up buying, assuming that you've got good quality content on there. And everybody, this is the big question, you know, what is it going to do to my conversion rate? So comparing, you know, start with a base of a listing that has no A+ content, when you add basic A+ content, you can expect your conversion rate to improve by between 3 to 10% approximately. But when you have premium A+ content, you can expect a conversion improvement of up to 15%. So people reporting sales increasing by up to 20% once they've added premium A+ content. So it is really powerful, it is definitely worth adding this to your listings. And yeah, conversion is king, this is what we were talking about, this is my slogan.

Oleg Zaidiner: Yeah, I like it, conversion is king, because as we said, you know, there is no point spending a lot of money on advertising, sending people to your listing if they're not going to buy, you're wasting your money. And you know, Amazon is programmed to make money for Amazon first and foremost, so if your listing is not converting, if people are looking at your listing and they're leaving without buying, the message that that sends to the algorithm, the whole system, is, you know, this listing is not worth showing because people are looking at it, they're not buying, so let's not bother. If there's another listing that people are converting better with, let's push that one up the rankings. So therefore, you know, there isn't, it isn't a question of if you just pour more money into your advertising, that you're going to make more money. It isn't going to work if you're not converting, it's just not going to happen. You're going to have to pay more and more and more just to get shown. So conversion absolutely is king. So, you know, one piece of advice I'll give anybody is make sure before you launch a listing that it's ready to go. I often get asked by clients, how about, you know, we just get started with a basic listing and then we can improve it afterwards, and the answer is always, don't do it, don't do it because you're going to lose so much ground, and then you're going to have to run twice as fast to get back to zero, and it's just, just make sure, just wait a little bit longer, make sure your listing is completely ready, and then launch because that honeymoon period as well, you just want to get the most out of that. So yeah, higher conversions mean higher profit, which we've just talked about, so more money in the bank.

So, premium only features, I touched upon this just a little bit earlier, all these other features that we have on premium which we don't have in basic, the image sizes, the modules, the sizes are much larger, you can add a video in, you have the navigation carousels where you can scroll through different images, you know, you have hotspots where you can hover over the images and some information will pop up, and this is a great place to include some of your keywords. There's clickable Q&A, so it's a bit more interactive, and now again, the interactive comparison charts are a really great feature. So I can show you some of these in the slides, so, you know, larger image sizes, so you've got 1464 by 600 pixels for premium, basic is 970 by 300, so top one is a premium, and the below is basic. So this is just some screenshots that I took across my own screen, so you'll see like you're taking up so much more space, and it's just gonna pop out and catch the shopper's attention. Video only on premium, so you can embed a video in your A+ content, and you know, there's now a video carousel module as well, so if you've got a lot of UGC and you've got lots of customer testimonials or you've got YouTube videos, you can add all of those, there's lots and lots of space to do all of that, which is fantastic. Navigation carousels, you know, you can click across, so if I had some live listings open to show you, I could show you this, but basically, you know, you can click on these arrows, and it just rotates, it's a carousel, you can show the shopper more and more and more images, more features, talk about the product. Comparison charts again, you know, they're interactive, so you've got arrows, you can scroll, there's a lot you can do here that is going to keep the shopper on your listing, they're going to be clicking around, looking at things. And again, you know, now you've got, you can click, and it's a shoppable image, you can buy from there. And then hotspots, you know, you can hover over the different spots, and information will pop up. So again, you know, it's very interactive. So for example, like this, you know, this is a skincare brand, they've got lots of different products, this is a great way to cross-sell because you can show a selection of products on one slide, they're all skincare, you know, they do different things, but you can just very quickly hover and see what they are. And you know, if you were just looking at this, let's say for vitamin C serum, but then you see a moisturizer or an eye gel or something else, the chances are you're going to be tempted to buy more than what you were originally looking for. So this is a great way to bump up your sales. Hotspots, clickable Q&A, so again, you know, you can put your questions in here, and then there's a drop-down arrow which reveals the answer. So Q&A is a great tool because two main functions, the first is that it reduces the friction in the shopping journey. So you know, quite often if people don't have full information about your product, it will put them off buying. So what we do here is look at reviews and look at questions that have been asked on your listing or your competitor's listing, and we find out, you know, what are the things that people are having question marks about that might be stopping them buying, so we make sure that we're covering all of those things. You know, somebody may say, let's say they're buying an electronics product, and they want to know, you know, how long is the manufacturer warranty because if they don't know that, they may think, well, I'm not going to buy it. So you can put those sorts of things in your Q&A. Or is it suitable for children below the age of four? Answer those questions to make it easier for them to buy. And the second thing about removing the element of doubt is that it will help reduce your returns. Returns are a killer for your business; you just lose money. So the better informed the shopper before they make the purchase, the less likely they are to return the product because there isn't, a lot of people will just buy something and think, well, if it's not quite right, I'll just send it back. Whereas if they know exactly what they're getting, it's less likely that they're going to end up sending it back. So Q&A, one step, you know, thinking one step further, again, Q&A is great for that because you're just removing that element of doubt.

