What is an Amazon Seller Central Virtual Assistant?
Amazon Virtual Assistants (AVAs) are Amazon's answer to the secretarial pool. They help Amazon Sellers manage their Amazon business, freeing up time for sellers to do what they need to do in order to grow their Amazon Seller Central business and make more sales.
Amazon VAs come in all shapes and sizes, with different skillsets that can be tailored specifically for your needs--from managing your Amazon PPC campaigns to recruiting new product reviewers, creating custom email templates, or finding you a private label manufacturer. There is no one-size-fits-all VA so it takes some time and patience when interviewing potential candidates before hiring one who will best suit your needs. But the right AVA can save you hours of work and make Amazon selling much more manageable, allowing you to focus on growing Amazon sales.
Benefits of hiring an Amazon VA
A VA can be essential for your Amazon business. There are lots of things they can do to help you, including the following:
- Researching Amazon policies and how to avoid Amazon suspension
- Keeping everything in Amazon in perfect order
- Finding profitable products
- Answering customer queries
- Ensuring your Amazon listing is complete and up to date
- Making sure shipments are sent on time
- Handling customer returns
- Making Amazon product descriptions
- Amazon listing optimization
Amazon VAs can be great at freeing your time so that you can concentrate on the more important parts of Amazon Seller Central.
So, how do you find a good Amazon VA? And once you do, what can you expect them to do for you?
Finding the right Amazon VA
Finding the right Amazon VA can be a bit tricky but for most Amazon sellers, it will be worth the time and effort. All Amazon VAs are different and may therefore be better or worse at handling different tasks that an Amazon seller might require.
What should you look for in an Amazon VA?
- They should have experience working on Amazon
- Their English should be fluent and they should be willing to provide good communication with you
- They should have extensive knowledge of Amazon policies so they can avoid back-end issues
- They should also have good customer service skills so they can handle any customer queries you receive as well as handle any returns
- Preferably, they will list all of their Amazon experience
- They should be able to work remotely unless you require them to come into your Amazon office - Reliability and good time management skills are important, as Amazon VAs may need to manage multiple Amazon sellers.
If they list Amazon sales numbers per month on their profiles, these do not mean that they will grow your Amazon business, do not necessarily take them at face value
What will my Amazon VA be doing?
Once you hire an Amazon VA, the best thing that they can do is carry out tasks that actually make a difference to your Amazon business.
Tasks such as finding profitable products and optimized Amazon product descriptions are essential for any Amazon Seller Central business with Amazon VAs doing this work for you.
They should also be able to manage your Amazon listings, maintain the Amazon back-end, including making sure that Amazon shipments are sent on time. If you have multiple Amazon accounts which your VA needs to manage, they need to have Amazon Seller Central access as well as the Amazon knowledge required to keep your Amazon accounts in good standing.
What can you expect them to do for you?
Amazon VAs are there to free up your time so that you can concentrate on the more important aspects of Amazon Seller Central, hopefully, they will save you some money, Amazon VAs are not Amazon employees so Amazon will not pay them
If you need Amazon product descriptions they can do that too by following Amazon guidelines, Amazon is very good at getting rid of Amazon listings that are clearly copy & pasted.
Remember, if your VA does everything for you then what's the point? You're buying yourself free time but don't let them take advantage of you. Amazon will not pay Amazon VAs, Amazon VAs are NOT Amazon employees, though Amazon might have provided them with training if they worked at Amazon's offices.
Skillsets to look out for
Keep in mind that it can be challenging to find an Amazon VA who knows how to work on Amazon and who is experienced in the field. They will give you some skillsets that they can offer on their profile page, but this doesn't mean that they will be able to grow your Amazon business. We hire based not only on skills, but also on cultural fit - are they someone you want to work with? Meet our team and see what I mean.
As there are many roles that an Amazon VA can possibly take on for you, it's best to explore the skillsets that they already have. Here are some key points which you should look out for:
- They should be able to work with multiple platforms if you want them to list your products on other marketplaces as well.
- If you need help with customer service, make sure they know how to manage this efficiently without disturbing you too much.
- If they don't have any experience in optimizing Amazon product descriptions, then it could be worth hiring someone else who does rather than taking a gamble - at least one who has good English writing skills because if their writing isn't up to scratch it will affect your Amazon SEO.
- They should have an understanding of Amazon algorithms to be able to recommend profitable products that are not overpriced or out of stock everywhere else.
- Check their customer service skills, it's challenging to find a good Amazon VA who can also manage your Amazon customers well enough so they don't give you negative feedback.
This means that you need to be selective about the Amazon VAs that you hire, as it is difficult to know whether somebody will help your business grow because there are many types of Amazon virtual assistant roles.
One of the most important skills for a VA to have is the ability to deal with Amazon Seller Support. On average, each account requires around 10 hours per week dealing with Amazon Seller Support.
So, you need to find somebody with the right Amazon knowledge and skillsets, but do they have enough experience? A good way to tell is to speak with their previous clients - if they only get poor reviews from clients who didn't get on with them then beware because this means that it could be a nightmare working with them.
Where to find the right VA for the job
Finding a good VA is a challenge, and finding a VA that knows how to work on Amazon can be even more difficult. One option for this is at freelancing sites where you can find vetted and pre-screened professionals. My favourite site is upwork.com - they have a vast amount of people from around the world who are experienced with Amazon Seller Central, which means you don't have to spend time vetting them yourself. You simply upload your job requirements and wait for them to apply!
Upwork is great because it's very straightforward and easy to use - their "Questions" section on each project listing requires you to specify exactly what you're looking for in a VA and it'll weed out those who don't meet your criteria.
You can also check out job sites in the Philippines like Monster and Indeed.
- Look at their experience with Amazon - make sure they are experienced with working on Amazon Seller Central or similar Amazon marketplace.
- The rate you pay them can vary depending on what your time is worth to you. If you are looking for more of a long-term relationship, it might be better hire someone with less experience but who is willing to learn something new, provided you have hundreds of hours to train them and don't mind taking the risk of losing them and having to start all over again.
You can also go down the route of hiring a service that provides VAs. At Seller Candy, for example, you get all of the benefits of multiple VAs without the need to find, hire, vet or train them.
There are also loads of full-service agencies you can consider if you don't want the hassle of dealing with your Amazon business at all.
If you're looking for tips on how to find and hire the perfect Amazon VA, we hope that this post has been helpful. The fact is, there are a lot of potential assistants out there who look like gems but end up being polished turds. It's never easy to hire a virtual assistant but one thing is certain: it's time-consuming and takes a lot of effort to do this properly.
If you don't want all of the hassle associated with hiring an in-house employee or managing multiple freelancers yourself, consider using Seller Candy instead! They provide all of the Seller Support problem solving you could even need to keep your account in perfect health all without any headaches at all. This way, you can sit back in your silken slacks browsing G6 catalogues with the peace of mind that you're being taken care of. Check it out at www.sellercandy.com.