Experts on How Amazon Sellers Should Prepare for Amazon Prime Day 2016
Amazon Prime Day 2016
Amazon Prime Day, July 12th is a global shopping event held annually and is likely be one of the biggest sales days of the year for a majority of sellers.
Exclusively for Prime members, the sale offers more deals than Black Friday on a variety of products including electronics, toys, video games, movies, clothing, patio, lawn and garden, sports, outdoor items, and more.
The shopping event provides special offers including “Lightning Deals” and “Deals of the Day” on products to new and existing Prime members as often as every 10 minutes.
Last year, Amazon Prime U.S. memberships grew by 47 percent, offering thousands of deals to its database of an estimated 54 million members.
But the “success” of Amazon Prime Day really depends on who you talk to.
For consumers, there was a strong social media lash out against Amazon for not providing enough discounts on coveted big box items.
Many consumers were disappointed by the selection – calling Amazon Prime Day a “flop” featuring offbeat or items at random.
But for sellers, Amazon Prime Day was a great way to spike numbers as they entered Q3.
Additionally, it was a chance for sellers with inventory sitting on FBA shelves to liquidate and make room for their Q4 inventory investments.
Regardless of your take on Prime Day, there was definitely a steep increase in traffic. The con is that many sellers experienced a dip in the ratio of overall traffic to qualified traffic due to the fact that many shoppers were engaging in more browsing than actual purchases.
Also, there was a higher advertising cost of sale (ACOS) in Sponsored Products, as many competitors sought to capitalize on the interest of purchase hungry consumers.
We spoke with our Amazon experts to find out what best practices sellers should implement to ensure a successful selling experience on Amazon Prime Day this year.
Amazon Experts: How to Prepare for Amazon Prime Day
“Amazon is being much more selective this year with the products they’ll promote on Prime Day so that they can work on providing a better customer experience this time around. However, Prime Day is a little like Christmas in July in that there are going to be more shoppers on the platform which can boost sales for everyone.”
“Despite Amazon’s best efforts, there are going to be plenty of stock outs on promoted items and plenty of opportunities to attract new customers that come to the site after the item they want has stocked out, or that come just looking for a deal.”
“Amazon has already trained their customers to look for the best value, and Prime Day will be especially deal-focused, so consider providing additional discounts or promotions on key items to attract deal-conscious customers.”
Check out: “The Seller’s Guide to Amazon Prime Day“
“To identify the optimal discount for Prime Day, use the period leading up to it to test out price drops on key items and measure the impact on profit.”
“Does the price drop lead to an increase in volume that boosts profit? If so, keep going until profit stops rising and use that price as your Prime Day Sale price. There are going to be a lot of extra shoppers browsing Amazon on Prime Day, so be prepared to take advantage of the increased activity.”
– Jeff Coleman, Director, Account Management at CPC Strategy said.
“It’s no secret that Amazon received a fair amount of PR blowback for the shortcomings of Prime Day ’15, which included a lack of deals on high-demand products and inventory which sold out in seconds.”
“Despite this feedback, many Sellers still experienced their highest volume selling day of the entire year on Prime Day. Sellers can harness the learnings from last year to be better equipped to have a successful Prime Day in ’16 by 1) including their best-selling products in Prime Day sales and promotions and 2) ensuring they have appropriate levels of inventory in FBA.”
“ Instead of viewing Prime Day as a liquidation sale to move those low-demand products, instead leverage the massive traffic opportunity to increase visibility to your best-selling products.”
“These products are more likely to convert on the additional traffic of Prime Day and will provide the most value in the long run by getting a boost of sales history which impacts organic search rankings.”
– Pat Petriello, Senior Marketplace Strategist at CPC Strategy said.
“It can’t be emphasized enough that all sellers, whether they are participating in Prime Day promotions or not, should anticipate a higher level of orders than usual and should adjust their inventory levels appropriately.”
“Most sellers we worked with last year during Prime Day saw a boost in total volume even if they didn’t have a Lightning Deal or other type of promo going on at the time due to the massive bump in overall Amazon traffic.”
“That’s not to say that orders will double or triple, but the difference should be noticeable for most sellers as traffic levels spike that day.”
– David Cooley, Marketplace Channel Analyst at CPC Strategy said.
For more on how to prepare for Amazon Prime Day, email [email protected]
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