Your product listings are like your online store’s shelves and sales staff. They must inform and persuade potential buyers to choose your product instead of your competitor’s.
One crucial element in product listings is the bullet points section, which contains the product’s key features in short but sweet sentences.
The quality of your bullet points can make or break your success on Amazon.
So, how do you make them well-written and persuasive?
In this guide, I’ll discuss Amazon bullet points guidelines and how they could boost your conversion rate and sales.
Let’s get started!
What Are Amazon Bullet Points?
Also known as “Key Product Features,” bullet points are a key part of your product listing.
These appear right under the product title and are used to quickly lay out your product’s features and benefits to keep Amazon customers engaged from start to finish.
They should highlight how your product sets itself apart from others.
They should make it easier for customers to skim your listing and get all the information they need to make a purchase decision.
Bullet points also play a vital role in terms of SEO and boosting the visibility of your product on multiple keywords.
What Are the Benefits of Optimizing Your Bullet Points?
So, why should you invest time in writing great bullet points? Here are the key benefits you can enjoy from well-crafted and optimized bullet points.
Increased Conversion Rate
Let’s face it, most buyers don’t have time to read through large blocks of text.
This is where bullet points come in.
With just one glance, you can let your customers know:
- If your product solves their problem or fulfills their desires.
- Why they should choose your product over your competitors’.
- If your product comes with a warranty.
- If your product supports a particular cause.
- The essential features of your product.
- Answers to any other questions they might have.
- Why they should trust you.
If you write compelling content that nails the above points, you should see an increase in your conversion rate.
Higher Ranking on Amazon’s Search Results Page (SERP)
Most of the time, Amazon Search indexes bullet points alongside titles and general keywords.
This means you can increase the visibility of your listings by using keywords in your bullet points.
Amazon Bullet Points Guidelines
NOTE: Though OJ Digital Solutions spends every effort to keep content up to date, Amazon may change its bullet points guidelines from time to time. If you’re a US-based seller, check out the Amazon Seller Central Help article on bullet points to double-check.
Amazon does not have hard-and-fast rules when it comes to bullet points. However, they do have guidelines that act as general best practices to help sellers get the most out of their bullet points.
Character Limit
A key rule to keep in mind is the character limit. Your entire bullet points section should not exceed 1,000 characters (including spaces).
This will help your bullet points get indexed in the Amazon search results for a higher chance of being discovered by potential buyers and improve product ranking.
Ideally, a single bullet point should have a character count of around 200 to 250 (including spaces).
Maximum Number of Bullets
You can write up to five bullets for each product listing. Vendors (selling through Vendor Central) can add 5 additional bullet points.
Clarity and Conciseness
Keep bullet points clear and concise while making room for vital search term keywords. It’s also best to maintain a consistent order for all your products.
For instance, if your first bullet point is about benefits, follow that same order for all your other products.
Promotional Messages and Pricing Information
Avoid using promotional messages or adding details like shipping costs, pricing, or company information.
Competitors’ Brand Names
Do not include competitors’ brand names in your bullet points.
Punctuation
Write in phrases or fragments instead of complete sentences, and do not include ending punctuation.
Capitalization
Begin each bullet point with a capital letter. Avoid capitalizing all the letters in words.
Best Practices for Writing High-Converting Bullet Points
Though there are many tips available on how to write killer bullet points, the following are some of the best ones:
1 Bullet Point = 1 Key Benefit
According to a study, most customers spend approximately 10 seconds deciding whether they will buy a product or not.
For this reason, writing bullet points that don’t look heavy on the eyes is essential in making your content skimmable and easy to read.
As a rule of thumb, 1 bullet point = 1 key benefit.
Each bullet point should highlight one key benefit instead of dumping everything in one bullet point.
Keep it concise while highlighting what makes your product unique.
You can make your bullet points more skimmable by using special characters (such as #, >, –, and =) to separate the benefits.
For example:
|
|---|
As you can see above, angle brackets (<>) were used to isolate the product feature (“dishwasher-safe”) from the benefits customers will enjoy if they buy that product.
Writing bullet points this way makes your product listings more readable.
Show and Tell
Bullet points have to be as descriptive as possible without being too long. You have limited space, after all.
The key here is to use words that explain important features to your target audience such as the size, color, texture, and other elements without sacrificing conciseness.
Understanding how to add bullet points to Amazon product descriptions can take time. You need to balance conciseness with comprehensiveness, while including relevant keywords following amazon’s guidelines.
And just like you would with any other form of writing, try connecting with your customers’ emotions to grab their attention.
Emphasize how purchasing your product will make your customer feel happy and relieved.
This heavily influences their buying decision, so you can land a sale.
If writing is not your strong suit, you could hire an Amazon copywriter to quickly resolve this problem.
Use Benefit-Driven Copy
Cramming all your product’s features in the bullet points might sound like an excellent way to save space.
However, this could result in potential customers losing interest and checking out a competitor’s page instead.
At the end of the day, people buy benefits, not features. They buy the hole, not the drill.
To understand what this means, you must understand the difference between features and benefits.
Features include details like product size, dimension, material, or chemical composition.
On the other hand, benefits are the advantages customers could enjoy from the product’s features.
Simply put, features answer the question, “What is it?” Benefits answer the question, “What’s in it for me?”
You want your customer to find out what they can gain if they purchase your product.
Here’s an example to illustrate this point.
