2019 Amazon Prime Day has just been announced to run on starting midnight PST/3 am EST Monday, July 15th until 11:59 pm PST/2:59 EST Wednesday, July 17h. That means two full days of blockbuster deals, and record sales.
Amazon started Prime Day 5 years ago as a way to commemorate company’s 20th birthday (and to beef up usually lackluster July sales). And over the last 5 years Amazon Prime Day has evolved in the biggest shopping day (surpassing any prior holiday shopping day).
This year Amazon expanding Prime Day to include more markets (United Arab Emirates), more programs (such as Prime Exclusives Discounts that will feature ‘Prime Day Deal’ badge on product pages), and more Lightning Deals.
With little over two weeks left, let’s look at some critical activities to make sure you maximize your Prime Day results as a seller.
T – 2 weeks
(June 25th through July 7th)
Brand presence review:
- Review product pages to make sure images and product descriptions are correct and well optimized
- If you have not optimized your product pages this is the best time to put some attention, at the least to your bestsellers, or products that you plan to run promotions on
- Review Enhanced Brand Content or A+ pages. If you have any in ‘draft’ mode focus on publishing them before Prime Day (note, it may take few days for Amazon to approve them)
- Review your Amazon storefront, especially if you plan to run off-Amazon traffic to your storefront
Inventory review:
- Make sure your inventory is ‘padded’ for Prime Day, i.e. you have more than your monthly average level of units sold. By this point you probably already reviewed prior years data, and configured your Prime Day promotions into your estimates of the level of inventory needed. However, if this is your Prime Day we suggest to:
- plan on double amount of average daily sales,
- If you are running a non-Lightning Deal coupon or a promotion add at least 10% for each promotion
- Review stranded inventory and inventory alerts in your Manage Inventory section of Seller Central portal
Resourcing:
- Since Prime Day kicks off Monday 12:00 PST/3 am EST (Sunday going on Monday), it’s best to do another review of the account and product pages before Prime Day kicks off
- If you fulfill orders yourself (as a merchant fulfilled seller) make sur there is enough staffing to support order shipment following few days within Amazon’s required guidelines
T – 1 week
(July 8th – July 14th)
- Review promotions to make sure everything is set. We have seen Lightning Deals getting suppressed without any communication from Amazon, so proactive checks is a prudent exercise
- Review your advertising campaigns, budgets, and bids to ensure they are increased to accommodate higher traffic
- If you plan to run social media traffic prepare social media advertising assets
Prime Day
- Monitor your account (if you are a 3P seller), and orders closely. React quickly to any buyers messages
- Monitor advertising campaigns closely to ensure you do not run out of budget. Worst thing is to have your ad campaigns shut down at 2 pm because there was not enough daily budget
- Share the love: advertise your Prime Day promotions via your email list and/or social media. This is not just about sales number, Prime Day sales can boost your organic rankings to carry Prime Day ‘halo’ effect days and weeks to follow
T + 1 week
This is an important step, but one I see it skipped the most. With all the rush and excitement (and some healthy level of anxiety), once Prime Day is over, sellers tend to just move on without retrospective review of their performance on Prime Day.
However, it is critical to do a Prime Day debrief to make sure you analyze results, any lessons, so you can do even better on Prime day 2020.
Data to collect from Prime Day:
- Sales ($) and sales (units)
- Promotions success (take rate for each promotion, coupons clipped/coupons redeemed, promotions as % of total number of Prime Day sales)
- Conversion rates
- Advertising data (ad spend, ad revenue, ROAS, on aggregate and campaign level)
Topics to discuss during the Prime Day debrief:
- Review data you collected and draw any insights
- If you had specific goals (ex. Inventory clear out, test of a new product, etc.) review results vs. any benchmarks you set
- Compare to Prime Day 2018 (if applicable)
- Review any issues/glitches – what can be put in place to prevent them next year, or mitigate risks in future
- Review any staffing/resourcing constraints/concerns for future planning
If you need help to make Prime Day work for you, reach out to me here.