Amazon Prime Day 2019 is Coming. Are You Prepared?

Amazon Prime Day 2019 is coming! For those unfamiliar, Amazon Prime Day is the equivalent to Black Friday or Cyber Monday for Amazon. It’s when sellers offer up their best deals in the Amazon Marketplace. Right now, there are over 100,000,000 Americans using Amazon Prime. Last year Amazon sold $4.19 billion worth of goods on Prime Day, up from $2.41 billion in 2017. If you’re on Amazon – you don’t want to miss this. Here is everything you need to know.

When is Prime Day 2019?

The first question that needs to be addressed is – When exactly is Prime Day? Amazon hasn’t and won’t publicly declare the date until a few weeks out. However, it will for certain be in July, and estimates are centered around the 15th of July. Last year, it was a 36-hour event from July 16th – 17th. While we’re on the subject, another important question is – How long does Prime Day last? While technically it is usually a 1-2-day event, the sales opportunity goes far beyond that. Experts are suggesting sellers not only look at Amazon Prime Day 2019 as a week-long event but rather a month-long event! Yes, an entire month of deals on Amazon. The traffic will be there, so it’s up to you to take advantage of it.

How do I Participate?

Well, for one, you must be a seller on Amazon. You can be seller fulfilled, fulfilled by Amazon, vendor fulfilled, etc. Anyone on Amazon can participate. Now, selling products on Amazon does not mean you are automatically involved in Prime Day. To participate, you need to play the game by offering one of the following:

1. Offer Coupons
2. Add a Sale Price
3. Run a Promotion
4. Offer Free Shipping

All these options are available to all Amazon sellers in their Amazon dashboard. You can set the dates of your deals around the day itself, days before, or days after the event. You can have multiple deals at once, and I’d suggest doing so.

This year – Top coupons targeted to Amazon Prime members will be eligible to receive special merchandising for Prime Day Lead-up and Prime Day.

Coupons featured during Prime Day Lead-up and Prime Day must be submitted by June 14th, 2019 @11: 59 pm PDT and meet the following criteria:

• Provide a 20% off discount or more
• Target Amazon Prime Members
• Products must have at least a 3-star rating or no ratings
• Must be a Prime ASIN(s)

Note – you can still offer Prime Day deals AFTER this date however, they will not be eligible for the increased exposure on the marketplace.

Best Practices

1. Leverage Amazon Creative Content:
   • More than ever before, Amazon is making a concentrated effort to empower brands with the creative tools and features they need to establish their brand equity and promote shopper loyalty. Amazon currently offers a multitude of branding features including:
     • Amazon Stores
     • A+ Premium Content
     • Enhanced Brand Content
   • Not only do these creative features help to improve the aesthetics of brands on the Marketplace – but they also provide new opportunities to drive traffic to a brand’s entire catalog and increase detail page conversion rates.
2. Increase Your Bids
   • On Amazon Prime Day, Sellers should increase their advertising budgets, specifically for Sponsored Products & Amazon Marketing Services. Expect to increase your bids by (at least) 50%. Focus on your top converting/sales driving keywords Everyone and anyone will be looking to advertise their products leading up to Prime Day and you don’t want to miss out on valuable traffic. Remember, on Prime Day it’s better for advertisers to bid aggressively rather than miss out on sales completely.
3. Monitor Budgets
   • Because Bids and clicks are expected to rise, budgets will run out very quickly. Sellers should closely monitor their budgets throughout the day to make sure no advertising campaigns run out of money. Advertisers can check their Sponsored Products account-level budget caps located within the Advertising tab> Campaign Manager > Settings.
4. Test Ad Copy (early!)
   • Nothing is worse than finding out your ad is disapproved right before Amazon Prime Day. Starting now (and through the end of June), advertisers should be testing their Prime Day ad copy that has the highest CTR and sales for: AMS Headline Ads & Product Display Ads Seller Central Headline Search Ads.
5. Put Out Fires Quickly
   • Advertisers should identify fast-moving products and address issues the day of. According to Joe Selzer, it will be imperative for Sellers to keep a watchful eye on their account(s), identifying and responding to any issues or opportunities as quickly as possible. “With so many shoppers flooding the Marketplace looking to ‘buy now’, anything hindering a Seller’s ability to make their products both discoverable and buyable can spell big trouble in terms of lost sales.”
6. Amazon Prime Day Aftermath
   • Many Sellers will be increasing budgets and bids for Prime Day, but the rate at which they reverse those changes back to normal will vary widely. Sellers should also prepare for any operational aftermath including more returns to process, increase in customer questions, and more opportunity for FBA refunds. We expect a gradual return of advertising budgets & bids to “normal”.
7. Delays in Sales Data
   • If you’re not seeing the sales data you expected – don’t jump to conclusions. According to our experts, AMS (Amazon Marketing Services) reports could take several days to become available.
8. Use Outside Marketing Channels
   • It’s recommended to run ads from Facebook, Google, etc. towards Amazon during Prime Day. Consumers are expecting the best deals will be on Amazon, so sending them there can help improve Amazon conversion rate and your sales rank – getting you increased visibility during Prime Day.

Final Thoughts

Amazon Prime Day was huge last year and will be even bigger this year. The sale period will last longer, more people are using Amazon Prime than ever before, and the marketplace is as competitive as it’s ever been. You need to plan ahead. Come up with your strategy now, and make sure all your ads, store pages, product features, search terms, and everything else is good to go. Last year, the average increase in sales was 3x. Those who take full advantage of all the opportunities saw much, much more than a 3x increase. If you’re finding yourself overwhelmed, stuck on anything, or are simply looking for advice, please feel free to drop us a line here.

Hoping everyone has a great Prime Day 2019!