E-Commerce Trends Amazon Prime day! How to Achieve Explosive Sales Performance?

What is Amazon Prime Day? Amazon Prime Day, the biggest discount event on Amazon held every July, started in 2015. In just 6 years since the first Prime Day, revenues from Prime Day in 2021 have increased more than tenfold. In just 6 years, Amazon Prime Day, along with Black Friday in November, has become the most important event in the U.S. market. This event is only for 48 hours, and sellers who want to participate must use FBA.

Prime Day seems like a festival that Amazon has prepared for sellers; however, only sellers, who have prepared thoroughly in advance, can enjoy this festival. Sellers, who are unable to do so, may achieve sales performance that is not much different from usual, or even suffer losses. Now, let’s take a look at strategies for sellers that want to become Prime Day winners.

It Doesn’t Sell Even After Discount… Which Products Sell Well on Prime Day? Can my product really benefit from Prime Day? Let’s make a prediction by looking at the best-selling categories and products of the past Amazon Prime Day. During the Amazon Prime Day in 2021, health & beauty products and consumer electronics were both placed first as the best-selling product categories on Amazon in the United States. They were followed by household essentials and apparel & shoes. ^[1] Specifically, ‘mouthwash’, ‘protein powder’, ‘DNA tester’, and ‘robot vacuum cleaner’ were the most sold products, and it can be seen that these products match the best-selling category.^[2] Looking back 2 years ago in the year 2020, ‘robot vacuum cleaner’, ‘smart remote control for warehouse door’, ‘personal water purifier’, ‘apple cider vinegar vitamin’, and ‘card game for children and family’ were selected as best sellers.^[3]

As shown above, you can predict whether your product will achieve high sales on Amazon Prime Day based on past data. For example, it may be possible to decide whether to participate in the Prime Day event by considering the category to which the product belongs.

How to 200% Utilize Prime Day’s Discount Promotion! Once you have decided to participate in a Prime Day event, you should check what discount programs are available. There are four main discount programs that can be applied during Prime Day: Spotlight Lighting Deal, Lightning Deal, Prime Exclusive Discount, and Prime Day Coupon.[4] Since sellers participating in deals during the Prime Day period are limited to a small number of sellers with outstanding performance, this will focus on Prime Exclusive Discount and Prime Day Coupon, which most sellers can participate in.

Prime Exclusive Discount (PED) must be applied 2 weeks before the Prime Day as of 2021, and certain conditions must be met in specific conditions such as discount amount, seller level, and product rating. When the discount is applied, the ‘Prime Day Deal’ badge is awarded and displayed in the listing. (Badges may not be awarded depending on the degree of competition of the product). This allows sellers to effectively promote products on sale to consumers. However, it should be noted that PED can be overlapped with existing coupons. Failure to check this may result in a large loss during the Prime Day period, so you must cancel the existing coupon or set the upper limit of the discount in advance.

In 2021, the application deadline for the Prime Day coupon was May 28. If a date is reserved that is supposedly the Prime Day, then Amazon will adjust it to an actual Prime Day period. Like PED, there are application conditions, and the application method is almost the same as the existing coupons. However, in the process of setting coupons, the target consumer must be converted into a prime member as shown in the following picture. This allows the user to be recognized as a participant of Prime Day, and the user’s product will be exposed to a separate promotional account.

As a result of analyzing the 2021 Prime Day performance data of Kontactic clients, the Prime Exclusive discount was far superior to the Prime Day coupon. Therefore, to promote sales during the Prime Day, application for PED on core ASINs is recommended. However, if it is difficult to apply for PED, then the use of the Prime Day coupon is recommended.

Another point to note is that a higher discount rate than usual must be provided on Prime Day, so selling a low base selling price for a product may make it difficult to participate in the event. So, it is recommended to set the base selling price at a casual pace in the early stages of entering Amazon and operate at an appropriate selling price by using promotions (coupons, deals, etc.). If a large discount rate is applied and exposed according to the Prime Day period, the effect of the promotion can be maximized. Additionally, as the overall sales promotion bid price rises during the Prime Day period, it is necessary to avoid unexpected budget losses through adjustment of existing advertising campaigns. Therefore, strategies of reducing the budget of a campaign for simple data collection or a low-performing campaign and investing in the advertising budget intensively in a high-performing campaign are recommended.

Let’s Prevent Being Unable to Sell Due to Lack of Stock! Since Amazon Prime Day is held for a short period of 48 hours, inventory management is less demanding than Black Friday, which is held for 1 to 2 weeks. However, the explosive consumption occurring on the Prime Day continues for a certain period of time even before and after the Prime Day. Therefore, more than the usual amount of inventory should be stocked up during the two-day Prime Day. Fortunately, the preparation time for Prime Day is not peak season when FBA storage fees increase significantly, unlike Black Friday, so a small amount of inventory with a relatively low burden can be secured. Additionally, it is also important to manage IPI scores on a regular basis, as it is advantageous for a seller to have a higher inventory limit.

To participate in Prime Day, inventory must be stocked in the FBA warehouse until the period specified by Amazon. This is called Prime Day Inventory Date Cut, and the deadline for stocking is set 1 month before Prime Day. It is important to note that in Shipment Management, the FBA status should be one of Delivered / Checked in / Receiving, instead of ‘Inbound’. Normally, it takes 2 to 3 days to transition from an inbound state, so a logistics warehousing plan should be established taking this into account.

These were the basic information about Amazon Prime Day, discount programs, and sales strategies. As millions of consumers eagerly wait for Prime Day, we hope that each seller achieves explosive sales by fully preparing for Prime Day by referring to the methods above.

Samsung SDS Cello Square, an Amazon FBA Service for the Perfect Prime Day For a smooth Amazon Prime Day, inventory management and delivery must be carried out without any problem because your items must be stored in Amazon FBA by the specified period. To achieve this, we recommend the use of Cello Square’s Amazon FBA service, which provides comprehensive logistics services across all areas of global logistics.

Based on long-standing IT expertise, know-how in various industries, and global logistics capabilities, Cello Square’s Amazon FBA service perfectly serves the customer needs. By operating all global logistics areas as a single platform, efficient logistics operations between bases worldwide are possible, and there are advantages of quickly expanding new technologies and best practices.

Based on 36 countries, 53 bases, and 230 sites, Samsung SDS Cello Service collaborate with 1,900 global logistics partners to operate the world’s top 10 cargo volumes, including about 410 thousand tons by air per year and about 1.1 million TEU by sea. Anyone can have a successful Prime Day if they prepare for Amazon Prime Day using Cello Square’s Amazon FBA express shipping service (Global, United States) and Amazon FBA ocean shipping service (Japan).

References [1]『Leading product categories purchased by Amazon Prime Day shoppers in the United States in 2021』, Statista 2022
[2]『Amazon Prime Day 2021 Best Selling Categories and Products』, SELLER SNAP
[3]『Amazon Prime Day 2020 Marked the Two Biggest Days Ever for Small & Medium Businesses in Amazon’s Stores Worldwide』, Press Center, Amazon.com
[4]『Prepare for Prime Day 2021: Brand-building Tactics to Try』, Amazon Ads

▶ This content is copyrighted by the author as a work protected by Copyright Law.
▶ This content prohibits secondary processing and commercial use without prior consent.