READING TIME 10 MIN.

Build your brand using an online store

How to create custom storefronts and detail pages on Amazon

€39 (excl. VAT) a month + selling fees

Steps to building your Brand Store

Follow these steps to showcase your brand on Amazon. Read on for step-by-step guidelines.

Start: Create a Professional seller account.
Enrol your brand in the Amazon Brand Registry.
Add products and use A+ Content to personalise your Amazon listings.
Create a unique storefront for your brand using the Amazon Stores tool.

Bonus steps:

Optimise your customers' mobile brand experience.
What are the next steps? Use other tools to help your brand grow and stand out, all included in your seller account.

Start: Create a professional account

Amazon is a popular store, which makes it a great opportunity for online sellers. Third-party independent sellers sold more than a billion items during the 2019 holiday season alone, using Amazon to reach hundreds of millions of customers, build their brand and grow their business.

However, starting an online business can be a bit daunting.

New to Amazon? Sign up for the Professional account

One of the best ways to stand out and make a good impression on Amazon is to sell your brand's products. Not only does this give you the opportunity to sell your unique products, but we've also designed plenty of free tools that allow you to create an online store for your brand, as well as to protect your brand name, showcase your products and connect with customers.

Below is an example of a Brand Store.

Example of an Amazon storefront using Amazon Stores

Next, to showcase your brand on Amazon without limiting your personal style, you'll need to:

1. Register your brand

2. Make your detail pages attractive

3. Build your storefront

Let's take a closer look at these activities.

Enrol your brand

Man looking at fashionable dress models on a computer

The Amazon Brand Registry helps you protect your intellectual property and brand reputation on Amazon.

The Amazon Brand Registry automatically registers your brand across all European countries at no extra cost.

Adding your business to the Brand Registry is also a way to access all the free tools, reports and benefits that come with selling your brand in the Amazon store.

To register your business in the Amazon Brand Registry, you'll need:

An Amazon seller account (register now).
A registered trademark that is active in the country where you want to enrol, or a registered trademark pending approval submitted through Amazon IP Accelerator .
Your brand name or logo prominently visible on your products and packaging.

If you meet the criteria, here's how you can enrol in the Amazon Brand Registry:

Go to https://brandservices.amazon.co.uk/brandregistry/eligibility and click 'Enrol now'.
Choose the specific marketplace where you want to enrol your brand.
Follow the request for access to Seller Central.
Fill in the short form, providing information about your business as it appears in legal documents or trademark registration applications.
After submitting the form, you'll be taken to the Brand Registry page linked to your seller account. Select Manage >> Enrol a brand
Follow the steps and submit your entry for review.

The information that you'll need to provide during enrolment will depend on the specific marketplace of the country where you want to enrol. In the UK, for example, the Amazon Brand Registry requires:

UK Intellectual Property Office (UK IPO) trademark registration number
Your "brand indications", which could be words/text or images/designs (such as a logo).
Categories in which the brand's products should be listed (e.g. clothing, sporting goods, electronics, etc.).
Countries where your brand's products are manufactured and distributed.

For more information, take a look at the FAQ on your brand services

Enhance detail pages with A+ Content

Computer screen showing products on an Amazon.it product detail page with A+ Content

Once your brand is approved for the Amazon Brand Registry, the fun can begin. The Brand Registry unlocks free tools that help you manage your brand's products behind the scenes, along with your brand story as it appears to customers when they shop on the Amazon store.

With A+ Content and Stores, you can create a wonderful brand experience on Amazon. A+ Content enhances product offerings, and Stores lets you create a multi-page shopping experience within the Amazon store.

When you add a product to the Amazon store, customers will see the listing on the detail page. The standard version looks something like this:

With A+ Content, you can improve the detail page by adding your brand's distinctive features to create something like this:

Add A+ Content to your brand's products on Amazon by following these steps:

Log in to Seller Central.
In the navigation menu, select Advertising >> Enhanced brand content
Enter the SKU of the product to which you want to add content. If you add content at the top level, the template will also publish it in the lower levels.
Select from the templates available or choose a pre-designed template
Follow the instructions at the top of the page: Add images that maximise the allotted space, add text to designated text boxes for product details or features.
Preview the page to ensure that all images load correctly and that they look the same as other branded pages, to give customers a consistent experience.
Send to Amazon. The review may take seven business days (more during peak times) and the content status will be updated on the dashboard. Approved content can take 24 hours to display.
If your content isn't approved, edit the page by selecting 'edit' on the dashboard, and then resubmit it. To avoid having to edit and resubmit your content, make sure that:

