Monthly Amazon Update – May 2019

In the beginning of May, Amazon launched a new Middle East marketplace rebranding Souq, the company it bought for $580 million in 2017. Souq will still be available in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Link

The Amazon Prime Day in 2018 was the biggest shopping event in Amazon history. With Prime Day coming up again this year, this guide gives insight on how to best prepare for Amazon Prime Day for both Vendors and Sellers. Link

Amazon introduced negative keywords to Sponsored Brand Ads for both Seller Central advertisers and Amazon Advertising advertisers. Negative keywords can now be added to prevent ads from showing up for searches that include these keywords. Link

The most recent Amazon SEO Ranking Algorithm Update (May 2019) includes some changes for Sellers. The Byte Counter in Seller Central for Search Terms no longer counts spaces and punctuation. However, spaces and all kinds of punctuation are still counted for the indexation limit, which was increased to 250 bytes in total. Link

Marketing optimization, a key component of a successful Amazon strategy can improve the ROI of advertising campaigns significantly while also reducing time consuming manual labour. Good marketing optimization requires a multi-layered approach as outlined in this article. Link

Alibaba, China’s largest e-commerce company, seems to be feeling the effect of the trade war between China and the United States. The e-commerce giant is reporting slower growth in the first quarter of 2019 in comparison to previous quarters. Link