Suppose you’re selling a pair of waterproof earphones. A suitable bullet point title would be “Wear Them While You Exercise” instead of “Waterproof Design.”
This way, your customer will immediately know that your product may be used while working out or even while jogging outdoors on a rainy day.
As you will notice in the example below (bullet points for a bottle blender), benefits come first before product features.
The benefits are surrounded by angle brackets (<>), while the features are outside those special characters.
- <>Easy to Clean<> – It’s dishwasher-safe, making clean-up so much easier.
- <>Chemical-Free<> – The bottle does not contain harmful materials like BPA or phthalate.
- <>Make Tasty Shakes More Easily<> – Free measuring cup included for more exact shake mixtures.
Save the Least Important Information for Last
In general, desktop and laptop users see all your bullet points at once.
But for many smartphone users, they’ll have to click a link to see all your bullets.
Therefore, it’s important to highlight your product’s best benefits and key features in the first two or three bullet points and put the least impressive ones near the bottom.
That way, potential buyers can quickly see the most relevant and important information without having to click on something to determine your product’s value proposition.
Be Honest
Don’t use exaggerated claims or false information when writing bullet points, especially if you sell topical products, supplements or other health-related products.
After your product is delivered, your customer will eventually find out whether or not you have been truthful regarding your bullets anyway.
Remember that negative ratings affect your reputation as a seller. This loss of reputation narrows down the number of potential buyers who can see your products on Amazon.
Mind Your Keywords
Though I mentioned earlier that you can use buyer-attracting keywords in bullet points, you should do so with due care.
The general rule is to keep your bullet points informative and readable.
Avoid keyword stuffing and unnecessary keyword repetition.
If having too many keywords will negatively affect the readability of your listing, avoid or lessen the use of those keywords.
How To Optimize Amazon Bullet Points
Many Amazon sellers think they can simply write Amazon bullet points and directly update them on Seller Central.
However, there are bullet points, and there are OPTIMIZED bullet points.
The word “optimize” means “to make better.”
Optimization increases the chances of landing a sale and boosts your product’s visibility on Amazon.
We already covered optimizing bullet points for writing powerful copy while respecting Amazon’s rules.
In this section, we will tackle keyword optimization.
Generally, the more closely your listing keywords match the ones potential buyers use when searching for a product, the higher you go up the Amazon Search Results Page (SERP).
My favorite tool for that is, by far, Helium 10, more specifically, Magnet and Cerebro for keyword research and Scribbles for adding keywords to the listing.
I cover the details on how to do that in my Amazon listing optimization guide.
Here are the steps in a nutshell:
- Do keyword research using Magnet or Cerebro.
- Export data to Frankenstein.
- Arrange list by frequency.
- Export to Scribbles.
- Copy your bullet points in bullet points’ fields on Scribbles
- Add as many single keywords with high frequency as possible and at least five keyword phrases (For example, “laundry softener balls” is a keyword phrase; “laundry” is a single keyword)
Ready to shoot your bullets at your competition?
Not quite yet!
You still need to update them on your Seller Central account.
How To Add Bullet Points on Amazon Product Listings
Follow these steps to add bullet points to your Amazon listing.
- Log in to Amazon Seller Central.
- Click Edit under the product listing option.
- Hover over the Description tab. You’ll see a field for Key Product Features and another for Product Description.
- Enter your bullet point information in the Key Product Features field.
How To Edit Bullet Points on Existing Amazon Listings
The instructions below are for existing product listings. Follow these steps to update your bullet points:
1 – Log in to Amazon Seller Central.
2 – Click on the Inventory tab, and then Manage Inventory.
3 – Click on Edit. You can view the Edit buttons by scrolling right as you browse your product listings.
4 – Click the Description tab.
5 – Scroll down to see the Key Product Features fields. Enter your bullet point description in each field.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Can You Add Emojis in Amazon Bullet Points?
Yes, you can add emojis in bullet points. Emojis are not considered programming code but special characters. Therefore, the platform can technically accommodate them.
Can You Add HTML to Amazon Bullet Points?
No, you can’t. Amazon no longer supports the use of HTML, JavaScript, and other programming languages on product listings.
The platform has prohibited the use of these coding languages to ensure that non-HTML devices can access Amazon’s product listings.
How Many Bullet Points Can You Have on Amazon?
An Amazon seller is entitled to a maximum of five bullet points per product listing. On the other hand, vendors on the platform get an extra five bullet points for a total of 10 bullets for each product listing.
Why Are My Bullet Points Not Showing Up on Amazon?
There are many possible reasons for this problem.
In some parts of the world, certain product categories like Books don’t have the bullet points feature. Therefore, this could be why your bullet points are not showing up on Amazon.
Meanwhile, some users have reported their Amazon FBA bullet points are missing.
In such cases, they also reported that the error came up after they converted their listings from Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM) to Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). This is another thing you should watch out for.
Final Thoughts
Amazon bullet points are a crucial element of your product listing.
They highlight the key features of your product and make it easy for customers to determine if the product will give them value.
However, bullet points are only a small section of your product listing. When writing other sections such as the title or the enhanced brand content, make sure to remember what you’ve already included in the bullet points, so that you can highlight the product’s main features visually in the A+ content or images.
Hopefully, this guide has shown you how to create effective Amazon bullet points to increase your sales.
If you want to know more about optimizing your listings, check out my guide on how to rank high on Amazon search results.