Images are visible on desktop and mobile devices
There are no spelling or grammatical errors.
There are no specific pricing or promotion details.
There are no references to guarantees, promises, customer service, websites or contact information
A+ guidelines are complied with

Tips on how to use the A+ Content functions:

Text: Provide detailed explanations with specific words and figures to help customers become experts on your product.
Tables: Use comparison charts to highlight the features of your product line.
Banners: Use images in banners to show your products in use. Add your brand logo and content to all your products to create a consistent brand experience.
Images: Use professional-quality, high-resolution images that highlight the product's features or show it in use. If you add brand text to your images, make sure that the font is large enough to read on mobile devices.
Fields: Use text fields instead of embedding text in images, to improve visibility in search results (SEO).
Try different combinations: A+ Content modules offer more than 100 combinations of images and text fields. Explore them all to find the right combination for your brand.
Look for reviews: Use information from customer reviews, returns and communications to understand what topics to cover. Tackle the problem of buying barriers. Think about why customers won't buy your product, and discuss these issues ahead of time.
Tell a story: Describe your brand's mission, story and unique manufacturing process. Provide detailed information about features with specific data. Use a helpful and informative voice.

Create a store for your brand within the Amazon store

Amazon is an online store, and brands that sell products in the Amazon store can build their own online store within this store, using a free tool that we call... er, Stores.

After you create a seller account and sign up for the Amazon Brand Registry, you can create a store that offers customers a multi-page, engaging experience to introduce them to the history of your brand and the entire catalogue of products through personalised multimedia content: text, images and videos.

You can also use your Amazon.it web address in marketing campaigns (amazon.it/yourbrand). Think of it as your Amazon space, where you can showcase both new products and best sellers, and even provide personalised recommendations for shoppers.

Behind the scenes, Stores also provides performance metrics for visits, traffic sources and sales to optimise your experience.

Using Store Builder on Seller Central, you can create an e-commerce storefront on Amazon, without needing any programming or web design skills. The page is automatically set up for desktop, mobile and tablet browsers.

Follow these steps to create your brand experience using Amazon Stores:

Create a seller account and enrol your brand in the Amazon Brand Registry.
Log in to Seller Central.
In the navigation menu, select Stores >> Manage stores
Click on the "Create store" button.
Choose a template for your store. Each includes adjustable panes for images, text, video and other content. Template options include:

Product grid – A simple way to view your brand selection.
Marquee – Include a curated display of the product, with additional space for images, product descriptions and customer reviews.
Highlight – A flexible option for brands with a wide selection of products, with enough space for information and rich visual content.

Open Store Builder to create an online store for your brand within the Amazon store.
Click on Page Manager and select "Add a page" to add a page to your online store. Enter the name and description and choose a template for the page.
Use Tile Manager to add and organise page content. Combine product images, text and videos to create an immersive experience.
Carefully select the products to display in your store or use dynamic widgets to populate different windows automatically, such as bestselling products or recommendations based on visitor behaviour. Dynamic widgets use Amazon data such as keyword research, bestselling products and/or recommendation history to help you optimise and update the products displayed in your shop.
Use the preview window to see how your store will look for desktop and mobile browsers. Click on a single pane on the page to edit it.
Repeat steps 5–7 to create more pages in your store based on your requirements, to display different features, product categories, top sellers and more. Each page can navigate to a different page in your store, up to three levels.
Once you have finished creating the store, click on "Publish". Publishing your online store involves a moderation process that can take several days. Keep an eye on the status bar to track progress. To avoid rejection during the moderation process, review the Creative Guidelines.
Once your store is live, go to Store Builder >> Insights to see how your online store works. Track page views, visitors, traffic sources and sales to update and optimise your store.

Bonus steps

Optimise your store for mobile devices

Consumers are spending more and more time on their mobile devices, and this is fuelling mobile retail growth. Mobile has changed the way that people shop. In the first quarter of 2020, two thirds of store visits were made from a mobile device.1

With such a large number of shoppers using mobile devices to access your store, it makes sense to prioritise a design optimised for those devices.

