Preparation is essential for a successful Amazon business. By now, you should have already started your Amazon Prime Day preparations to ensure a profitable Prime Day 2023.
This article aims to provide you with essential tips and insights, including Prime Day fundamentals and strategies for success. As you read further, you will learn some valuable tips on how to prepare for Prime Day to make the most of your Amazon Prime Day 2023 venture.
What is Prime Day?
Amazon Prime Day is a highly anticipated sales event in the eCommerce industry. It is an annual event exclusively for Amazon Prime members in over 20 countries. The Prime Day event features the best deals from top brands and small businesses for shoppers’ delight.
From an entrepreneurial perspective, this Amazon sales event presents a valuable opportunity for online sellers and business owners to expand their reach and maximize their sales potential.
The creation of this Amazon sales event can be traced back to July 15, 2015. In its initial year, Amazon Prime Day surpassed the sales of the previous year’s Black Friday, as customers bought more items. As the Prime Day sale progressed, it continued attracting both online shoppers and sellers to the platform.
As Prime Day developed year over year, it set Amazon sales records and helped third-party merchants improve their sales performance and ultimately grow their Amazon business. Some of the Prime Day highlights include:
Amazon Prime Day 2016: During this Prime Day event, customers worldwide purchased over 90,000 televisions.
Amazon Prime Day 2017: The 2017 Prime Day was participated by numerous Prime members, resulting in a significant increase of over 50% in the number of items bought compared to the previous year.
Amazon Prime Day 2018: Globally, over 100 million products were bought by Amazon Prime members during this year’s event.
Amazon Prime Day 2019: Amazon stated that Prime Day 2019 had surpassed the combined Amazon Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, making it the “largest shopping event in Amazon history” that year.
Amazon Prime Day 2020: Despite the pandemic and the event being moved from July to October, third-party Amazon sellers still made more than $3.5 billion.
Amazon Prime Day 2021: Over 250 million items were purchased during Prime Day 2021.
Amazon Prime Day 2022: Last year’s Prime Day sale was the biggest to date, with more than 300 million products sold.
When is Amazon Prime Day in 2023?
Prime Day 2023 will occur on July 11 to July 12.
Why Does Prime Day Matter?
Amazon Prime Day is not just an avenue for shoppers to find the best Prime Day deals on the Amazon marketplace. Such an Amazon event also helps sellers build awareness and gain traction for their brand or products.
To give you additional motivation to prepare and participate in the upcoming Amazon Prime Day 2023, here are several compelling reasons to consider taking part in this event:
Prime Day Allows Access To a Larger Customer Base
Amazon has over 300 million active customers, of which 200 million are Prime members. Participating in Prime Day sales means gaining access to the extensive customer base of Amazon.
Prime Day Can Help Improve Visibility and Sales
Taking part in the Prime Day event offers the opportunity to enhance the visibility of your products or brand. This happens as Prime members prioritize items that qualify for Prime shipping benefits, such as free same-day delivery. Moreover, products that are eligible for Prime Day have a greater chance of being featured in the Amazon Buy Box, resulting in improved sales performance.
Prime Day Likewise Increases Conversion Rates
Aside from increasing the likelihood of winning the Amazon Buy Box, Prime-eligible products often come with the coveted Prime badge, which quickly entices a shopper with an Amazon Prime subscription.
When potential customers see this badge, it reassures them that your product is backed by Amazon’s reliable shipping and customer service. With such assurance, Amazon shoppers are more confident to purchase your products.
Prime Day Can Enhance Your Products’ Discoverability
Amazon Prime shoppers can use the search filter to focus their shopping activity on only Prime-eligible products. Consequently, it leads to enhanced product discoverability for Amazon sellers.
Prime Day Provides Competitive Advantage
Competitive advantage is one of the key benefits sellers can obtain when participating in Amazon Prime Day. As Prime Day shoppers specifically seek out Prime-eligible items, sellers who participate during Prime Day gain a considerable advantage over non-participating Amazon sellers.
Prime Day Participation Fosters Customer Trust and Loyalty
You can leverage the Prime Day event to boost customer trust and loyalty to your products or brand. You can build customer trust and loyalty by providing them with high-quality service during and after the event, leading to repeat purchases and positive reviews.
Key Amazon Prime Day Statistics
In order to further highlight the benefits of participating in Amazon Prime Day, we will look into some key statistics from the previous year. Knowing these numbers will give you a better understanding of the potential of Prime Day sales to help you set realistic goals and make informed decisions.
