Sellers spend lots of time (and even lots of money) optimizing their listings, having high-quality pictures taken, trying to get more reviews, and so on. But there is one thing that they could be overlooking that could be costing them a lot of sales: ensuring their products are in the correct category. This may not seem like that big of a deal, but it can have a huge impact on a seller’s success on Amazon.
When customers on Amazon are looking for products, they often times will browse categories, forgoing using the search bar all together, or narrow their searches for products by selecting certain categories. Having your products in the correct and most relevant category will help customers find them more easily. Plus, if your products are in some of the more niche sub-categories, it’s possible that you’ll be able to win the Best Seller badge more easily than the more crowded categories.
When customers type search terms into the search bar, sometimes Amazon will suggest a category based on what they are searching for as you can see in the screenshot above. Obviously, the most relevant category for bullet journals is the Office Products category. But there are several sub-categories that bullet journals (or notebooks that could be used for bullet journaling) could be listed in.
Of course, some of the listed sub-categories would not be a good fit (like ‘Arts & Craft Tape’ or ‘Gel Ink Rollerball Pens’) but several of those sub-categories would be good options for bullet journals. Since bullet journals are essentially notebooks, they could be listed in several different categories. Sellers will have to make the determination as to which categories/sub-categories best fit their products and will help get their products found most easily by customers.
But what if your products are in the wrong category on Amazon? What other problems could it cause? And what options do you have to remedy the problem?
Obviously, if your products are listed in the wrong category on Amazon, customers will be less likely to find them when they are searching or browsing. Even if they don’t have a specific product or product-type in mind and are just browsing through a certain category that interests them, if your products are in the wrong category on Amazon, they won’t show up.
If you are running promotions like giveaways, they are tied to a specific search term for the category that the product is listed in. So if your products are in the wrong category on Amazon, your promotions will not be as successful since they won’t show up because they are irrelevant under that category.
So what can you do if your products are in the wrong category on Amazon?
Luckily, it isn’t too difficult. Simply navigate to this page (on Desktop). If you are not already signed in to your Seller Central account, sign in to get guided help based on ASINs you want to change the category for.
You can also try contacting Amazon Seller Support to get help if you encounter problems. They should be able to answer your questions and help fix any problems you’re having.
It’s easy to check which category and sub-category your products are in by checking the listing. The category and sub-category will be listed above the photo section.
You can see in this screenshot that the sub-category for this product is ‘Event & Party Supplies’ which is likely not a great fit for this product. This is a perfect example of how products end up in the wrong category or sub-category, but how easy it is to check. This seller is likely suffering from low sales simply because they haven’t ensured their product was in a relevant category where customers can easily find it.
Make sure you double check the category and sub-category for all of your products. Avoiding having your products in the wrong category on Amazon isn’t difficult, so don’t fall victim to this easily-fixable problem!
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