We know that with the myriad of screen sizes, resolutions, device types and browsers, designing for customers on mobile and desktop is complex and constantly evolving. To get you started, we're sharing six tips from the Stores design team that will help you optimise your store for mobile shoppers.

1Amazon internal data, WW, 2020.

Six tips for optimising your store for mobile devices

Test on a mobile device

Testing your store on mobile devices will help you discover errors that can affect your shoppers' mobile experience. The best way to make the right adjustments is to find out for yourself what type of experience your mobile store provides for the customer. Step away from your desktop and laptop and access your store on a phone or tablet. Tap through pages and tiles. Is your store easy to navigate? Are the words and graphics easy to read?

To test your store experience:

1. Click Preview > Share preview on Store Builder.

2. Copy the preview link

3. Paste this preview link into an email or anywhere you can access it on your phone (tip: include the preview link password on a separate line, so it's easier to copy and insert it later).

4. Navigate your store on your mobile device as if you were a shopper and take notes on what needs to be improved. Is it easy to navigate? Can you find the products or information you're looking for? How do your images display on a mobile device?

Use the custom mobile layout option

Due to the difference in screen size between a desktop monitor and a phone screen, sometimes a tile design is legible on a desktop but not on mobile devices. Although Stores automatically adjusts images for different screen sizes, that doesn't mean that everything is legible on mobile devices, especially if the text already looks small on a desktop.

In these cases, we recommend using the custom mobile layout option in Store Builder. This lets you to add two separate images, one optimised for desktop and one for mobile devices. This option is only available for image tiles and can be found by scrolling down in the "Edit image" section.

Example of a custom mobile layout:

Make sure that content is displayed in the right order

Mobile screens are narrower and designed for faster scrolling, which means that the order and layout of your store's content isn't exactly the same for desktop and mobile devices. Mobile stores use a left-to-right row prioritisation (horizontal) for the order of content. See the example below.

Check your store on a mobile device to confirm that content is displayed in the correct order.

Optimise the header image

Even with the custom mobile layout, you can only use a single image for your header. The header image is 3,000 pixels wide on a desktop and is automatically halved (1,500 pixels) on a mobile device. This dynamic resizing reduces all graphics within the header, including text.

Because of this, keep the following in mind:

Try limiting the number of products on a header to three. The more products you use in the header, the more cluttered it will appear on mobile.
The copy in the header should be less than 30 characters, so you can increase the size of the text to be legible on mobile and desktop versions without it overwhelming the header. That's why we recommend a minimum font size of 100 pt Arial or equivalent.

Choose an effective call-to-action (CTA) placement

Research has shown that readers typically read from top to bottom, scanning from left to right. Keeping this flow in mind can help you choose an effective placement for your call-to-action (CTA) button on mobile.

Consider the importance of above-the-fold elements, which are the parts of the store page that you can view before scrolling down. If a CTA is placed at the bottom of a vertical tile, it is unlikely to appear above the fold, making it less visible to customers.

CTAs on mobile should also have decent spacing around them, or "breathing room", so it's easy for customers to find and click on it. Having limited space for a CTA can cause it to merge with its surroundings and lose hierarchy and visibility.

Provide alternatives to the navigation menu

The navigation menu on a store appears differently on desktop than on mobile. On desktop, shoppers see multiple tabs along the navigation bar. On mobile, shoppers see a single drop-down menu. See the images below for a comparison.

This is an important factor to consider when it comes to highlighting the main categories or tabs of a store. Putting those top pages in the menu is one good strategy, but you can also use image or text tiles to create an additional way to navigate your store. Adding these tiles at the top of your store, along with a strong CTA, ensures that shoppers can find your most important content even if they don't expand the drop-down menu.

Ready to start optimising your store's mobile experience?

Are you already selling on Amazon?

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What are the next steps? Use more tools to grow and distinguish your brand

You are enrolled in the Amazon Brand Registry. Your e-commerce business has an Amazon storefront and an Amazon.it web address. Detail pages provide in-depth information with added A+ Content.

What's the next step?

Once you've created an online store within the Amazon store, take advantage of the many other e-commerce marketing and online sales tools that we've created to help brands reach more customers.

Drive traffic to your Amazon store and product listings using Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Products and other Amazon Advertising strategies. Use your unique Amazon URL for marketing campaigns on and off Amazon.

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