Customer Spending
In terms of customer spending, it has been estimated that last year’s Amazon Prime Day sales reached over 12 billion U.S. dollars. Last year’s record-breaking Prime Day sales constituted more than 300 million purchased items worldwide.
Small and medium-sized businesses that participated in Prime Day 2022 had significant sales, with customers spending over $3 billion on more than 100 million small business items.
Global Shopping Trend
During Prime Day 2022, Prime members did most of their shopping activities from 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM Pacific Time on the first day of the event. Amazon Devices and Consumer Electronics were some of the best-selling categories worldwide during Prime Day 2022. The best-selling Amazon products include Fire TV, Echo, Apple Watch Series 7, and Blink devices.
US Shopping Trend
During Prime Day 2022, more than 60,000 items were purchased per minute. Most of the shopping activities were initiated on the event’s second day, from 8:00 PM to 9:00 PM Pacific Time.
For Amazon.com, some of the best-selling categories are Consumer Electronics and Household Essentials; and best-selling products include Beats by Dre headphones and earbuds, Levi’s apparel and accessories, Oral-B electric toothbrushes, and Apple Watch Series 7.
Ads Spending
The majority of Amazon sellers and brand owners focused their ad spending on clothing, shoes, jewelry, and watches. Ads spending for such categories was up 169% during Prime Day 2022. On the other hand, electronic ads spending increased by 73% and 20% for food and grocery ads.
Seller’s Guide on Preparing for Amazon Prime Day 2023
Preparing for Amazon Prime Day 2023 is a must for online sellers and business owners. If you intend to improve your overall business performance for this year’s Prime Day sale, here are some tips you can follow:
Drive More Customer Traffic
Customer traffic is critical to improving the sales performance of your Amazon business, especially during Amazon Prime Day. To help drive more traffic to your product listings this Prime Day, here are the things you should do.
• Utilize Promotions
Amazon encourages sellers to use promotional offers to increase customer traffic to product detail pages. In particular, Amazon encourages sellers to use Lightning Deals and Sponsored Products to help improve customer traffic on Prime Day 2023.
Lightning Deals are promotional offers that help products be featured on the Amazon Deals page for a limited time. To get an idea of how to create a deal for Prime Day, you can follow the steps highlighted in the video below:
In addition to Lightning Deals, you can run a Sponsored Products campaign to drive more traffic and sales to your Amazon products. Running sponsored ads, in a way, serves as deal notifications for Amazon shoppers, especially those with Prime memberships.
With Amazon Sponsored Products, your items will be displayed in search results and product detail pages when search terms entered by a Prime member match the keywords you bid on. It is one of the effective methods to increase product discoverability.
• Create Discount Coupons
Your Prime Day offerings will gain more attention if you give shoppers discount coupons. Offering coupons for percentage or price discounts has been proven effective in increasing traffic and sales conversion, which is why Amazon encourages sellers to create coupons for Amazon Prime Day 2023.
To create Amazon coupons for the upcoming Amazon sales event, simply go to the Advertising tab on your Amazon Dashboard. If you wish to learn more about Amazon coupons, you may check our step-by-step guide on How to Create Amazon Coupons.
• Drive External Traffic
Driving external traffic to your Amazon listings is another way to improve the visibility and discoverability of your Prime Day offers. You can use social media channels to increase customer traffic by creating engaging posts, Amazon Prime video ads, or inviting Facebook Ads. Alternatively, you can use affiliate blogs to drive additional customer traffic to the product detail page of an item with discounted price.
Improve Conversion Rate
Whether you are selling on Amazon or other online selling platforms, conversion is vital for business profitability. To help you convert customer traffic to sales, here are some tips Amazon suggested that you should do.
• Optimize Your Product Detail Page
To influence Prime Day shoppers to proceed with their purchases once they land on your product detail page, you should see to it that your detail page is adequately optimized.
As part of the listing optimization, you should have a clear product description for Amazon shoppers to understand the item they would be purchasing. You should also maximize bullet points when optimizing your product detail page.
You should make use of engaging and high-quality photos to showcase the features of your product. Uploading quality photos on your product detail page gives Amazon shoppers a clear visual input of your product. High-quality images, in a way, bring your products to life.
