Knowing When & How to Hire a Virtual Assistant for Amazon

If you have an eCommerce business, you probably sell your products on various platforms, such as Amazon. Third-party sales on Amazon grow 52% annually, making it an excellent place to sell. Also, many traditional retailers are now forced to adopt and go digital.

Still, if your side hustle can quickly become a fully fleshed business, taking up an undue amount of your time. You can’t avoid tasks seen as uncreative − such studies are critical to growing your business. A solution to this difficulty is to hire a virtual assistant for Amazon

What is an Amazon virtual assistant?

This might sound like a strange concept for those unfamiliar with virtual assistants. However, once you are in the know, you realize how valuable such assistance can be. This post will look at when and how to hire your perfect VA. But what is an Amazon virtual assistant? 

Simply put, a virtual assistant for Amazon executes tasks essential to conducting business on Amazon. Such an assistant can work remotely, either full-time or part-time. One benefit of hiring such a person is that they will complete the time-consuming tasks cost-effectively while supplementing skills you might not have.

What are the duties of an Amazon virtual assistant?

Some tasks your assistant can perform:

Administration tasks

A large part of operating an Amazon company is administrative. Your online assistant could reduce much of this burden, such as processing orders and managing ‘fulfilled by merchant’ orders, better known as FBM orders. If you are operating a ‘fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) business, there are still tasks such as tracking shipments, shipping labels for units, downloading barcodes, and checking that there are no missing units. All these tasks must be completed.

Customer service

A vital aspect of any business is good customer service. Even though Amazon operates 24/7, you must still manage your customer service. Your Amazon VA can help you with the following.

  • Answer queries quickly and provide the correct information (e.g., shipping information, information about the products, etc.).
  • Creating templates for responding to client
  • Dealing with refunds and exchanges 
  • They monitor reviews by responding to them, matching them with orders, and determining whether any reviews are fake.

Market research

Companies that research their clients’ needs and note their competitors’ behavior remain strong. Their stability and strength are crucial to effective expansion. Your online aide can help by conducting this research for you. In addition, they can check whether any of your products are performing poorly and whether they are exceeding expectations. This will be useful for promotions. You do not need to discount your best-performing products, only those performing below par.

This market research can also be helpful when sourcing new products for your business. However, finding suitable products can be laborious. Outsourcing this task gives you time to focus on more important strategic work and networking rather than spending hours searching for new products to add to your inventory.

Content creation

Another vital part of marketing your products is having the proper copy. If you lack the skills to create a product description, this will negatively affect your sales. Don’t chance it – hire a content-writing expert to assist. More so, your assistant will have a good grasp of keyword research and will be skilled at introducing these words into the product description, making it sound natural. They can also help draft emails to entice the receiver to open them.  

Photo Editing

If you hire a virtual assistant with photo editing skills, they can enhance your product images, remove the background, and more, all to make your products look their best.

Studies have shown that customers recall 80% of what they have seen, compared with 20% of what they have read.

Other studies have shown that 62% of millennials and Generation Z consumers are more visually inclined. This is because they would search for images instead of keywords. No matter how excellent your products might be, captivating photos of your products are vital for success.

Run ads on Amazon

Running effective sponsored product ads, sponsored brand ads, or a product-display ads campaign on Amazon can increase your sales, expand your organic search rankings, and build brand awareness. Your virtual assistant can help you with this, especially if this is not your most vital skill.

An assistant sets up the pay-per-click campaign using techniques such as negative keywords. This avoids spending on clicks irrelevant to your business, monitoring the analytics, and making necessary changes to enhance the campaign’s effectiveness.

Hire a Virtual Assistant for Amazon to send out these packages

When do I need to hire an Amazon virtual assistant?

The best time to hire a virtual assistant is when your business is growing and you have a professional seller account or are using Amazon FBA.

You will want to reduce your operating costs. Outsourcing allows you to lower salaries and operating costs, helping you save money that can be spent on expanding your business. Because a virtual assistant works remotely, set-up costs for computers or office space are eliminated. 

In addition, if you lack specific business skills, hiring an online assistant is a fast and effective way of adding much-needed skills to your business.

List all your tasks if you are not 100% sure of your needs. A staff member would more cost-effectively complete and mark those not worth spending time on. Delegating your workload not only saves you time but also money. You can also operate more efficiently by focusing on your business’s more critical tasks rather than spending time on manual and repetitive tasks.

Which tasks should I outsource?

Use your compiled list to help you determine which tasks to outsource.

When you start to analyze this list, consider these three questions

  • Which tasks are consuming most of my time?
  • Which tasks are the most repetitive? 
  • Which tasks can someone other than me conduct more affordably and efficiently?

Once you decide on the tasks that outsourcing will assist you in accomplishing, you can onboard the most compatible assistant with the most pertinent skills. Engaging multiple virtual assistants, such as an Amazon virtual assistant and a content-writing virtual assistant, may benefit you.

A virtual assistant for Amazon

How to tell whether your virtual assistant is a good fit

Before deciding whether your assistant is a good fit for your business, you need to allow sufficient time for your assistant to prove themselves. If your VA is not coping, taking too long to complete tasks, or making too many mistakes, hiring someone else will be the next plan.

It is always best to hire via an agency − you can hand over the task of replacing the aide to the agency. This reduces your downtime, which is crucial to your business. If you hire a freelancer, you must acquire a replacement, which could prove unsuitable. Restarting your hiring process is irritating and avoidable.

After you’ve been working with the same Amazon seller virtual assistant for some time (perhaps weeks, maybe just days—depending on the workload), assessing whether the VA fits your needs is a good idea. Of course, you’ll need to give the virtual assistant enough time to learn the processes.

Your easiest option is always to hire through an agency. Request a change of virtual assistant to receive a new hire immediately. There is zero downtime. The agency will select someone qualified in the exact areas you need.

Closing remarks about how to hire a virtual assistant for Amazon

When you hire a VA, especially an Amazon virtual assistant, this is your attempt to take your business to the next level. At first, the concept of outsourcing might seem alien. You may not be convinced that this is the right solution for you. This calls for a one-on-one consultation with the agency, in which you can afford them a deeper understanding of your business and your needs. You may wish to put only a toe into the water first, hiring an assistant to help you with your most urgent, time-consuming tasks. However, as your company grows, you will benefit from hiring skilled virtual assistants who help develop your business profitably. These assistants conduct marketing research, copywriting, and running Amazon ad campaigns.

Find your Amazon virtual assistant at Aristo Sourcing. Schedule a free consultation to discuss your requirements today.

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