Amazon Prime Day 2017: Everything you need to know
June 29th, 2017:
***Amazon just announced that Prime Day 2017 will occur on Tuesday, July 11th.***
Amazon Prime Day has quickly become one of the most important online shopping events on the calendar. It’s also one of the most important points during which eSellers need to be on top of their game.
The following is an overview of Amazon Prime Day, including background information on the event, a look at 2016’s Prime Day, and strategies to help you prepare your Prime Day promotional strategy!
About Amazon Prime Day
Technically, Amazon’s Prime Day is a 30-hour event this year, but the company offers discounts on certain products for the entire week.
The 2017 event marks the third annual one. During Prime Day, Amazon offers customers steep discounts on products across all of its categories. To be eligible for the discounts, customers must be registered “Prime” members with the company. The shopping holiday is a push to increase subscribers on this all-important annual service plan and to increase revenue during a slow shopping season.
Recap of 2016 Prime Day
In 2016, Amazon Prime Day took place on July 12th. Just how big was it? Try the largest single business day ever for the online marketplace giant, according to The Motley Fool. In 2016, Amazon achieved an amazing 60 percent increase in global orders from customers during Prime Day. In the largest market, the United States, orders doubled from 2015.
Amazon-branded devices, like Fire and Echo, as well as devices from other brands, were among the top sellers for the event. Televisions were among the most popular items, with more than 90,000 sold. Two million toys and a million shoes were also ordered during the 2016 event.
How eSellers can make the most out of it on short notice
About 50% of all products sold on Amazon Prime Day are marketed by third-party sellers. Thus, this shopping holiday presents a tremendous opportunity for you to attract new customers, clear out products and generate revenue during a traditionally slow month. The following are several strategies you can employ to succeed during Prime Day:
Get a Lightning Deal
Throughout the event, Amazon promotes hot discounts for a limited time and calls them “Lightning Deals.” Third-party distributors are eligible to participate and may submit a request to have a product offered as a Lightning Deal. However, there are no guarantees of selection. A couple key requirements include that your product must have at least a three-star rating, and you must have at least $5,000 of inventory on hand. Amazon also restricts certain products that if finds offensive or that may present legal or ethical hurdles to sale on the site.
Create an Amazon promotion
You can set up a Prime promotion directly through Amazon’s Seller Central, and get your message in front of the large volume of customers that come to the site.
Create a digital marketing promotion
You can extend your reach and promote your discounts ahead of time as well through various digital marketing strategies. Create e-mail campaigns to send to your contacts based on previous purchases in similar product categories. The more segmented you can make the message, the more relevance it will have to particular users. Paying for search advertising on Google or Bing is another opportunity, as a lot of consumers search Google to learn about Prime Day and to discover deals.
Social media campaigns are a great way to get the message out as well. Post messages highlighting your best deals in advance and then during Prime Day.
Offer strong deals
Customers come to Amazon looking for hot deals during Prime Day. Focus on your ability to acquire new customers, create revenue and clear out excess inventory. If you do not get in on the discount action, you will likely lose out to more aggressive competitors.
Upgrade your pages
If your product pages need a bit of work before the traffic boom, make that a priority. Improve the quality of your content and benefits explanations and ensure you have a high-quality, professional image of the product that will impress.
Consider your product reviews
The deal shoppers that flock to Amazon for Prime Day are especially attuned to the quality of the products they buy. Star ratings and customer reviews are major factors in assessing purchase decisions. Thus, as you decide which products to offer discounts on, consider the favorable impression the product’s ratings and reviews will provide.
If you have new products or ones with limited reviews, reach out to brand influencers and request reviews. You can also participate in the Amazon Early Reviewer Program.
Offer free shipping to non-Prime members
Though Prime Day is set up for Amazon’s subscription customers, there are millions of non-Prime members who shop the site during the event as well. One of the ways to attract attention to your products or to convert window shoppers into buyers is to offer free shipping, which is part of the impetus for Amazon users to join Prime.
Be ready to fulfill
Getting customers to look at and buy your products is just part of the battle to win on Prime Day. You need to have a strong order fulfillment plan ready to get products to customers in the time frame expected. Make sure you have plenty of inventory behind the prices that you offer, and your distribution system is ready to quickly process orders for shipment. If Prime Day caught you unprepared this year, start thinking ahead about Prime Day 2018, and planning on stocking up at least a month in advance for next year.
Conclusions
Amazon gets a lot of the attention from its Prime Day event, but third-party eSellers have plenty of motives to build a promotional strategy for the event as well. Figure out which products you want to sell and implement these promotional and distribution strategies to maximize your revenue from Prime Day 2017.
Esellers, stay ahead of Prime Day and all shopping holidays with the FREE 2017 eSellers Calendar»
Header image: Amazon.com