Amazon product launch: a 90 day plan built on Amazon's own tools

An Amazon product launch is the work of getting a new product found and bought when it has no reviews, no sales history and often no brand recognition. Amazon's seller blog breaks it into three questions: how to develop a new product, how to introduce it, and how to increase its sales once it is live.

Amazon also describes two ways to release a product. A soft launch releases it to a limited audience first and keeps refining it from customer input. A hard launch releases it fully once development is complete, sometimes with a wait list or media attention to build anticipation.

What makes the Amazon version distinct is how much Amazon provides for it: data to choose the product, programs for early reviews, launch focused advertising, and incentives for new sellers. This guide uses those, in the order a launch needs them.

Amazon's advice starts before the listing exists. Professional sellers can use Product Opportunity Explorer to analyze search volume and competition for different product types, and look for niches with many customers searching but few sellers serving them. Brands in Brand Registry can add Brand Analytics: popular search terms, demographics and repeat purchase data.

The same data can reshape the product itself. Amazon's example is redesigning features around clearly defined customer needs before release. Reviews of the leading products in the niche show what customers wish were different, which makes a practical brief for the product team.

Every other part of a launch strategy sends shoppers to one page, so that page has to be finished first. Amazon's new product post asks for a detailed listing with images, bullet points and a comprehensive description, and suggests search engine optimization to find the keywords shoppers use. A launch with the wrong keywords buys clicks from the wrong audience.

Keyword research for a new product has no sales history to draw on, so it relies on the search bar, competitors' listings and Amazon's own data. The relevant keywords decide where the product appears in search results; the images, bullets and price decide the conversion rates once shoppers arrive. Early customer feedback then shows which of those guesses were right.

Reviews are the hardest thing for a new product to earn, and the one thing a seller may not buy. Amazon Vine is Amazon's answer: it connects enrolled products with invited reviewers, called Vine Voices, who get the product free and write an honest review. Amazon says Vine can bring up to 30 reviews, even before launch.

Amazon recommends enrolling and having inventory in its fulfillment network at least three weeks before the planned launch, so Voices have time to receive, try and review the product. New products can enroll as soon as a customer ready FBA listing exists with a future launch date; existing products qualify with fewer than 30 reviews.

A new listing has no organic rank to start with, so advertising supplies the first visibility. Amazon Ads' guide to launching new products and ASINs sets an order: review the detail page, inventory and pricing, launch Sponsored Products with automatic and manual targeting together, start from suggested bids, and add Sponsored Brands once Sponsored Products are running.

Amazon Ads argues Sponsored Brands matter most at launch, because brand creative builds trust even without reviews or sales history. It reports that brand owners using Sponsored Brands saw sales 23% higher after 13 weeks, from its internal data, and says a single product video sending traffic to the detail page increases glance views to help boost organic rankings, without giving a size.

For sellers new to an Amazon store, Amazon packages its launch programs as the New Seller Guide: a set of brand, logistics, pricing and promotional services it recommends in the first 90 days. Amazon's post on the guide says it comes with over $50,000 in New Seller Incentives, and that businesses of all sizes can use it during their first 90 days in a new store.

Amazon's advice for after launch is to tap early performance signals and decide which products to invest in. Track sales and key metrics in Seller Central and Brand Analytics, and act on them early: pause and refine a product customers are unhappy with, or double down on one that is working.

The pressure to get early reviews is where launches go wrong. Amazon's customer product reviews policy bans offering any compensation, discount, free product or refund in exchange for a review, asking reviewers to change or remove reviews, review requests inside the packaging, and building variation relationships to pool another product's reviews.

Amazon calls its policy zero tolerance, and lists the possible actions: permanent withdrawal of selling privileges with funds withheld, removal of all the product's reviews, permanent delisting, legal action, and disclosure of the seller's name. It also enforces against sellers for what their agencies and partners do. Vine is the route Amazon provides; our guide on how to get Amazon reviews covers the rest.