Bundling products in your Amazon store together can be a great way to increase sales and to introduce your customers to other products your brand carries. Creating bundles has historically come with some issues however including the time these bundles take to build and tying up inventory in bundles that you aren’t initially sure are going to sell well. But with Amazon’s virtual product bundles, these issues have been remedied, offering sellers an excellent opportunity to give bundling a try.
In this guide, we’ll cover everything that you need to know about Amazon virtual product bundles including what they are, what the advantages to using them are, how you can build your own and whether or not they’d be the right fit for your Amazon business.
What Are Virtual Bundles?
Virtual bundles function the same way that classic bundles do. Each bundle gets is own listing on Amazon and features multiple SKUs wrapped into one listing and price. The difference is that instead of being required to physically pre-package the bundle yourself before sending it to an Amazon FBA warehouse, the virtual product bundle will combine the separate elements of the bundle for you.
For example, say that you sell beard care accessories and are interested in bundling one of your popular beard creams with a beard brush. With a classic bundle, you’d have to package these two products together into one bag before sending it as a completed bundle to Amazon’s warehouses. Virtual bundling allows you to offer a bundle of these two items, both individually existing in your Amazon store as their own SKUs, at a unique bundle price.
Amazon virtual product bundles must contain at least two different ASINs and can include up to different ASINs.
Advantages to Virtual Product Bundling on FBA
The introduction of virtual bundling has given many third-party sellers who never previously took advantage of bundles the opportunity to do so. Here are some of the top reasons why virtual bundling is a great tool for Amazon sellers.
Bundling Is Now Time and Hassle Free – Putting physical bundles together before sending them to Amazon’s FBA warehouses is time-consuming. Each bundle must be combined into one bag and properly labeled to be sold as a set. New bundles also require their own unique UPC barcodes which need to be set up and then affixed to each bundle. Creating bundles virtually eliminates all of this hassle; all you have to do is make a new listing, choose the ASINs you want to include, and set a price. That’s about it!
Inventory Isn't Tied Up In New Bundles – Another problem with classic bundles is that they can only be sold as the total bundle. This isn’t much of an issue for an established bundle that you know is going to sell well since you’ve had success with it in the past. But when you want to try out a new bundle or include a new product in a bundle, you must do so without data on the demand of that bundle. If the bundle doesn’t sell due to lack of customer interest or traffic, the ASINs within that bundle that perform well on their own are stuck in that group. With virtual bundles, a poor-performing bundle will never be an issue as each individual ASIN continues to sell on its own.
You Can Use Popular Products To Boost Others – Say you want to promote a new product and help boost its Amazon sales ranking. By bundling that new product with one of your top performers, customers visiting your popular ASIN will be introduced to the new ASIN through the option to bundle it.
For example, take a look at this listing for a WORKPRO 7-piece Pliers Set.
This set of pliers offers a bundle with a set of WORKPRO 6-piece Mini Pliers. Some customers will see this bundle and decide to purchase it. Others may decide only to buy the 7-piece Pliers Set without the bundle today, but they now know that WORKPRO offers a set of mini pliers as well. This is a useful marketing tool across your brand.
Building Brand Recognition – Many Amazon customers purchase private label products without knowing anything about the brand based on the price and the Amazon product reviews it has received. You may have an USB cable or a picture frame somewhere in your home that you purchased on Amazon that you wouldn’t know the brand name of off the top of your head. But what if that USB cable has been purchased in a bundle with a surge protector and a car charger? If you had three different products that were all working well and made by the same brand, chances are you’d remember the name of that brand and consider them in the future when looking for electronics.
Your Customers Can Save Money – Virtual bundles do not require you to include a discount on buying these separate ASINs together. If your profit margins allow for it though, offering discounts on bundles is a great way to get customers more interested in purchasing them. Customers love getting a great deal, and rewarding them with savings based on their willingness to purchase multiple products from you can help you to build a rapport with new and returning buyers.
No Additional Cost to You – Sellers on Amazon understand that fees are just a part of doing business on the platform. Fortunately, virtual bundles will not incur any additional fees. Since a virtual bundle is logistically the same thing as the customer buying these two items individually in the same purchase, Amazon treats it this way. You will only pay your standard FBA fees on the sale of both products with no additional charges.
How to Build Virtual Bundles on Amazon
Interested in making your own virtual product bundle? There are a few requirements that your products must meet.
All ASINs must belong to a brand that you own and that is registered in the Brand Registry.
ASINs must have active FBA inventory and be listed in the “New” condition.
Gift cards, electronically delivered products (such as digital music or books), and ASINs that are not listed as “New” can not be included in virtual bundles.
Product bundles are currently only available in the United States.
Bundles must be made up of at least two and up to five separate ASINs. Multiples of the same ASIN (example: two of the same red pen) can not be bundled.
If your products meet all of the requirements listed above, you should be able to include them in a virtual bundle. First click on the “Brands” tab in the top right corner of your Amazon Seller Central page. You can select “Virtual Bundles” at the bottom of this drop-down menu.
The “New Product Bundle” page asks for all of the information that will be required to build your new listing. These information boxes include:
Products that will be included in the virtual bundle
Bundle Title
Bundle Images
Bundle Price
Bundle Description
Bundle Bullet Points
Bundle SKU
When you click on the “Add Products” button, you will be taken to a separate page that will allow you to add products from your active catalog. From this page you will be able to add the 2-5 products that you want to include in your virtual bundle. You will also be able to see how many units are available and what your current price on this products are. Keep in mind that if any of the products in your virtual bundle are ever out of stock, your entire bundle will be listed as out of stock until that product is replenished.
Once you are done filling in all of the required information, you can click the “Save and Publish” button in the top right corner of the New Product Bundle page to complete the process and create your new bundle.
Final Thoughts on Virtual Bundles
The important thing to remember about creating virtual bundles is that they should offer some value to the customer. It may be tempting to create bundles for all sorts of different combinations of items, but bundles that don’t make sense together can confuse customers and make your brand look disjointed. Brainstorm bundles of products that actually make sense together so that your customers have something to gain from considering purchasing your item in one of its suggested bundles instead of on its own.
With that bit of advice out of the way, there really isn’t any downside to creating virtual bundles. Experiment with different combinations. Try bundling top sellers together, poor sellers together, mixing and matching. Test different price points. If a certain virtual bundle doesn’t work, you can always edit or delete it later. Through brainstorming, planning and testing, you should be able to come up with some combos that increase sales and help boost up your brand.
PLUS don't forget to signup for my newsletter Amazon Insiders and start receiving weekly tips and hacks to help you dominate on Amazon!