Oleg Zaidiner: Yeah, we used to kind of play with the normal Q&A on the listing, we ask a question ourselves and answer, and now you can have it like properly managed Q&As, like FAQ, basically, right?

Fatos: Exactly, yeah, exactly. So you just need to do your research and find out what are the key things that you need to cover. And so this is what we talked about earlier, eligibility, so you must be brand registered, Brand Story applied on all of your ASINs, and five sets of A+ content submitted and approved in the last 12 months. And just to clarify that last point, it doesn't mean that you have to have five completely different designs or five completely different products, it just means that you've submitted five times, and it's been approved. So if you'd made changes to a certain set of A+ content that you had, and it's been approved, that counts. So yeah, so a lot of people have question marks about that. So yeah, that's that, and that was the end of the slides.

Oleg Zaidiner: Yeah, but I have a few questions before we go, right? So the big thing that I remember from my times in private label, the approval of content on Amazon is complicated, in A+ specifically. And is there any change in the approval of the premium content, any kind of ideas how to get through faster?

Fatos: No, I mean, as long as you're staying within terms of service, you're not making claims, like you have to be very careful with products that maybe have a little bit of a medical slant to them. As long as you're staying within terms of service, it should be absolutely fine.

Oleg Zaidiner: Yeah, and okay, no, sorry, yeah, but you know, Amazon more and more, and rightly so, are really picking up on people making outlandish claims, so you just have to be very, very careful with that.

Oleg Zaidiner: Absolutely, and what about videos? Because I really love, like for me, the main idea of the premium content is the ability to put more video on the page, right? And do you have any kind of cases or experience, what type of video is working better? You know, because people create some promotional, you mentioned user-generated content.

Fatos: Yeah, and like, what is your view on this, in general? Videos are a really good thing because moving images capture people's attention. So videos, full stop, have a video, whatever it is, it's better than not having one, definitely. UGC is great because, you know, everything is now driven by social media and UGC, so if you've got UGC, that's a brilliant place to have it. Another good thing is instructional videos, so if it's a product that's maybe a little bit more complicated, or every product can be a little bit complicated, right?

Oleg Zaidiner: Sizes of the normal things, size doesn't fit, and just every product needs explanation, exactly.

Fatos: So anything that helps to explain, you know, all of that, helpful videos, educational videos, all of those are great, definitely.

Oleg Zaidiner: Okay, okay, and also, what I really liked from your presentation, that now it's a clickable comparison chart, yeah, and because for us, it's a must-have. If you don't have it, because like, it's an upsell and cross-sell, keep with your brand is essential, and we see it's always improved. And what strategy do you use? You put as much of your brand over there, or you try to just build the kind of upsell funnel, or what are the ideas, how to use it the wise way?

Fatos: It depends on the brand and the product range that you have available. So if you've got closely related products, that's the first approach, that's number one priority. So let's say you're selling skincare products, quite often people will buy those together. So if you have a big enough range, we would prioritize showing those together. But let's say you're selling home decor products, and maybe you don't have many variations, in that case, you can sort of go a little bit wider and just try and showcase as much of your range as possible.

Oleg Zaidiner: Other ideas of decor, right? Okay, Mak, yeah, okay, thank you. It was very insightful for me, I'm waiting to finish the recording and send it to my team because I believe we can use it for a big part of our clients. Yeah, so amazing, and yeah, I hope so, I hope it's going to be helpful. And what is the best way to reach out to you, is max.co, right?

Fatos: Yeah, on our website, there's a popup contact form, you can get in touch with us there anytime.

Oleg Zaidiner: And you basically do all the creation if needed, right? You can create all the photos, videos, put it together, send it to Amazon, make it approval, right? Full package.

Fatos: Yeah, we do all of that. So we do free listing audits for anybody, so anybody who wants us to have a look at their listing and give them some tips, some comments, that's absolutely a complimentary service, so anybody can book a call for that. And then if they want to go ahead for us to create the content, we'd be very happy to do that. So we have photography and videography teams in the US and in the UK as well, so we're serving a large number of North American clients but European clients as well. So we will create the images and the videos, and we have the graphic design team who will then build the listing images, the A+ content, the storefront, whatever the client needs, really. And yes, we still write that, we still write that, it's not all AI-generated.

Oleg Zaidiner: Yeah, I think it should be, it should have a personality inside, right? Because you create the whole story, and yeah, it should be personal, can be AI help, right?

Fatos: Yeah, yeah, okay, amazing, thank you, Fatos, it was very good for me, and I hope, and good for our audience. So if you listen to this point, please put the like and subscribe, and it helps us to see the feedback and create more content for you. And thank you, and have an amazing sales in 2024.

Fatos: Thank you.