Amazon Prime Day 2020: FBA Seller's Guide and Tips
This Year's 48-Hour Event Will be Amazon's Longest & Biggest Prime Day In History! Are You Prepared?
In the span of 36 hours on Prime Day 2018, Amazon sold over 100 million products and brought it in an estimated $4.2 billion. Prime Day 2018 was the biggest single sales day in Amazon's history.
For the first time ever, Amazon Prime Day 2019 will run for two full days. This year's Prime Day will undoubtedly be biggest in Amazon Prime history.
As an Amazon seller, Prime Day 2019 can be your best success yet. On average, sales increase by up to 59% for third-party sellers on Prime Day, relative to their normal sales days.
To help you plan for Prime Day 2019, this guide contains everything you need to know on how to sell on Prime Day successfully.
What is Amazon Prime Day?
Amazon Prime Day is a "two-day parade of epic deals" exclusively for Amazon Prime members. This global shopping event was created in 2015 to celebrate Amazon's 20th Birthday and has been growing every year since.
Amazon Prime is designed to promote its Prime membership service and reward their current members. As a result, they exclusively offer Prime members deals on a variety of different products across their marketplace.
Amazon customers also get special offers on "Lightning Deals" and "Deals of the Day" products as often as every 10 minutes.
Not only has Prime Day helped Amazon grow its U.S. Prime membership - adding to their over 100 million armies of prime members, Prime members also spend $1,300 per year which is nearly double the $700 that non-members spend.
For the majority of Amazon sellers, Prime Day 2019 will be one of their biggest sales days of the year.
With millions of shoppers rushing to Amazon, Prime Day is like having "Christmas in July" for Amazon FBA sellers.
Sellers can take advantage of the exponential uptick in traffic and increase their revenue, reduce inventory, and maximize profits - all in 48-hours.
When is Amazon Prime Day 2019?
Amazon Prime Day 2019 will start on Monday, July 15 at 12 A.M. (PDT) and ends at 11:59 P.M. (PDT) on Tuesday, July 16.
The first Amazon Prime Day took place on July 6, 2015, and lasted 24 hours. Every year since 2015, Amazon has steadily increased its Prime day hours from 24 to 48 hours in 2019.
Prime Day has evolved each year and this year's 48-hour Prime Day marathon is shaping up to be the biggest two-day selling opportunity in Amazon history.
Why Is Prime Day 2019 Important For Amazon Sellers?
Most of Amazon's shoppers prefer Prime-eligible products and Prime Day offers them a chance to shop for these products with huge savings.
For Prime Day 2019, Amazon is promising its customers even more savings than last year. Amazon is also known to invest heavily in demand generation via TV ads and other promotions.
For Amazon sellers, Prime Day is simply the best opportunity to get your products in front of millions of new customers looking to buy.
Prime Day is also a great way to spike sales and liquidates your inventory, so you can make room for your Q4 inventory investments.
In 2018, small and medium-sized businesses did over $1 billion in sales on Prime Day alone.
" Prime Day was the biggest single sales day of the year. We sold 10 times as many items as we sell on a regular day." - Chris Guiher, Vintage Book Art Co.
According to Amazon, "Sales during 2018 Prime Day surpassed Cyber Monday, Black Friday, and the previous Prime Day when comparing the 36-hour period".
2019 is primed to be the biggest Prime Day selling opportunity to date on Amazon. Make sure you don't miss out on this once a year selling opportunity and take full advantage of it.
Top 3 Amazon Prime Day Benefits for Sellers:
- Prime Day increase sales, revenue & build brand awareness
- It's an opportunity to unload inventory to help avoid long-term storage fees
- You can launch NEW products & drive sales velocity.
Important Dates and Deadlines For Sellers
Below Are Some Important Prime Day Dates for 2019:
- May 10 - Deadline for Amazon Prime Day Lightning Deal submission.
- June 27 - Deadline to have inventory into Amazon fulfillment center for Prime Day eligibility.
- July 15 - Amazon Prime Day starts at 12 A.M PT (3 a.m. ET)
- July 16 - Amazon Prime Day ends at 11:59 PT (2:59 a.m. ET)
Always make sure to plan ahead and mark your calendar so you never miss Prime Day deadlines.
