Get Ready for Prime Day: How to Make the Most out of 2023’s Largest Amazon Sellers’ Event
Prime Day coming up and feeling like you’re rushing to increase sales without a clear map of how it’s going to happen? We know that Prime day can be a trying time for Amazon sellers who want to make the most out of Amazon’s biggest event, and that you might feel a little frozen, especially if this is the first or second time you’re going at it. Relax, take a breather, and go about it step by step! All it takes is a little preparation and a lot of organization. Why is Prime Day significant? This is one of the biggest events of the year for sellers looking to expand their customer base, spike up their sales and clear out inventory that has been held in stock for a long time. Digital Commerce 360 estimates Amazon’s sales on Prime Day hit $12.09 billion globally, in 2022. Consumers worldwide spent more than $12 billion with Amazon.com Inc. during the retail giant’s eighth-annual Prime Day, according to an early Digital Commerce 360 analysis.
Not to forget the Prime customer is a discerning customer – remember, this is not the usual loyalty programme, this is a paid subscription. The Prime customer we know shops more frequently on Amazon vs non-Prime members has a higher order value, shops across multiple categories, shops for branded products, and is always looking for new products. While the Prime customer base is higher in mature markets like the US, it is fast growing in other markets like India as well.
Firstly, keep a close watch on the calendar. The deadline for setting up deals on Seller’s Central is usually a couple of months before the event, so you need to plan ahead. The deadline for this year was April 28th, 2023, so if you’ve missed it, no worries, there’s still a lot you can do to ensure that you’re in place. Go through our checklist to find all the things you can do to make sure you’re sales-ready.
If you did make it, then there’s a lot more to be done, and you should ideally be starting now, because Prime Day is likely to be in July, though an official confirmation hasn’t been made yet.
How to be seller-savvy and business-ready for Prime Day:
1. Inventory!
It looks like the basic requirement but it’s very often the fundamentals that get overlooked, so start checking stocks at least two months in advance. Amazon requires that stocks are ready to ship at least a month in advance, so contact your suppliers well before that. Keep in mind that stock-taking is not about loading your inventory, it’s also about making the most of what you have. If your capacity is limited, then focus on increasing your sell-out rates and set up some discounts and freebies to reduce stock.
2. Focus on marketing
Set up your advertising funnels well in advance, instead of going for last-minute discount campaigns. Review all PPCs, look up the previous year’s Prime Day metrics, and figure out your strategy in a tiered process. Sponsored brand videos are the latest buzzword in Amazon’s advertising options. Explore the territory outside of Amazon, with Facebook, Google, and social media ads. Consider influencer marketing, to bring in a whole new customer base, if you feel like you’ve beaten every other path.
3. Optimise your listings
Your listing pages are the final frontier, the direct interface between you and your customer, so do a deep dive into product pages well before Prime Day.
Ask yourself:
- Is your page ready for conversion?
- Is it optimised for the best customer experience?
- Is it compliant?
- Does it answer every query of the customer?
- Does it have the right keywords?
- Is it app-optimised?
This can seem like a lot of very taxing detailed work, but you don’t need to do it alone. Solution providers like NittyGritti can cover every single one of these steps and do much more. NittyGritti’s AI-enabled tool offers a 185-point ranking system, which scans and analysis PDPs down to the minutiae of spellcheck and title format. Tools like this help you to:
- Make your product pages look better
- Increase conversions
- Ensure that your images are following regulations
- Correctly sequence product and brand information
Once this is done you can be assured of not just an optimised listing page thats going to help the upper funnel of traffic on making your product more discoverable, but help also move conversion metrics and have other downstream impact on returns, reviews & ratings, building brand affinity and driving customer retention.
The first step to making this happen is to subscribe to our packs. To know more about NittyGritti and their AI solution visit nittygritti.com
4. Discounts, deals and coupons
The big temptation on Prime Day is to go for Lightning Deals, which are time-sensitive – a limited number of discounts on a product within a tight framework. However, if you want to build a more long-lasting customer base, try a more solid option, like Prime Exclusive Discounts. These show up with the original price crossed out, so you have direct communication of the deal on offer. Coupons are another excellent way to create direct interaction with your customer base and to increase the flexibility of your sales plan. Go to the Deals section in Sellers’ Central to see what the options are, and keep in mind that the fees for running deals on Prime Day will be higher than normal.5. What to do on D-day
Make sure your ad campaigns are out there and seen! Keep a close watch on campaigns to see which ones are bringing in traffic and work your budget accordingly. You also need to track your inventory throughout the day to ensure that products are not running out of stock. Try and opt for direct fulfillment as this will be a massive reduction of your workload on the day itself. Keep an eye on your competitors to see how they’re doing and target them through well-chosen ad campaigns. If all of this seems like a lot of work, remember that it’s only 48 hours you need to be on the ball and running, and after this you can take a break and go to the seaside.
Once it’s all finished, hold onto your customers. Lasso any new customers and keep them around for at least another few months, ideally until the next Prime Day. Check stats, read reviews and prepare for next year’s Prime Day. If it still looks like a big haul, visit nittygritti.com we’re happy to help!
