Amazon Virtual Product Bundles 101

Every Amazon seller should consider selling their products in bundles.

Product bundling consists of selling a mix of products for a single price. This price is usually for a lower price than if the customer were to purchase each item separately.

7 Benefits of Creating Product Bundles

Designing effective product bundles will… 

1. Increase your sales volume and average order value 
2. Encourage online shoppers to spend more
3. Speed up inventory clearance
4. Increase of cross-selling and repeat customers
5. Appeal to price-sensitive online shoppers who are always looking for better deals
6. Give online shoppers the added convenience of buying related products without having to search for them
7. Enhance the customer experience. It allows buyers to save time when shopping and convinces them that the complementary items bring more monetary value to their overall purchase.

But, when it comes to the design of the actual bundles, it’s not enough to simply mix your items up and hope for the best. When deciding on the products you should bundle together, keep the needs of your customers in mind.

With the introduction of Amazon’s Virtual Bundle program, brand registered sellers do not have to ship actual product bundles to Amazon. Amazon will “virtually bundle” products, provided they meet the criteria outlined below.

Amazon’s Rules for Virtual Bundles Creation

• You must have Brand Registry* and the ASIN to be bundled must be from your brand
• ASINs need to have active FBA inventory and should be in “New” condition
• You cannot create bundles for items such as gift cards, digital items like music, videos, and books, and renewed/used ASINs
• Bundles can only be created in the US Amazon

* Amazon’s Brand Registry is a program which identifies brand owners to Amazon. It helps brand owners protect their intellectual property and product content on Amazon. Brand Registry also gives brand owners access to additional marketing programs, including Enhanced Brand Content, and Amazon Storefronts.

How to Create Irresistible Virtual Product Bundles 

Before creating a bundle, it is important to understand what customers want bundled. Look at your Market Basket Analysis to learn what your customers are shopping for and what is placed in their shopping carts. You can find this in Brand Analytics. You want to discover which of your products are being bundled together by your customers.

Select a quarterly time range for data retrieval. 

Go to Display “My products only.” This will reveal the various combinations of products that have been selected by your customers and the top combinations chosen. 

When looking at the “#1 Combinations” column, note those products with the highest percentages. These are the products that you will want to use when creating your virtual product bundles.

5 Simple Steps to Bundle Creation:

1. Select any 2 to 5 Brand Registered ASINs that you want to bundle. 
2. Choose any of the ASINs to be the main component. The main component will help determine search and browse categorization of the bundle. It is recommended that you use your best SKU (best keyword ranking / most searchable). 
   • Title, description, bullet points, price, and images are editable. The main component and the bundle’s SKU cannot be edited once saved. If you still need to change the main component, delete the existing bundle, and create it again.
3. Create/edit title, bullets and description for the new bundle and add up to 9 images. There is no field for search terms, but the bundle ASIN will inherit the search keywords from its main component ASIN. 
4. Ensure proper organic ranking and conversion of the new ASIN. Create new product images and use keyword-rich content. Do not copy the content and images of the existing ASINs because they might not be relevant for the new ASIN.
5. Add the price. Bundles typically are priced lower than the sum of the total prices of all the ASINs. If you price higher than the sum of individual ASINs, you may lose the Buy Box. The bundle price section will tell you the total discount amount you are giving to your customers.

What You Should Know When Using Virtual Product Bundles

• Your bundled ASIN will not have the aggregate reviews of the individual ASINs. The bundled ASIN will have separate reviews from those in component ASINs.
• Bundles are compatible with Sponsored Brands Ads only. They are not compatible with Sponsored Products Ads.
• Orders are recorded as if each item of the bundle was purchased as part of the same order. The bundle ASIN/SKU does not record an order, only the components do. Components can be returned separately. If the bundle had a discount, the customer would receive a prorated refund upon return. 
• Amazon does not charge any extra fees for bundles. Since all the products are fulfilled separately, just as if they were purchased separately, there are no changes to fulfillment fees; all standard selling fees will apply. This is important to know because it lets the seller know how much profit they are realizing after selling a bundle.

7 Tips to Boost Sales of Bundles

• Add a discount coupon to attract more online shoppers.
• Create short videos for your bundles.
• Add a main image that shows all the products together. This can even be done with just your smartphone.
• Keep your bundle titles under 65 characters. Titles longer than that will be truncated when displayed in the ‘Make it a bundle’ widget
• Create a ‘buy more and save’ campaign. Let online shoppers save money by placing a bigger order at a discount price. This typically increases the order quantity on future sales as well. Implement a minimum spend threshold over which a discount or tiered discount is triggered.
• A/B test different product combinations. Experiment with different bundles to see which offerings get the best results.
• Bundle overstock or less popular items with hot sellers at a discounted price. 

If you are a seller with Brand Registry, it is definitely worth exploring virtually bundling your products to encourage online shoppers to spend more (increasing your sales volume and average order value). Just make sure you know the profitability of every product bundle you create. 

Also keep in mind that you MUST know the overall profit margins of your Amazon business in order to maintain and grow it. 

Entourage Margins will allow you to clearly see where every dollar is spent and how much you’re keeping.