How To Get Ready For Amazon Prime Day 2019
There are several factors to consider, to make sure you are ready to take full advantage of Amazon’s largest sales opportunity of the year.
Inventory Management
As an Amazon seller, inventory management is one of the most important factors that will decide the outcome of your Prime Day experience. One of the basic keys to Prime Day success is to make sure you have enough inventory on hand.
Prime Day has historically resulted in huge spikes in traffic and sales. In fact, Amazon sellers can expect as much as a 59% increase in their sales volume.
Furthermore, the elevated sales levels stemming from Prime Day, continue into the following weeks. It is important that you have enough inventory to avoid going out of stock so you can capitalize on the surge in demand.
If you need help or would like to automate your inventory management successfully, check out these tools:
You might also want to try sourcing products within USA for faster supplies which will improve your inventory management.
Improve the Product Detail Page
Amazon Prime Day is sure to create a buying frenzy and bring significantly more shopping traffic. In order for you to convert this traffic into sales, it is important that you optimize your product details page.
Your product details page should be designed to grab shoppers' attention and clearly present the benefits of your product. Keep in mind, the shoppers are there to buy not browse, your job is to convert them to buying your offer of the competition.
Make sure to examine and optimize your keywords, images, bullet points, and Enhanced Brand Content as much as possible.
It's important that your listing keywords are also visible to the most popular searches terms for your product, as this will lead to more eyes and more sales.
Studies also show that Enhanced Brand Content can help increase Amazon sales by up to 30%. This a powerful tool for sellers looking to get an edge over the competition on Prime Day.
For Amazon sellers with huge catalogs, you should apply the 80/20 rule and focus on the 20% of products that are responsible for about 80% of your revenue.
Clean Up Reviews and Ratings
Amazon product reviews are one of the most important factors for getting more conversions and sales. The better your Amazon feedback, the more you stand out from the crowd during this busy 48-hour sales period.
Just as good reviews can have a significant positive impact on your sales, so can negative reviews in a negative direction.
Before Prime Day, you should have all customer questions on your listing answered. Make sure you respond to negative reviews and accurately answer complaints or problems.
When possible request the removal or update of negative ratings. The goal is to make sure your product page indicates you are attentive to customer feedback. This, in turn, will increase your chances of conversion on Prime Day 2019.
Amazon Prime Day Promotion and Deals
Your Amazon customers are showing up on Prime Day expecting special offers and discounts across the entire Amazon Marketplace. Sellers should take advantage of the different promotions offered by Amazon to increase their sales.
Amazon Prime Day Promotions
Spotlight Deals
This Prime Day deal features top brands and popular items with wide discounts. Spotlight deals are available to Prime customers until Amazon runs out of stock for the given products.
According to Amazon, these are the best deals on Amazon Prime Day.
Lightning Deals
Lightning Deals are promotions with a limited number of discount on an item for a short period of time. With Lightning Deals, customers are often limited to one product per customer.
These premium deals can be found throughout Amazon.com, including the Gold Box. This deal can run until either the promotional period (typically 4-hour blocks) for the deal expires or all the available promotional discounts are claimed.
Items pushed as Lightning Deals often receive increased revenue and improved seller rankings in the long run.
Keep in mind, not every seller can take advantage of Lightning Deals. In order to be considered, you must fulfill the following requirements:
- Professional Seller Account
- At least 5 Seller Feedback Ratings per month
- Overall Feedback Rating of at least 3.5 stars
The deadline for Amazon Prime Day Lightning Deal submission is on May 10, 2019.
Deal of the Day
Deals of the Day are a single item or small set of related items that are discounted for one day only on Amazon. During normal days on Amazon, the Deal of the Day is often the deal shoppers will see first.
On Prime Day, there are good chance shoppers looking for bargains will go buy products through this promotion.
Unfortunately Deal of the Day promotions are ONLY available to Vendors.
Amazon Coupons
Amazon Coupons are another great alternative to make sure you grab the attention of bargain-hunting Prime Day shoppers.
These coupons are a powerful promotion tool that can allow Amazon sellers to gain awareness and increase sales on Prime Day 2019.
Customers want to save, and promotions provide an incentive to make a buying sooner rather than later. Shoppers might also be focused on finding cheap deals and are likely to skim through listings overlooking most products.
