Amazon prime day 2018 — How well are you prepared for the etail extravaganza?

The Amazon prime day — the most awaited big sale day among the buyers and sellers is all set to roll out on 16th of this month which gives sellers a very less time to see if they’re already set. This year the prime day is said to extend to 36 hours, unlike the previous year which lasted only for 30 hours.

Big sale day — Roll out the colorful prime day sales in style!

Amazon has given out the official prime day (exclusive for prime members — which is a whopping 100 million) to be July 16 which means there would be tremendous buzz, overflow of traffic to the Amazon site, promotions and advertising anywhere you roll your eyes. This is particularly overwhelming for sellers on Amazon with so many things to plan, organize, and track.

Besides, this is year only a day prior (July 15) is the FIFA world championship final, which is also something that is blown out of proportion with a tendency to steal focus.

This does not necessarily steal the prime day thunder. But what if it does?

This one day of global shopping is indeed a huge deal because the sales and revenues would go an all-time high and the sellers cannot afford to be lethargic. You may want to capitalize on this golden day to make up if you have had a rough business until June and take the positivity forward.

“The company’s Alexa-powered Echo devices and its Whole Foods chain will both drive sales and membership, according to Ryne Misso, director of marketing at Market Track”

A quick checklist to see if you are right on track and all geared up for the big day.

1. Advertise aggressively

Advertising gets more important than usual during seasonal times, festivals, holidays, and such big sale days. It is because while general advertising is to keep your customers aware of the brand while seasonal advertising is all aimed at driving sales vigorously. It is not just to keep your customers aware but to persuade them, tempt them, make them realize that the offers are something not to miss.

Now, there are a lot of efforts required and your advertising agency and teams should be on fire. See if you’ve covered all of this and if not buck up already!

• There’s a parade of visitors to the Amazon homepage, you may want to be visible as the sponsored products on the homepage to be able to cut through the competition from tons of other sellers
• Increase your ad budgets and spending through display ads, feature on advertising boards and banners in the most happening places
• Run email campaigns targeting prime members and let them know what deals, product selection, and other interesting benefits you have to offer through a well thought email copy reaching the right audience
• Get onto social media and keep the social butterflies up to date about the sale through paid ads or posts from your handles

2. Wide range of selection

Amazon prime day is a huge opportunity and you must have really thought through the categories for sale. It is very important to be there to offer what is expected of you. If a buyer is searching for a product that you sell (color, size, designs included) and you have not made efforts to make it available or have no adequate inventory to meet the demand, well then, you can expect to see the prime day as a failure to your business.

It is not easy to divert the traffic from other marketplaces to a single online store unless a marketplace does something like this. If you are already a seller on Amazon, then you may have to be stubborn about having a wide range of selection with a good and filled inventory.

What do you have to eye on?

• Increasing catalog size
• Audit products and identify what is not listed
• Maintain inventory levels
• Purchase your selection from vendors — stock it up!

3. Amp up SEO efforts

SEO is always a critical piece be it during the season or off. Its significance needs no justification so let’s head straight to what you have got to be doing to magnetize the crowd to put you on the spotlight.

• Begin by optimizing the titles and descriptions with rich keywords and SEO-charged product content. This would be the most basic thing to do in order to achieve the primary visibility
• Audit your product taxonomy structuring and all the categories as the navigation and categorization of products play a key role in the listing of a product on the results page. If you find there are issues in taxonomies, fix them right away.
• Ensure that all your images are high-resolution covering different angles of the product if needed include product videos demonstration. This way you can reduce conversion bounces due to distrust of customers
• Compare your listings with competitors who are making it up to the results page. Analyze and fill the gaps, if any
• Make sure that you respond to reviews. Your responses and responsibility towards positive and constructive feedback help in pushing ranks higher by the means of getting in the good books of the customer thereby a repeat purchase through direct searches and becoming a trusted seller for the marketplace — which is Amazon in our case. This strengthens the keyword coverage by getting embedded in the search algorithm

4. Offer good pricing deals

Pricing truly makes or breaks your business. During sale seasons, pricing particularly gets more competitive as all the competitors are working their way up through top-notch pricing strategies as the price is seen as a powerful weapon for conversions. Here are some things you need to bear in mind while you price.

• Have a good pricing strategy in place, compare competitor prices, understand the market and demand, customer demography, and availability. Pricing analytics will not only help you reduce cart abandonment but also in rankings and SEO
• Free shipping is very important to bulk up the order size. To increase the purchase volumes, have a reasonable shipping threshold to draw customers towards your products
• Take advantage of the Amazon repricer tool that helps you set the best possible and competitive prices for all the SKUs continuously, to boost the buy-box opportunities aiming at higher profits

Not sure where to begin? Take a peek at some pricing strategies to help you plan the pricing effectively right here.

5. Rekindle the ripple effect

This is the phase after the prime day wherein the buzz, interest, traffic, and visits will still be around. How to capitalize on this?

• Review your sales to find out who has shown a lot of interest in your products and analyze the need for it apart from the price deals. This will make follow-up and targeting a lot easier for you
• Capitalize on the momentum and continue your promotional campaigns, enrich your content frequently, and get obsessive with retargeting, scaling up business, and improving the customer experience

Wrapping up

If you already preparing for the D-day or if you are about to implement a few ideas, we hope our post was useful to get you prepped up. Feel free to reach out to us if you are looking to fix taxonomies, enriching your content, nailing the SEO, or for pricing strategies.

Have a great and profitable prime day!

Originally published at blog.mobiusservices.com on July 5, 2018.