Can Software Help My Ecommerce Selling Business?

As a computer scientist, I’m passionate about solving challenging problems. For the past decade, I focused on providing ecommerce solutions at Amazon, where I led the Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) technology and product teams.

In my new role as Jungle Scout’s Chief Technology Officer, I’ll continue to help sellers start and grow their ecommerce business while I scale and grow a successful technology company. When I announced my move to Jungle Scout, I received dozens of messages from sellers asking about how they can use software to grow and improve their business. Here, I share some background and my thoughts.

 

The Amazon Opportunity and Challenge

Third-party (3P) sales on Amazon are growing rapidly as more consumers choose to make purchases online. Nearly half of Amazon’s $386 billion revenue in 2020 came from 3P sellers. Of those 3P sellers, 92% use FBA to manage their Amazon business. 

While Amazon remains ripe with opportunities for 3P sellers, it doesn’t come without challenges. Amazon has millions of products listed across its categories and services. That’s a lot of data to understand when you’re trying to carve out a piece of the pie.

 

Jungle Scout and the Amazon Ecommerce Ecosystem 

As mentioned above, I’ve received many questions from sellers about Jungle Scout. In particular, people are asking how the company’s tools fit into the larger Amazon ecommerce ecosystem. 

Jungle Scout helps sellers of all sizes — from beginners to expert entrepreneurs and global brands — make sense of the data. In fact, Jungle Scout’s founder, Greg Mercer, originally built the platform to aid his efforts selling on Amazon. He found that he was making many decisions about his selling on Amazon based on gut feeling and not based on data. So he built the tools he needed to make informed, data-driven decisions about his business.

 

Find New Product Ideas 

The key to successful selling on Amazon comes down to finding products with high demand but low competition. This sounds simple until you are faced with Amazon’s bottomless product catalog. Jungle Scout tracks hundreds of thousands of products to give you a competitive edge with data and insights. Here’s how it works: 

Product Database allows you to scan product listings by filtering key metrics such as price, demand, estimated sales, rating, seasonality, dimensions, and more.

Product Tracker is where you add potential products as you find them to follow the sales activity, inventory, Best Seller Ranking, and pricing over a period of time. 

Opportunity Finder helps you discover niche products by searching for keywords in a specific marketplace and category.

An Opportunity Score and Listing Quality Score are assigned to you based on a unique in-house algorithm. These scores grade product listings and can help you identify products with high demand but a poor product listing.

 

Optimize Product Pages for Profit

An optimized Amazon product page can lead to more customers finding you and increased sales. Your sales can suffer if you don’t optimize your listing with relevant keywords, compelling content, quality images, and a fair price. 

Keyword Scout is Jungle Scout’s keyword research tool that helps sellers find the most relevant keywords for their product detail page. It is the most accurate and comprehensive Amazon keyword research tool on the market and supports Amazon marketplaces in the US, Canada, Mexico, Japan, India, and Europe (UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, and France).

You will see different keyword data for each of these marketplaces allowing you to better target your customer base.  A few of  the ways you’ll stand out from the competition with Keyword Scout include: 

• Identify Keyword Volume: know the exact and broad match search volumes for high-converting keywords.
• Direct insights: see which keywords your competitors are ranking for so you can add them to your own listings.
• Estimates for ease to rank and recommended giveaways: estimate how easily you can rank for the keyword and how many daily promotional giveaways are suggested to move to the top of the ranks.

 

Manage ROI Over Time 

Successful sellers don’t settle for a “set it and forget it” attitude when running an ecommerce business. They are in it for the long run and use tools to grow their business, increase their seller rank, and manage return on investment. Jungle Scout’s all-in-one platform simplifies and streamlines running an Amazon business.

The platform’s powerful tools allow you to run and maintain a net positive operation. 

Sales Analytics: see profits instantly, keep track of Amazon fees, and understand the financial health of your business.

Estimator Tool: check average monthly sales numbers for specific Amazon categories, plan successful product launches, and keep an eye on competitors. 

Inventory Manager: boost your Amazon sales and avoid stockouts and fees by accurately predicting how much stock to order and the best dates to order.  

Review Automation: automate the entire Seller Central review request process so you can invest time back into your business. Ensure every eligible order receives a review request, track the request status, and even see how many hours you’ve saved.

 

Empowering Enterprise Brands to Win the Amazon Channel 

Brands need to prioritize Amazon as the leading sales channel to ensure their future growth and ability to compete in today’s market.

With this in mind, Jungle Scout created Cobalt, the leading market intelligence and products insights platform built to help brands win the Amazon channel. The tool was designed for the large-scale needs of enterprise brands and agencies. While Jungle Scout for SMB businesses focuses on estimates at the product level, Cobalt allows users to aggregate sales for thousands of products at a time.  Enterprises can also integrate with Junge Scout’s API to build custom dashboards and more. Brands like HP Inc. and Johnson Outdoors are among Cobalt’s enterprise users.  

Cobalt processes more than 1 billion data points each day, informed by the industry’s most accurate sales data. This powerful data gives brands critical insight into market share, segment and trend analysis, competition, and content optimization. A few highlights include: 

Understand Market Share: access market share data for any segment. See the size of your segment in dollar amounts, how many brands occupy a segment, and brand growth projections for your competitors. 

Track Competitors: create custom segments to understand both 1P and 3P competition on Amazon. Dive deeper into each ASIN to uncover product details and top keywords your competitors are targeting.

 

Accelerating Advertising on Amazon 

As advertising on Amazon became mission-critical for large brands and agencies, Jungle Scout recognized the need for a tool to manage and optimize advertising spend. In 2021, Jungle Scout acquired Downstream, the leading Amazon advertising technology company founded by Amazon veterans Connor Folley and Salim Hamed. 

Pairing Downstream with the robust analytics and insights of Cobalt and the powerful seller capabilities of Jungle Scout’s all-in-one seller platform creates the most comprehensive ecommerce solution for brands, agencies, and sellers. Based on our research and client experience, Cobalt users can have a significantly better return on ad spend versus manual advertising on Amazon.

 

The Ecommerce Road Ahead  

Ecommerce is an incredible market that, after being around for 25 years, is still in its infancy and growing quickly. I’ve been building products that help entrepreneurs create and run successful ecommerce businesses and I am excited to continue that at Jungle Scout. I look forward to leading the world-class Jungle Scout engineering and data science team, which will continue to develop the best SaaS offerings for sellers on Amazon and other ecommerce platforms.

There is a palpable energy at Jungle Scout, which drives our remote-first work culture. The team has a strong sense of purpose and brings their passion to work each day to provide the best data and customer support that is second to none. To date, we’ve helped over half a million sellers and will continue to impact ecommerce in a significant way. 

 

Learn more about Jungle Scout’s SMB and Enterprise solutions. 

Explore remote-first career opportunities at Jungle Scout.