Coupon tags on product listings display an unmistakable orange discount label making sure your product is visible on every page. These coupon labels also decorate your Sponsored Product Ads, making your marketing a lot more effective.
When sellers opt into coupons or promotions they are provided access to 7 different areas of placement across Amazon including:
- Product Detail Pages
- Amazon Coupon Page
- Search Results
- Amazon Gold Box Page
- Email Campaigns
- The Shopping Cart
- The Coupon Landing Page
Learn more: Amazon PPC - Complete Step By Step Guide For Beginners
Advertising On Prime Day 2019
One of the most effective ways to increase awareness and sales for your product on Prime Day is to use Amazon Advertising.
With the influx of shoppers coming on Amazon for Prime Day deals, advertising can play a crucial role in driving performance. In 2018, Amazon sellers that ran promotions saw approximately 50% more sales than those choosing not to.
Amazon Sponsored Product Ads Generated 86% of the advertising revenue on Prime Day 2018. Sellers spent on average 3x more on ads during this same period.
Top of search ads on Amazon was the best performing placement location for ads during Prime Day 2018. Top of Search ads generated 73% of sales proving that increased visibility has a higher return on ad spend during Prime Day.
How To Increase Prime Day Product Visibility With Amazon Ads
1. Increase Prime Day Ad Budget and Bid
Running ads on Amazon is generally competitive, on Prime Day this competition is even more fierce. Sellers should increase their budget as well as bids to get an edge over their competition.
You can expect to increase your bids by at last 50% on Prime Day. Because of the influx of traffic, it is better to bid aggressively instead of missing out on sales completely.
2. Make Use Of Dynamic Bidding Strategies
Using dynamic bidding strategies can pay off dividends during Prime Day 2019. With dynamic bidding, Amazon will increase your bid up when a click is likely to convert and down when unlikely.
Using dynamic bids will allow you to maximize the likelihood that your listing gets enough impressions (views) amid the increased competition on Prime Day.
3. Monitor Your Budget
On Prime Day, your campaign budgets might run out quicker than expected because bids and clicks will rise. Once this happens, your ads will disappear.
Make sure you're supplying enough ad budget to stay visible for the duration of the day.
If you're worried about the expense, remember that your organic sales might will also benefit from the halo effect of increased sales from ads.
For more control, you can set your "daily account budget" to a fixed spending limit on Prime Day.
To Check Your Sponsored Product Budget Cap:
- Click the Advertising tab
- Go to Campaign Manager
- Click Settings
Optimize Existing Campaigns
Optimizing your existing PPC campaigns are just as important as optimizing your product listings for conversions.
Prime Day will require a considerable amount of money for your ads, make sure your campaign is fully optimized so it runs as efficiently as possible.
- Research better keywords
- Add negative keywords
- Activate keywords without impressions
It's important to remember you only want to make adjustments to your PPC campaigns once you have collected a sufficient amount of data (impressions, clicks, conversions, etc) to evaluate your current campaign performance.
Make sure to start your campaigns well before Prime Day 2019 so you have sufficient data to make decisions from.
Conclusion
Prime Day 2019 will be even longer and bigger than the previous year. Amazon sellers should take full advantage of this once a year opportunity.
It's critical for sellers to prepare for this year Prime Day with the following steps:
For Prime Sellers (FBA or Seller Fulfilled Prime)
- Make your top-selling items Prime eligible
- Stock up on your inventory; notify your suppliers ahead of time. You don't want to lose sales due to stock-outs
- Consider repricing more aggressively if you are competing on the buy box
For Non-Prime Sellers
- Offer free shipping
- Shorten your fulfillment latency to 1 to 2 days
- Offer Same-Day or Two-Day shipping
Avoid the common pitfalls most sellers face on Amazon Prime Day such as running out of inventory, Not using the best keywords and failing to optimize your listings.
Prime Day 2019 will likely crush the previous records due to the longer 48-hour shopping window for customers.
With this flood of customers looking to buy, it is important that you increase advertising investment and offer customers a good deal.
Follow the tips outlined in this article to ensure you are fully prepared for this upcoming Amazon Prime Day 2019!
Over 375+ videos (45+ hours)
Interviews with other million dollar sellers and CEO's, and much more
Amazon
Business
to the next level?
Amazon
Business
to the next level?
