Launched in early 2021, Amazon’s Brand Catalog Manager is a tool created exclusively for brand owners to simplify selling on Amazon.com. Utilising this interface can be advantageous. It may help increase your conversion and therefore revenue, and help you with more control over your brand on Amazon, including seeing how well your business is being represented.
How to access the Brand Catalog Manager
To utilise and reap the benefits of the Brand Catalog Manager view, you need to be a member of Amazon’s Brand Registry. Once you are verified as the brand owner, you have free access to the tool via Seller Central. Brand Catalog Manager is listed in the drop-down menu on the top navigation. If you don’t see it, you’ll need to open a case with the reference “error code 5001a,” citing the name of your missing brand.
What is the Brand Catalog Manager?
The Brand Catalog Manager is a tool that lists all of the products from your brand that are sold on Amazon in one handy catalogue. Not only does it give you visibility into who is selling your products, but it also gives you insight into the customer experience, add offers for inactive listings, and shows you your projected sales for products without a brand-direct offer.
The Brand Catalog Manager view will show the following information for your brand:
- Retail Offer: A yes/no value on whether you are supplying the product to Amazon via a vendor relationship.
- Brand Offer: A yes/no value on whether you are offering the product via Amazon on Seller Central.
- Current Featured Offer: Shows which seller is offered in the Buy Box on Amazon.
- Additional Seller Count: Shows how many other sellers currently offer listings of the same ASIN. If you are the only seller, this will show as 1.
- Average Customer Rating: Your product’s average overall rating, as it appears on the detail page to customers.
- Potential Opportunity: The value shown is Amazon’s attempt to show the expected product sales over a 12-month period. This is derived from aggregate past performance.
- Next Steps: Lets you add an offer (if one does not currently exist), or lets you activate inactive offers. Note: If you have a vendor relationship or if you have an offer on the product, but it is either out-of-stock or inactive for another reason, you will not be able to add an offer.
Disadvantages of the tool
Although there are many advantages to the tool, it also has several disadvantages, too:
- While it does show you the number of sellers listing your product, it only allows you to click through to the product detail page. It would be significantly more helpful if brands were able to see a list of those selling their product and links to their stores.
- In this view, it isn’t clear which sellers may have multiple offers on your products, for example both an FBA and an FBM offer. Issues like this will be unmanageable for brands with a large number of resellers or distributors selling their items on Amazon. It may also be difficult to monitor and quickly react to changes if your brand has a catalogue with a lot of SKUs.
- While it may give you a glimpse into the customer experience, there is still not much that can be done to increase the amount of legitimate reviews. Since the Early Reviewer Program ended, Amazon Vine and FeedbackFive are the only real ways to solicit reviews from customers, especially if you have a large catalogue.
Getting the most out of Seller Central
Despite the reasons listed above, activating a Brand Registry account is essential for brand owners. Amazon has taken steps to give brands more control over their products and reputation, plus Amazon now has self-service options to deal with counterfeit products and other common issues that affect brand owners. The Brand Registry can unlock the Brand Dashboard and tools like the Brand Catalog Manager to assist you while selling on Amazon.
If you’re not sure how to take advantage of all that Seller Central has to offer, eCommerce Nurse can help. We are a full-service agency specialising in Amazon. Our experienced team of ex-Amazonians and marketing specialists can help you with everything from full account management to brand building, listing optimisation, design, translation services, Amazon Ads, and more. Contact us for more information.