• Competitive Listing Price
Ensuring a competitive listing price is crucial for boosting your conversion rate. Alongside product quality and customer reviews, Amazon shoppers often evaluate the price before purchasing an item.
Utilizing an automated repricing tool, specifically an AI repricer, can help you achieve a competitive price point for your Amazon listings. An AI repricer can automate and optimize your pricing strategy, directly impacting your conversion rate.
By employing automated repricing for your Amazon business, you can benefit from real-time price optimization while increasing Amazon Buy Box win rate and gaining a competitive edge during Amazon sales events such as Prime Day. If you want to learn more about automated repricing and its benefits, we have created a separate article detailing Amazon Automated Repricing.
• Introduce Variations to Your Listings
In order to enhance your conversion rate on Prime Day, it is favorable to offer product variations. By introducing different colors, sizes, or designs for existing Amazon products, you cater to the different preferences of Amazon shoppers. Incorporating product variations into your Amazon business is a smart strategy as it provides a more engaging shopping experience.
Ensure Exceptional Customer Service
High-quality customer service is not solely confined to responding to customer complaints. You can optimize other aspects of customer service before, during, and after Prime Day, which can lead to customer satisfaction. Here are some things you can do to improve the customer service of your Amazon business.
• Follow Amazon Rules and Guidelines
It is crucial to adhere to Amazon’s guidelines, as doing so helps prevent any potential delays or problems that could impact customers’ shopping experiences. It is essential to recognize that Amazon established these rules to guide sellers in providing excellent customer service, allowing shoppers to experience the most optimal shopping experience possible.
• Inspect the Quality of Your Products
As you prepare for Amazon Prime Day, you should pay attention to the quality of your inventory items. Take the time to thoroughly inspect each item before shipping them to Amazon’s fulfillment centers.
By doing so, you can proactively prevent costly mistakes and mitigate the risk of receiving negative reviews from potential Amazon Prime Day shoppers. Ensuring the quality of your products will enhance customer satisfaction and contribute to a successful Prime Day sales event.
• Prepare for Amazon Returns
Customer service does not end when products are shipped to customers. As part of your Amazon Prime Day preparations, you should also familiarize yourself with Amazon Returns.
Product returns are normal in the eCommerce industry, especially during eCommerce sales events like Prime Day. Despite the possibility of product returns, it is essential to provide exceptional customer service.
To effectively manage product returns, you should refresh your understanding of Amazon’s return policy. It can help you respond promptly to requests and inquiries. Always remember to maintain professionalism and courtesy in each customer interaction. Keep open communication channels to address any additional customer inquiries.
Moreover, you should analyze and learn from the reasons behind product returns to avoid similar issues in the future. Lastly, seek customer feedback to enhance the product return experience and improve overall customer service.
To learn more about product returns, you can check our article concerning Amazon Returns and How To Deal With Them.
Tap Into Amazon’s Software Partner | Amazon Seller Tools for Success
Utilizing Amazon seller tools is crucial for preparing and operating your Amazon business. Depending on your specific requirements, numerous options are available in the market, including both Amazon’s proprietary software and those developed by third-party developers.
However, if you opt for third-party software to assist you in automating, managing, and expanding your Amazon business, it is highly recommended to select Amazon-approved third-party software.
To assist you in searching for Amazon-approved third-party software partners, here is a simple guide:
STEP 1: Go to Amazon’s Selling Partner Appstore page to explore software categories.
STEP 2: Choose a category depending on your need. For this example, we will choose the Automate Pricing category.
Step 3: Once redirected, you will be able to see the third-party software associated with the category you have chosen. You can further refine your search with the help of search filters on the page.
These filters help you narrow your results by price, star rating, or other options to find what you need. Alternatively, you can search for software using keywords to find the right solution for your business.
Step 4: Once you find the software solution you are interested in, visit its detail page to learn more. Let’s say you are in the process of finding the best Amazon repricer to help with your repricing needs, and you click on Seller Snap.
STEP 5: Once you are redirected to the Amazon software partner’s detail page, you can check the developing company, rating, contact details, pricing, and salient software features. In addition to that, you can also click the link to the software partner’s website to learn more about the software you intend to use.
Whenever you are searching for a third-party software solution to support your Amazon business, it is important to prioritize Amazon seller tools that have gained the trust and recognition of Amazon itself. By focusing on these seller tools that Amazon deems reliable and trustworthy, you can ensure higher compatibility, security, and seamless integration.
