When selling on Amazon, you don’t need to worry about condition notes as much as you think.
Hopefully the title of this article got your attention. And depending on your thoughts on the subject you are either rolling your eyes, clapping because you agree with us or we educated you today.
Either way, we’d like to present to you all the reasons why we don’t think Amazon condition notes matter that much. And how streamlining them can improve your listing speeds.
What is an Amazon condition note?
A condition note is a note placed onto a product listing by a 3rd party seller that gives additional details, disclosures or context to the product the customer is buying on the Amazon marketplace.
Seems pretty harmless with all the upside of full disclosure for the customer, right? Yes and no.
Let’s dive into the 5 reasons why condition notes don’t matter.
Customers don’t read condition notes.
Yep, we said it.
We’re drawing a line in the sand and declaring that customers don’t read them. They really don’t, on the averages.
When is the last time you read a condition note when shopping for an item on Amazon?
Probably never and if you said you did…was it before you were an Amazon seller or afterwards?
With the innate knowledge of being an Amazon seller it completely “skus” (see what we did there? 😝) your perspective on whether or not customers look at them because now you know where they are, what to look for and how to spot a bad one.
But before being an Amazon seller, you did not have this perspective or context .
Most customer’s search for an item and spend their entire time hopping from one buy box to another looking for the product they want to buy.
And then 81%+ of those customers (think in millions) buy the book directly from the buy box page and never even see a condition note.
Amazon has the buy box page set up like this for a reason.
They want the impulsive sale.
They don’t want customers “laboring” over a buying decision and reading tons of condition notes on hundreds of products. They want the buying…not reading.
Condition notes are buried
You won’t find the condition notes on the buy box page.
You will only find them when the customer clicks through to the other “offers” page before you see those notes.
And when they get to the offer page the notes are truncated and buried even further. Who has time to read exhaustingly long notes from the seller of the product.
Not our impatient, “I want it in 2 days with free shipping” Amazon Prime customers.
No siree!
Amazon builds pages to draw your attention to key aspects of the page
Even if the left over 19% of shoppers who have not bought from the buy box page are now skimming through the offers page, Amazon is drawing their eyes away from condition notes.
We blurred the sections in this example where your eyes are not drawn to. We didn’t do this just to support our position on condition notes, but rather to illustrate exactly where Amazon wants your eyes gazing to.
- Price & Shipping info
- Condition grade
- Name of Seller
- Add to cart buy button
Amazon has A/B split tested these pages millions of times and they have buying intent and signals down to a science.
Condition notes simply are not part of the equation.
Condition notes won’t save you
If you happen to invest a lot of time in your condition notes hoping that one day when you have your first customer purchase complaint that Amazon is going to swoop in and save you.
Essentially agreeing with you over the customer….
You’re dead wrong.
There are circumstances where they will. Especially if the customer is being egregiously difficult or outright fraudulent.
But on the averages, Amazon is going to side with the customer. And they will do it to your detriment.
Why you ask?
Because Amazon didn’t get to be a trillion dollar company by not being relentlessly focused on the customer and buying experience.
End of story.
Customer always has the nuclear option
According to Amazon, under an A – Z customer claim:
The Amazon A-to-z Guarantee protects you when you purchase items sold and fulfilled by a third-party seller. Our guarantee covers both the timely delivery and the condition of your items. If either are unsatisfactory, you can report the problem to us and our team will determine if you are eligible for a refund.
Most casual shoppers on Amazon don’t know about this option but when push comes to shove, they will find out and it’s usually an Amazon customer support rep that discloses it to them.
Once the customer agrees to move forward with this claim it usually ends in their favor. Regardless of your detailed notes.
Ok so then what do I do as a seller for condition notes?
We think you should add them but we advocate for simple, straight forward “templates” that cut right to the point.
“100% Satisfaction Guaranteed! Ships direct from Amazon!”
This simple yet effective note is one we really like.
The first part of this note is great because ideally if YOU wont make the customer happy 100% of the time then Amazon is going to step in and do so anyways to protect their brand.
And this quick and readable note builds trust with the customer. It also will not get truncated on the offers page.
If you are selling on Amazon as an FBA seller than the second part is true as well. Your item will be shipping direct from Amazon’s warehouse and customers like to know that.
They trust Amazon and the brand. Not you, the seller, from Tallahassee Florida.
This all makes sense, do I just apply this to all my products?
Yes.
You may want to tweak it a little bit and test out your comfort zone but using this simple and effective condition note will not only free up brain capacity it will also speed up your listing efforts and leave you with more time to source products.
AccelerList’s condition notes solution allows you to build easy and repeatable condition notes for all of your products. We recommend keeping it short though!