Amazon Inspire: How to Increase Sales with Reel Reviews from Real People

Eligible for US customers only, Amazon Inspire is set to change how customers and influencers engage with your brand by making shopping a virtual, but interactive experience. 

Much like TikTok and Instagram Reels, Inspire has a UI designed in line with what makes those apps so popular for brands wanting to sell – video content of products in use, reviewed by peers with a personalized feed for each user.

What is Amazon Inspire?

Amazon Inspire is a new tool making ecommerce a form of entertainment, which means limitless possibilities. This bodes well for those who adopt and use it as a part of their suite of marketing tools. Amazon Inspire decreases the clicks a potential customer needs to make to complete a sale, increases your chances of getting in front of new customers, and deepens relationships between brands and influencers. 

You might be wondering, ‘How?’.   

As with any new product release, being an early adopter can be extremely advantageous. To help you decide whether to invest your time and energy into Amazon Inspire, we’ve broken down all you need to know about this new tool. We’ll take a look at these three components:

• How Amazon Inspire works
• The benefits to your customers, the influencers you can/could work with, and you – the sellers
• Finally, how Carbon6 can optimize your Amazon Inspire journey and set you apart from the masses

How does Amazon Inspire work?

Inspire allows users to scroll through shoppable photos and videos tailored to them like a Tik-Tok or Instagram Reels feed. A shoppable post means that the products that appear in a post are available to tap on and purchase directly from the feed.

What this means for consumers is a new way to interact with their favorite brands and to be exposed to new brands based on their interests. To navigate to Inspire, app users will notice a sparkle icon (or sometimes a lightbulb) next to the home icon at the bottom of the Amazon App. This sparkle icon opens the Inspire feed, and first-time users will be prompted to choose categories of interest. 

Once this step is complete, users will see their curated shopping content in the form of vertical videos and photos with the option to select the products shown in the content. Choosing whether to learn more about a product or to add it directly to their cart is a simple one-step process. Real reviews from customers who have purchased products are shown in the video/photo display as a banner across the top of the screen. This not only makes it easier for your potential customers to see something they like being used and have its quality verified, but it also eliminates numerous steps they’d need to take if they were shopping using the standard search tool. 

How is this beneficial for the Amazon marketplace?

Firstly, let’s cover how this tool benefits your customers.

• Competition is great for pushing brands and businesses to provide better products that deliver what they promise. Amazon Inspire leaves nothing to the imagination, consumers will be able to quickly see which products are tested and true, providing them with multiple options from brands that they might not necessarily take a chance on or see otherwise.‍
• Eliminates choice overload bias when too many options are available (cue trying to figure out what to watch when you open Netflix). Singling out products that consumers are interested in, versus having them appear in a list of similar products means higher conversion rates. This makes shopping a simpler experience for the end user. 
• ‍Customers can be part of the process by posting their own video or photo reviews on products. Their reviews may then end up on the Inspire feed.

Now, let’s take a look at how this tool benefits influencers and by virtue, your brand.

• Commission opportunity for those who enroll in the Amazon Influencer Program. They receive a commission for any product sold resulting from a shoppable post they make.‍
• Getting positioned as an expert because an Amazon Influencer typically involves niche experience in a certain product category. They likely have a significant social following and create high-quality content. This content involves recommending products based on reviews and insights they glean from using the product. 
• ‍Deepen relationships and increase shared profit as Inspire is an opportunity for sellers to get more from working with influencers and vice versa. Influencers get access to easier commission through the simplified consumer purchase process and sellers reach a larger audience and likely see increased sales and conversion rates.

Finally, what does this mean for you as a seller, and how can you benefit?

To best showcase what this can do for your brand as a seller, we’ll break this down:

• Enhance your brand visibility - having your products in the Amazon Inspire feed means more eyes on your products than ever before. For example, someone could be searching for a toothbrush holder in “bathroom essentials” and in the same post, they see your soap dispenser readily available to purchase. This would have a direct result on your brand awareness.‍
• Increased conversion on sales - the appealing and peer-reviewed format of showcasing your products lends to a higher likelihood of a consumer purchasing your product. Most sellers know that creating high-quality visual content for their products can be a costly and time-consuming endeavor. This is an easy way to get quality exposure for little to no lift on your end.
• ‍Deepen connection with consumers - Resonate with your audience by showing up on their feeds in a visually appealing way that doesn’t come across as a ‘hard sell’ ad. By appearing in posts that align with their interests, you’re positioning yourself as a brand they can trust in a certain category. You also lay bare your actual customers' experience with your products by showcasing real reviews by real people. As you know, consumers will always pay attention to your reviews and often scroll to read them – Inspire leads with this tactic.
• ‍Streamline your consumer's shopping experience - if you think about how shopping works on Instagram or Tik-Tok, users see a product they like and then have to go through numerous pages on a website to complete a purchase, giving them time to rethink their purchase they may decide not to purchase after all. With Amazon Inspire, a consumer sees a product they like from an influencer they might already follow and in a few simple clicks, they’ve made a purchase – all from within one app.