Benefits of using a launch service

Launch services work by offering products at a large discount in order to get “honest” reviews. You’ll see reviews on products saying something like, “I purchased this product at a discounted price in exchange for an honest review”. You can set the amount of products you want to give away and a percentage of those buyers will leave a review.

By selling your products (even though its discounted) you get an increase in BSR (Best Sellers Rank) which is directly related to your organic search rankings. Boosting this ranking will bump your organic sales.

Getting reviews to your product will also help your rankings as it is fairly evident that is a part of Amazon’s ranking algorithm. Having reviews is very important for increasing your conversion rate which is also part of Amazon’s organic search ranking algorithm. Using a launch service to get reviews to a new product is incredibly effective and a great way to set the sentiment of the product (people see lots of positive reviews and they tend to think positively of it as well).

Selling lots of products allows you to boost your seller feedback which is also an important part of Amazon’s ranking algorithm. Having good metrics in fulfillment and customer service will let Amazon trust you more and won’t throttle your sales (especially if you’re a new seller). This is slightly less important if you’re selling FBA.

Risks of using a launch service

First and foremost, Amazon’s TOS says manipulating their Best Sellers Rank is bad and can be punishable. Interpreting that can be tricky, however. If you’re using PPC within Amazon to boost sales and get your BSR/rankings up then you’re manipulating Best Sellers Rank but in a way that Amazon makes available to you. You could easily make an argument you’re giving away products not to manipulate salesrank but to increase feedback and gauge your product’s viability in the market. Regardless, you’re opening yourself to Amazon interpreting what you’re doing and they aren’t the best for siding with sellers.

Another risk of using a launch service is the devaluation of reviews from discounted purchases. There have been rumblings from Amazon regarding the devaluation (and possibly removal or flagging of) reviews that were left after a discounted purchase. Before investing thousands of dollars into a launch service, you should consider the long-term viability and sustainability of the reviews.

After using a launch service you might notice a new seller on your listing. This happens pretty frequently. There are tons of sellers using the deals that launch services advertise in order to make some quick cash. They’ll purchase your discounted product and sell it on amazon for less than you. This can be harmful in brand degradation, customer service, and price dilution.

Conclusion

Before using a launch service to boost sales and reviews for your product you need to consider if its the right strategy to implement. Another consideration is the amount of product launches you do. It’s much better to do fewer launches with more products sold than to do more launches with fewer products sold each time. From our experience, launch services are best utilized by new brands with new products. Established brands with new products should definitely think hard before employing a launch service to bump sales and reviews. To mitigate some risk, a seller might create two product listing pages and use a launch service on one and market the other listing separately. You can always combine the listings later if you’re seeing some sustained growth and want to capitalize on the BSR and review count.

Amazon Consultant | Amazon SEO | Seller Central | FBA Management

I am an Bangladesh basedAmazon Consultant | Amazon SEO | Seller Central | FBA Management Specialist and eCommerce Manager with 5 years experience. If you have any questions about any of these marketplaces or need some outside help, I would love to help. I consult companies and individuals with pricing, listing strategies, sales and marketing of products on marketplaces like Amazon, eBay and Rakuten. I provide specific service on Amazon SEO on the Amazon product search engine.

 I have worked as an E-Commerce Manager - Amazon/eBay Marketplace Consultant & Buyer for companies with international markets for 12 years. I can set up Amazon and eBay accounts from scratch and audit your existing product pages, and optimize your listings on any marketplace. Ensure Relevant Search terms for your listings. Set up Amazon PPC Campaigns to get more exposure to your listings. Professional strengths: * Business & Process Development, Training & Consulting for Small / Medium size companies as well as Internet Start-ups Operations on Amazon, eBay and other marketplaces. * Bulk and Individual Product Listing, Uploading, Bulk listing automation, Shipping, Amazon FBA Fulfillment, Warehousing for Amazon US, UK, CA, Germany, France, eBay & and other marketplaces. * Amazon Product Page Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Studying and adjusting data to best match the ranking algorithms (signals) used by shopping engines such as Amazon, eBay, Buy.com, etc. to select preferred vendors and creating the best position of an account in relation to their competitors on a specific product listing. * Page Positions in search engine results page (SERP) Analysis (Weekly), Keyword, Search Terms, Title, Product Page Analysis * Amazon Product Promotions, Amazon Internal Product Ads Campaigns. * Competitor Analysis, competitor's sales volume and product pages evaluations. * Multi-Channel Marketplace Integration (Website, eBay, Amazon, buy.com) and Project Management. * SKU Optimization, Catalog/ Inventory Maintenance. * New Product Scouting, Product Purchasing, Importing (China, Taiwan, Europe, Turkey, S. America). * Social Media Marketing, Email marketing. * Entrepreneurial tailored solutions * Special projects * Web / Marketplace Product Content Optimization. * Advanced knowledge of web scraping, data extraction & analyzing. * Turkish Translation and Localization I also provide Amazon Seller Central User training & tutorials for beginners. + General Information about Seller Central User Platform + How to create new product pages, how to use simple HTML codes in product pages, adding images, finding keywords, adding the product to exiting pages and other tips/ tricks. + How to create variations by size / colors etc + Repricing Strategies + Shipping Items ( Merchant vs FBA ), how to override shipping + Inventory Control - Merchant - FBA inventory + Creating FBA - Fulfillment Shipments (Creating FBA - Fulfillment Labels for products in AMAZON seller central + creating shipments for Fulfillment Center in AMAZON seller central, Recalls from FBA Center + Using Financial, & Sales Reports + Creating Amazon Product internal Ad-words Campaigns + Creating Amazon Product Cross Prosuct Promotions + Seller Account Ratings, Product Reviews, Customer Service, Account Health + Returns and Refunds I have advanced Excel, Adobe Photoshop skills. 

I am also familiar with SEM ,PPC, Google Adwords, HTML and social media marketing, Inventory and product management programs Experience with; + Microsoft Office - Excel, World, Outlook, PowerPoint + Data Management, Accounting: Excel, ACT Pro, Sage ACT CRM, QuickBooks Pro + Web Design and Image Retouch: Adobe Photoshop, HTML, Wordpress, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, Paint.NET, PowerPoint + ECommerce, Online Trade, Inventory Control, SEO, SEM, : - Amazon US/UK/DE/CA/FR/IT - EBay US/DE - Rakuten.com (Buy.com) - ETYS - Overstock.com - Gittigidiyor.com - Alibaba.com - Sahibinden.com - MS adCenter. Google Adwords, Google Analytics, Google Marketplace - Magento, 3DCart Shopping Cart, Volusion - Channeladvisor, Ixtens, Arcust , Linnworks, Turbolister, Inkfrog, Listing, & Inventory / Order Platforms - Import Genius, Terapeak, CCC, Research Tools / Platforms - Swiftpage, Chipmail email marketing platforms - Channelmax and other Repricing Softwares + Travel Reservation Software: Sabre, Worldspan, Amadeus, Toros + Networking and TCP/IP Knowledge Languages: English Turkish German References: Available upon request