Maximizing Prime Day Success: Preparation Tips from Seller Snap Software Partners
Since no one has the monopoly of knowledge regarding success in general, we have reached out to our software partners to gain their insights that can help you prepare the upcoming Amazon sales event. Below are Prime Day tips shared by industry experts.
Ramp Up Your Rating Requests After the Event
“With the inevitable surge in order volume during Prime Day, it’s imperative that you have a plan for requesting feedback and reviews in place. Constantly asking for reviews after the event will improve your reputation and increase your sales potential in the long run.”
Boost Prime Day Sales with a Clever “Trap” Price Strategy
“When creating sale prices for Prime Day, consider setting a ‘trap’ price for products with variations. This means offering the less likely to sell variations at a lower price, which will draw in more customers and possibly boost sales of the higher-priced variations. This strategy can help maximize profits, increase visibility (by displaying a wider and lower price range), and give customers the best deal possible.”
Biggest Hack
“When purchasing products for resale, you may be able to be exempt from paying sales tax. Sales tax averages 7% across the US. Getting exempt from paying it on your purchases saves 7% on all your spending, boosting the overall profits and charging more competitive prices. Contact retailers like Walmart or Amazon to ask if tax exemption is possible.”
– RJM
Boost Your Amazon Sales on Prime Day by Optimizing Your Ads
“Prime Day on Amazon is a fiercely competitive battleground. Optimizing pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns is crucial. Analyzing keyword performance helps identify winners and losers, enabling strategic transfer to exact campaigns.
Increase bids for high-performing keywords and reduce bids for underperforming ones, minimizing unprofitable placements and cutting advertising costs. Employ ‘Main Keyword’ campaigns for high-search-volume keywords, allowing for easy adjustments to visibility with a few clicks.
Prepare for Prime Day like a pro by reviewing historical data, planning ahead, and scheduling ad boosts during peak traffic times. This ensures you’re well-positioned to display ads to ready-to-buy customers.”
– BidX
Maximize Sales: Manage FBA & FBM Inventory!
“As the deadline to submit inventory to FBA approaches, it’s crucial to remember the importance of managing your FBM (Fulfilled by Merchant) inventory as well.
Remember, managing both your FBA and FBM inventory is essential for maintaining a smooth operation and maximizing your sales potential. Stay on top of your numbers to handle any overflow effectively and keep your customers satisfied.”
– SkuVault
Restock In Advance!
“One helpful tip is to make sure you restock in advance. During busy times like Amazon Prime Days, the processing and transferring of shipments between warehouses can take longer than usual.
To ensure smooth processing and timely delivery, we recommend using our Restock tool. It provides an option to select restock quantities based on last year’s data for this season. This feature can be incredibly useful for planning your restocking accurately and efficiently.”
– EzCloud
How To Get the Prime Day Deal Badge Without Paying the Deal Fee
“Products that have the Prime Day Deal badge on Prime Day get a significant increase in click-through and conversions on Prime Day. But what if Amazon didn’t offer the opportunity for your ASIN to make a deal in the Deals tab? What if you missed the deadline for creating a Deal?
There is another way to create a Prime Day deal that you can do even on Prime Day itself, and it’s free! That’s through Prime Exclusive Discounts. Navigate to the Prime Exclusive Discounts tab, make sure your deal meets the guidelines, and you’ll get the Prime Day deal badge!”
– IG PPC
Know Your Numbers & Set a Goal
“In order to succeed on Prime Day, you need to know what you’re aiming for. Look at sales from previous years and set a goal for this year’s Prime Day sales. Share it with your team & make it a focus for the month leading up to and after Prime Day. The more you’re all focused on a goal outcome, the better you’ll be able to perform in hitting it.”
Be Omnipresent With Brand Loop Campaign Strategy
“Launching a Brand Loop campaign strategy is instrumental in safeguarding your market share and preventing competitors from running ads on your listings across various product categories. Use this strategy to block customers by acquiring top SERPs and listing pages with Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display ads.”
Preparation Is the Key
Adequate preparation for the upcoming Prime Day event allows you to be more confident in your business strategies. Taking into consideration the tips and insights mentioned above, you can enhance control over various aspects of your Amazon business, including but not limited to listing optimization, inventory management, and advertising.
Doing your best to prepare for Amazon Prime Day 2023 can lead to substantial profit and a strong foundation for future growth in your Amazon business.
