30 Days to Creating and Profiting from your DVD product - Part Nine - Getting your DVD listed by Amazon
Here's how to quickly get your DVD or CD listed for sale on Amazon. Do it right, and you'll have the largest online retailer in the world promoting your product to over half a billion potential customers. When we started this series, one of main goals was to sell our DVD or CD on Amazon.com. Now that we've progressed this far in the creation of our DVD or CD, it is time to get it listed on Amazon. There are major advantages to having your DVD listed on www.amazon.com. The biggest advantage of course is the potential for increased sales. But there are other advantages as well - these include the potential of having your product discovered by a distributor, publisher, or reviewer - all of which can translate into good things. Before any of this can happen, you have to get your product listed on Amazon.com. Here's how. Four steps to getting your product listed on Amazon - First, Get a ISBN or UPC code - If you are selling a DVD or video CD, Amazon requires the DVD or CD to have a UPC number and scannable UPC bar code code on either the front or back cover of the case.
Because the UPC code is a 'must have' requirement before you can sell your DVD or CD on Amazon, you've got to get this taken care of before you submit the product to Amazon. For me, the easy solution was to choose to have Kunaki (the DVD duplicator I use), to create a unique UPC code for each of my DVDs, and include the UPC bar code on the back of the DVD case. (My DVD case template has space reserved for this). Kunaki doesn't charge extra to assign a UPC code to your product, and the UPC codes they use work perfectly with Amazon. Most other DVD duplicators also offer to provide free UPC codes on the products you have duplicated with them. If you prefer not to have the UPC code assigned by your DVD duplication service, you can apply for a UPC code from the Uniform Code Council. Uniform Code Council Inc.
8163 Old Yankee Road, Suite J
Dayton, OH 45458 USA
Telephone: (937) 435-3870
http://www.uc-council.org/ Again, I find it a lot easier to have the DVD duplicator create and add the UPC bar code to the disk case during duplication.
- Join the Amazon Advantage Program - If you want your products sold by Amazon, you must join the Amazon Advantage program and submit your product.
Joining Amazon Advantage costs $29.95 a year. To find out more and to join, visit Amazon Advantage. Amazon says, "If your application is successfully received, we will send you a thank-you e-mail within 24 hours. If you don't receive this e-mail, we did not receive your application, and we ask that you try again.' Part of the application process involves you submitting your first product to Amazon. To do this, you need the product ISBN or UPC code number, product name, and price. In my case, it took exactly 7 days for me to receive email from Amazon after I joined, confirming that my membership had been accepted and the product approved for sale.
- Confirm your initial Amazon order - If your product is accepted, Amazon will place an order with you for your product. The initial order will usually be for two copies of your product.
After you receive the Amazon order, you must confirm with Amazon that you received the order, and that the product has been shipped. To confirm the order, log into your Amazon Advantage account, and choose 'order management'. Then enter the date the order will be shipped, and put a check in the 'accepted and shipped' box, and approve the order.
- Add cover art and an enhanced product description to your Amazon catalog page - A few days after Amazon accepts your product and receives your order, they will allow you edit the product description.
You will NOT receive notification that the product description can be modified, so you will want to check the product status at Amazon Advantage every few days until you can change the description. You will definitely want to do this - as product sales will be greatly enhanced by adding cover art and descriptive information to the listings. To add cover art and product description: - Create cover art for your product - I use Quick 3D cover to create my cover art box shots for my Amazon pages. The box shots usually look like the one below:
Find an article and tutorial showing how to do this at Create 3D box shots for books and DVD cases quickly and easily with this program To upload the image to Amazon, you must save the image as either .tif or .jpeg, and the image file name must be the upc code followed by the file extension - ie 0237425673458.tif.
- Write your product description - while Amazon leaves it up to you to write the product description, you have to be careful about not having too strong a sales message in it. Amazon prefers a product description that sticks to the facts, with little or no sales puffery.
On my product descriptions, I include information about the DVD, the bullet list table of contents from the DVD, and any extra details the potential buyer should know. Write your description in a text or html editor, and be sure to spell check it. See example of one of my product descriptions at Amazon at Tools of How-To Video Production with Bill Myers
- Add the image and description to your Amazon Product - to do this, log into your Amazon Advantage account at http://www.amazon.com/advantage.
Then select the 'Items' tab, and then select either 'image upload' or 'update item content'. For uploading cover art, click the 'Display cover art for all of your titles' link shown on the Amazon Advantage members page. From those pages you can upload the image or update the product description
Important Considerations
- Amazon will pay you 45% of the retail price of your item. This means if you set a retail price of $50, Amazon will pay you $22.50 for each sale made on Amazon.
- Amazon requires that DVDs and videos be shrink wrapped. Your DVD or video duplicator can shrink-wrap your product for you. (Kunaki and other DVD / CD duplicators usually do this as part of the package price.)
- Customers find your product on Amazon by searching for keywords - if those keywords don't appear in the title of your product, it won't be found. Having a title that includes words that would be searched by likely customers is extremely important
- Amazon handles millions of products, and they can't hold your hand through the sign up process. Read and follow the instructions in the emails they send you.
- The cover art of your product can have a huge impact on sales. It is worth the effort to have a 'retail ready' cover created for your product, prior to duplication. (See my articleCreate 3D box shots for books and DVD cases quickly and easily with this program).
- You won't get rich from Amazon sales. Having your product on Amazon has many benefits. But don't expect to sell thousands of your products overnight on Amazon. To do that, you still need good press in other sources, which will drive traffic to Amazon and your product.
For More Information I've written several articles about getting your products up on Amazon. Here are a few you might find interesting. Checklist: Six ways to increase your Amazon sales
Autopilot Marketing, Order Taking, Product Delivery - how it can earn you thousands a month
A better and more profitable way to sell your books and DVDs on Amazon
Quick Guide to Filling Amazon Advantage Orders for your books and DVDs Concluding this series This is the final article in the '30 Days to Creating and Profiting from your DVD product' series, and if you follow the steps as presented, you should be able to get your DVD or CD created and on Amazon in 30 days or less. If you have questions about any of the articles in this series, feel free to post them on our discussion forum.
|
About This Site
