Amazon is here to stay: 44% of all product searches come from the platform, which represents almost half the ecommerce market.
As Amazon continues to grow exponentially, however, you can also expect the competition to grow. Business owners will experience more pressure to stand out from the crowd to catch their attention.
One of the best ways to differentiate yourself in a growing competitive landscape is to get your products qualified for Amazon’s Choice Badge. This badge helps build social proof, gain the customer’s trust, and stand out in keyword searches, which all help prospects choose your business over other Amazon sellers.
What is Amazon’s Choice Badge?
Amazon’s choice badge is the label the ecommerce platform assigns to a product when it believes it to be the perfect match for a specific keyword. You can see it either on the top-left corner of the item’s images or just below the product title. Here’s an example from Quora of how it looks:
When Amazon launched their Echo Dot product back in 2015, more and more customers started using the voice shopping feature to search for product recommendations on their platform. The issue, however, was that voice search made it challenging to browse through the listings and find the best product.
Choice Badge was released later that year as a way to simplify voice search and help customers find what they’re looking for. It’s a much faster and more convenient way of shopping, strengthening the user experience while helping create profit for Amazon.
Aside from improving the customer experience, the Choice Badge also helps stores selling on the platform win more sales. It provides businesses with social proof for their products and gives customers instant trust.
Keep in mind that the Choice Badge is much different than the Amazon Best Seller Badge. Instead of focusing only on best selling-products for a particular category, it’s mainly related to a specific keyword on the Amazon search page.
How products qualify for Amazon’s Choice Badge
Just like Coca-Cola’s secret formula, no one knows everything required for products to qualify on Amazon with the Choice Badge. While most of their information is private, there are a couple of factors known to influence their algorithm:
Fast shipping
The modern customer values fast shipping: for example, over 41% of customers are ready to pay more to get same-day delivery on their orders.
It’s one of the reasons behind the success of Amazon Prime, which guarantees free same-day delivery. Since fast shipping improves the customer experience, it’s one of the metrics that Amazon will consider to decide whether or not your product will get its Choice Badge.
Customer reviews and ratings
Another critical factor that Amazon will take into account is the quality of your customer reviews and ratings.
The more good things customers have to say about your product, the more it looks good in the eyes of the Amazon algorithm. It helps Amazon ensure that they’re promoting the highest-quality and most relevant products to their customers’ search.
Low-return rate
If customers are frequently returning back your products, it’s a major red flag. In order to qualify for Amazon’s Choice Badge, your product on the platform must have a low-return rate.
5 steps to optimize your products for Amazon’s Choice Badge
Getting the Amazon’s Choice Badge may seem like a confusing, complicated process. That said, there are many things that you can do on your side to acquire it. Here are the steps you can take to maximize your chances of qualifying for Amazon’s Choice Badge:
1. Get your Amazon business prime-eligible
There’s a direct relation between being eligible for Amazon Prime and qualifying for the Choice Badge. Since fast shipping is a requirement for the badge, it should be the first thing you set up on Amazon.
If you’re already selling on FBA, you automatically have eligibility for Amazon Prime. You can instantly take advantage of the fast shipping and same-day delivery services.
2. Focus on the most relevant keywords to your audience
Next, to acquire the Amazon Choice Badge, you’ll need to step up your keyword research. The key is to find the most relevant search query to your audience on Amazon that will be easy for you to rank.
A good tip is to go for long-tail keywords that focus on a problem that your product can solve and has the most potential to convert. The keyword’s search volume shouldn’t be too high since ranking will be too difficult.
There are also many things you should avoid as you try to improve your keyword strategy. For example, keyword stuffing is unproductive and will get you banned from Amazon.
Remember, you don’t have to manually do all of the keyword research yourself. There are various tools and partnerships that can help you improve your Amazon keyword strategy. Pattern offers all of our partners these services using our internal tools like Destiny.
3. Generate excellent customer ratings and testimonials
Targeting the right search terms is only the first step. To reach the most customers as possible and qualify for Amazon’s Choice Badge, you also need to get the best customer reviews and ratings out there.
Amazon wants the best for its customers. If you have too many negative reviews, Amazon doesn’t want to risk its reputation and promote to its audience.
Your customer ratings need to hover around in the four-star and five-star categories. If any negative reviews popup, you should follow up with the customer to understand the issue or use their feedback to improve the product.
By focusing on improving your customer reviews, you’re increasing the chances of Amazon’s algorithm to provide your product with ist Choice Badge as proof of its quality.
4. Optimize your product listing page as much as you can
To maximize your results on Amazon, you want to make sure to optimize your listing page by making it as accurate and relevant to the customer’s search. It’s going to help you boost your conversion rate and get noticed by Amazon.
For example, your product description must be as clear and straightforward as possible. Optimization must also include detailed information on all your product’s material as well, so that the customer gets no nasty surprises and you lower the return rate.
Including high-quality product images as part of your listing page will also be essential. Amazon allows you to include up to nine photos in your listing to give the customer a complete view of your item.
5. Offer competitive pricing
One of Amazon’s recommendations is that you need well-priced products in order to qualify for the Choice Badge. Each different product you sell must come with competitive pricing to get favors from Amazon’s platform. You don’t have to go below your MAP pricing, but if you are 10x more expensive than your competitors, you probably won’t be chosen for the Choice Bage.
Wrapping things up
Getting your product qualified for Amazon’s Choice Badge feature should be one of every ecommerce brand’s goals. It provides you with the social proof you need to gain customer’s trust, which in return helps you grow and drive more sales.
While receiving Amazon’s Choice isn’t an exact science, qualifying for it comes down to taking the right actions. These include getting the best customer ratings, improving your listing page, offering competitive pricing, and more. Soon enough, Amazon just might reward you with the badge and strengthen your brand reputation.
Contact Pattern today if you want to learn more about how you can optimize your strategy on Amazon.
