Prime Day Planning for Success

Amazon is one of the biggest marketplaces on this Earth. It has its own traditions and cultures. One of those traditions is the “Prime Day” which has been a norm since July 2015. Amazon launched Prime Day back in 2015 to commemorate its 20th birthday by introducing a discount day.

Over the past few years, this sale has become an annual event and can compete with Black Friday and Cyber Monday in terms of sales volume. Since the most awaited discount day of the year is just a month away, it is important to prepare for the surge in sales and shoppers and to plan and organize in advance.

Every aspect of your business, including inventory, customer service, advertising, as well as organic ranking, should be in sync. For sellers to maximize the benefits of Prime Day, they should start preparing months in advance. It is because the preparation you do for Prime Day will determine the success of the event.

When is Prime Day?

As the tradition dictates, Prime Day is celebrated in the mid to late of July every year. The dates for 2022 have been announced and it will take place on Tuesday July 12 and Wednesday July 13.

Amazon Prime Day is a shopping event exclusively for Amazon Prime subscribers, who are able to access over a million deals throughout this period.

For the Advertisers:

A surge in the sales and search volumes has been noticed on Prime Day since its beginning. People from all around the world flood on this site to get the best deals available. The conversion rate for visits and searches since the Prime Day of 2018 was 37% more than the rest of the year.

So, a proper plan that can be implemented is needed by the sellers to make the best out of Prime Day. Just as a lot of planning is done for Black Friday and Boxing Day sales every year, an established plan is essential for the success of sellers.

5 Ways to Make A Proper Plan for Prime Day:

Keeping the best for you in mind, we have put together a list of our five top tips to ensure you are prepared for Prime Day.

Start Early Preparations:

So, now when you know that the Prime Day for 2022 will take place on 12th and 13th of July, you need to start your preparations regarding what kind of offers and deals you are going to offer on the promised days.

Another thing that must be kept in mind is how long will that discount and offer hold. Whether it’s just for the Prime Day or would it be valid for the coming weeks too? As a rule of thumb, you should not set up new campaigns during Prime Day itself, so planning and preparation are vital.

You should give a new Amazon campaign a few weeks before the sale to learn the platform – just as with other platforms. If you have been a veteran seller on Amazon then you must have some previous data and records of the sale from past years. You can use this data and records to determine what worked and what did not for thus allowing you to plan accordingly for this year.

Starting from scratch is necessary if you are new to the marketplace. It’s important to know that you’ll see higher browsing traffic before Prime Day because customers will browse SERPs, put products on their wish lists, and go shopping during the event. It is possible to see a dip in conversion, but that is fine.

Regardless of whether or not shoppers will buy from your ATM, your listing will be visited by shoppers who will scan your copy and images. You should optimize your listings 3 weeks before Prime Day.

Make Sure Your Inventory is Up:

One of the most crucial planning details that can either break or make your Prime Day is the inventory planning. Poor inventory planning can lead to a disaster and as a seller that is the last thing you want.

This year Amazon has already announced the FBA cut-off date and has told the sellers that their shipment must arrive at FBA centers by June 20. Having experienced disruptions in global supply chains, Amazon has already started clearing out FBA storage and modifying its inventory removal process.

The stock in fulfillment centers that has been sat for more than 365 days has been removed by Amazon on April 15, 2022. You might need more inventory than what you can send to the FBA centers of Amazon, just in case your product runs out of stock.

The inventory of your business system needs to be updated manually when a new product is ordered unless your Amazon Seller Central account is linked to your business system. However, that might be doable for some SKUs. Right now, it is a great time to integrate Amazon with your ERP system if you haven’t already.

Promotions and Budgets:

Enhance your brand’s visibility on and off Amazon, so customers can find your listings on Prime Day. You can entice your broader audience with incredible deals by the time Prime Day rolls around. You can perform this simple task of promotion by reviewing your PPC campaigns, run-off Amazon ads to drive external traffic to increase your Prime Day sales, use social media to keep your customers updated, and automate your review requests from Amazon customers.

Regarding the budget, there can be two possible scenarios. You can either have a low budget or a high budget for the Prime Day.

In case you find yourself on the low side of the budget, the wisest thing to do would be to shift your strategy to concentrate on higher converting and better-defined keywords that would help you in minimizing the cost.

Let’s assume that you have substantially high budget to dive deep on this Prime Day, then you can use sponsored products for high-converting ad type, sponsored brands to utilize the 3 options of standard images, lifestyle images and videos, sponsored brand videos to test different videos for various products, and at last you can make your way with DSPs because you will need a fully funneled strategy from the beginning of Prime Day to the end to capitalize on the increase in traffic and sales.

Your Product Information Should be Up-to-date:

“First impression is the last impression”, and your listing would be the first impression for your customer on Prime Day. It can either convert him to a regular customer or make him change his way. So, it is crucial that you have catchy and proper product content for every product you place in your inventory.

You do not want to stop at a great product name and description, you must also introduce your customer with high-quality images, videos and 360-degree views of your product, precise and extensive specifications alongside the warranty information of your product.

Make sure your Amazon listings are fully accurate and up-to-date, even if you already have existing content on them. Product information management solutions make it easy to update your Amazon listings, since they let you view all your product content together. In addition to increasing your Prime Day sales, you can also reduce your post-Prime Day returns if your listings are complete, compelling, and accurate.

Review Your Planning for Prime Day:

It is important to go through each detail, step and plan thoroughly multiple times before you dive deep for the Prime Day. It will help you in discovering loop holes in your plan and will compel you to prepare a best strategy for the BIG DAY!

• Make sure that you take a multi-channel approach because not all product research happens on Amazon.
• Your keywords should be relevant, authoritative and should have substantial volume.
• Double check your inventory because nothing frustrates a customer more than placing an order and receiving the mail of “out of stock” in return.
• Make sure that you can deliver. The capability and efficiency of your fulfillment centers will help you handle Amazon’s potential influx of orders during Prime Day.

Final Thoughts:

Your business needs to consider several factors when deciding how to sell on Prime Day. This big day can help you to sell and offer products that you normally do not. Prime Day would also help you in increasing the traffic on your site if you are doing it right. Increase in traffic means better ranking of your product. It is also a prime time to review your current inventory and offer old stock to sell.

Customer service, availability, and deliverability should meet the highest standards to keep shoppers and Amazon satisfied. By setting up the right processes and integrations, you can go beyond just being an Amazon Prime seller: you can become an Amazon Prime seller as well.