A Practical Guide to Boost Sales with Amazon Custom Products

Branching out and offering customers the ability to personalize their products can set your business apart in the highly convoluted world of e-commerce. With Amazon being the largest online marketplace in the world, sellers can take advantage of the demand through the Amazon Custom Products. This program allows sellers to create listings on Amazon of which the customer can make multiple customizations before purchase. Custom engravings, dressed in custom colors and designs for example, or gift message personalization can also be included.

This blog will explore the Amazon custom program and how it works. We will also provide you with a guide on how to upload products with custom features onto the Amazon platform.

What is the Amazon Custom Products?

The Amazon custom program is tailored to sellers who wish to offer personal or custom-made items using the Amazon platform. This program is perfect for you if you sell jewelry, home decor, clothing, or any other item that can be altered. It gives customers multiple ways to personalize the item they wish to purchase.

For even greater sales opportunities, Amazon Custom enables sellers to offer three types of custom features, as shown below:

The use of Amazon Custom makes it simple for sellers to conduct business transactions online by allowing customers to personalize their purchases. This is quite beneficial to those consumers who wish to buy a unique memento, either as a gift or for personal use.

Benefits of Amazon Custom Products for Sellers

How Does Amazon Custom Products Work?

Amazon Custom allows sellers to list products with customizable options through a simple setup process. Here’s how it works:

How to List Customization Options for a product listing on Amazon

Listing products on Amazon with customization is easy and straightforward. Here is how to do it:

Step 1: Sign Up for Amazon Seller Central

Before listing any products, you need to sign up on Amazon Seller Central as a seller. Once registered, you will have access to your dashboard to manage your products and listings.

If you are already a seller, just log into your account.

Step 2: Register for Amazon Custom

Amazon Custom is only available for professional sellers. You should request access to the Amazon Custom program. Once your registration is approved, you will get access to customization listing tools. Once your registration is approved, you will get access to customization listing tools.

Please note, that customizations can be added to any active listing where you are the only seller

Additionally not all categories support customization, but the program is available for a variety of products like clothing, accessories, home décor, and more.

Step 3: Add Customization Options

You can use “Add Products” to create a new listing. Once listing has been created just go to “Manage all inventory page”.

Then, find the product to which you want to add a customization option and click on the “Add/Edit Customization Information” button as shown below.

Usually, Amazon permits you to add the following types of customizations:

It is interesting to note that the customization options available depend on the type of product. For instance, it is likely that custom “text” would be suitable for jewelry or custom apparel, but if it is more print on demand items like posters, mugs or T shirts, “image” uploads would be better.

• Add Surface details

  For each product, you can use all customization types, customize up to five surfaces with 15 customizations per surface, and include up to 100 options.

  On the “Surface” field, enter the name of your product’s surfaces, which users can customize.

  

• Add Preview Image

  Upload an image of your product's surface, which will be shown when customizing your item. For example, the front view of a hat.

  Image must be in either jpg or png format and have a minimum size of 400x400 pixel.

  

• Add Type of customization

  Next, set the type of customization you offer, such as text, image, or dropdown. For example, we can add the following customization option for an Amazon listing.

  

  Size, Fit Type, Style, Pattern Type, Material, Fabric Type and Color – These options allow customers to select from given set of values.

  You can set price differences for each value and also can set up thumb images.

  

  If you are offering a Text option, Amazon allows you to choose from various font styles and colors, set a character limit for customer input, and provide sample text and images for preview.

  
  

  You can use the "Data" customization option to allow customers to add custom data (e.g., adding text to the front of a T-shirt). With this option, you can set a default custom message and specify the maximum number of lines or characters the customer can enter while purchasing the item.

  

  If you'd like customers to upload an image, for instance, to display on a coffee mug, you can use the "Image" customization option. Here, you can set the minimum required image size in pixels and provide specific instructions for the upload. 

  

Step 4: Preview the customization options

You can click on “Preview”, once you finish all updates and then make sure options are listed perfectly. Also, take care to give clear instructions for your customers about how to submit their customization details. Details included are such as character limits, file images formats, font style, image resolution, or any other important information that can help customers to properly personalize their orders.

Step 5: Manage Orders

Customers can start placing the orders, after customizing a product and making it available to the customers. Once the order is made, the information regarding the customization details by the customer will be provided to you in the order details on your Seller Central account.

Before production, it is important to carefully check these details and ensure customizations are accurate.

Step 6: Fulfill Custom Orders

After receiving the order, you must fulfill it by creating a customized product according to the customer's specifications. Once the product is ready, ship it to the customer in the usual way via Amazon’s fulfillment methods (either Fulfilled by Merchant or Fulfilled by Amazon).

Best Practices for Selling Customized Products on Amazon

• Clear Product Descriptions: Ensure the customer understands everything they can customize and the limits of certain factors like image file sizes and text volume. All in all ensure your choices are clearly spelt out.

  Clear instructions reduce the chances of errors and make it easier for customers to provide exactly what they want.

• High-Quality Images: To show how your customers can add their own touch to your products, post high-quality images of how engraved text would look along with your designs.

• Quality Control: Before dispatching any consignment, try to check for negative reviews, especially from customized orders, as they can lead to returns in the future.

• Customer Service: Make sure you contact them regarding their questions about your customizations. Providing precise and prompt answers will impress customers.

• Use Amazon's Tools: Showcase your custom products by using Enhanced Brand Content. Present your brand to customers by telling a story.

Amazon Custom Seller Tools & APIs

Unlike standard catalog items, Amazon Custom products cannot be fully configured through multi-channel tools like Linnworks or Sellbrite. Personalization fields such as text boxes, font selections, and printable surfaces has to be generated directly within Seller Central via the specialized listing templates.

For order management, standard software will usually sync the base order, but it drops the customization details. Niche integrations such as Customly exist, but they are not general-purpose tools. Such tools just push data from Seller Central to their specific platform for fulfillment. It is not for everyone, especially if you handle your own manufacturing.

The main alternative is Amazon’s Selling Partner API (SP-API), which provides a payload that lets developers programmatically extract the zip files containing all customer texts and uploaded images associated with a custom product order. Instead of clicking through Seller Central, a custom tool can automatically download and extract the order details in bulk and push it directly to your production and fulfillment workflow.

Amazon Custom vs. Amazon Personalize

Amazon Custom is a program that lets Amazon sellers offer product customization for products sold on Amazon. Whereas Amazon Personalize is an AI service by AWS that allows businesses to offer personalized recommendations to customers across websites or apps.