Get your brand prepared for Amazon Prime Day 2022
How to ensure your brand is ready to capitalise on Amazon Prime Day 2022. Our knowledgeable Amazon Specialists have created a Prime Day checklist for brands. Start preparing now, and don’t miss the Prime Day deadlines.
Amazon Prime Day is one of the biggest shopping holidays in the year, particularly for big brands. Amazon has recently confirmed the two-day event will take place in July 2022.
The exact date in July has not been announced. However, we predict that the 48-hour sale will take place on Monday 18 July through to Tuesday 19 July.
You need to be sure that your brand is ready to capitalise on a shopping event that now rivals Cyber Monday and Black Friday here in the UK. This means preparing for the event now.
In this post, we tap into the knowledge of our expert Amazon Consultants to help your brand prepare for Amazon Prime Day 2022. You’ll find the important preparation dates, and a useful Prime Day checklist.
Make the most of Prime Day 2022
During this two-day sale, which was first launched in 2015, your brand has the opportunity to highlight sale prices throughout the entire two-day event, as well as running promotions during the lead-up. You can offer lightning deals, prime member promotions and discounts, plus coupons.
You might think that it’s too early to think about Amazon Prime Day, especially as the date has yet to be confirmed. However, you need to begin preparing now, particularly in light of the Amazon Prime Day 2022 deadlines below.
We shouldn’t really need to tell you why Prime Day is important. In 2021, sales alone during this 48-hour event reached a record high – amounting to around £9.5 billion worldwide.
In the UK, statistics reveal that 10.1 million households are Amazon Prime members. Plus, nearly 90 per cent of shoppers in the UK regularly buy from the platform. That’s a lot of potential business during this peak sales period.
Who is buying what during Amazon Prime Day
Before we dive into preparing for Prime Day, here are some insights into Prime Day shopping. In 2021, Prime members shopped more and saved more than any other Prime Day on record, purchasing more than 250 million items worldwide. Globally, the best-selling categories for Prime Day 2021 included:
- Tools
- Health and Beauty
- Nutrition
- Baby care
- Electronics
- Apparel
- Household products.
However, success isn’t limited to these markets. Every category that’s operating on the platform enjoys Prime Day sales increases. In 2021, the top-selling products worldwide for Prime Day 2021 included:
- iRobot Roomba 692 Robot Vacuum,
- Keurig K-Slim Coffee Maker,
- Apple Cider Vinegar Gummy Vitamins by Goli Nutrition,
- Crest 3D White Professional Effects Whitestrips.
Focusing on the UK, the top three products that sold during this 48-hour period in 2021 were:
- Shark Anti Hair Wrap Cordless Stick Vacuum Cleaner,
- CereVe SA Smoothing Cleanser,
- Jack Daniel’s Gentleman Jack Tennessee Whiskey.
In addition, other categories like Smart home devices, Toys, and Pet Care all performed well with consumers taking advantage of the special promotions and discounts during Amazon Prime Day last year. What this demonstrates is the broad scope for success on Prime Day.
Big Brands will leverage Amazon Prime Day 2022
We know that Amazon Prime Day is Amazon’s biggest sale of the year. However, it’s important to note that increasing numbers of big brands are now advertising and selling their products during this 48-hour extravaganza. In fact, Prime Day, and the two week period leading up to the date, is particularly important for brands selling on Amazon.
In 2021, the fashion and beauty deals alone included high profile market leaders such as Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, L’Oréal Paris and Maybelline. Sales results show that consumers were quick to take advantage of special pricing opportunities on recognised brands. Consumers clearly enjoy taking advantage of big name discounts and promotions during Prime day.
For brands, Amazon Prime Day provides a great time to create new audiences and drive sales to your business in 2022. Lower price points give some consumers the opportunity to experience your brand at a discounted price, with the view of creating long-term loyalty and future purchases outside of Prime Day.
Finding the best products and deals for Amazon Prime Day 2022
Amazon Prime Day 2022 can be a great way to offload underperforming product lines. Likewise it gives your brand the opportunity to sell overstocked items. You can offer a heavy discount on ‘not so hot’ items during Prime Day to shift extra units.
What about obsolete products? You can use this opportunity to clear old product lines from your stock to free up space for the latest range.
Alternatively, you may have a high profile product that discounting could facilitate a rise up Amazon’s search rankings. Think about offering a discount on this product during Prime Day 2022 to create bumper sales and boost your profile on the platform.
These are the different types of deals that you can consider for Prime Day:
Lightning Deal
An Amazon Lightning Deal is a promotion in which a limited number of discounts are offered on an item for a short period. This is a good way to create a buzz around your brand if you are heavily discounting a limited amounts of stock. We recommend a minimum discount of 20% off your lowest price over the past year.
Spotlight Deal
A Spotlight Deal is similar to above, but Amazon highlights the most exciting products offered at spectacular discounts during Prime Day. This is perfect for driving huge traffic and brand awareness. However, to become eligible for Spotlight deals, you must offer discounts of at least 30%, with savings ideally in excess of £100.
Coupons
Amazon Coupons are a way for customers to save either a specific monetary amount or percentage off of the price of a product. This is an ideal type of discount if you plan on running off-Amazon promotions, which we discuss below.
Prime Exclusive Discount
Prime Exclusive Discount is a price discount available to Prime members only. Product offers with a Prime Exclusive Discount will show a discounted price with the regular price crossed out. This can draw attention to your products on Prime Day, if your product category already draws significant traffic.
Be creative. See this year’s Amazon Prime Day as an opportunity to work for you on more levels than just sales. We touch upon the Amazon flywheel and halo effect below.
Prep for Amazon Prime Day 2022 now
You should start preparing for Amazon Prime day immediately, but you don’t have long. Although a firm date hasn’t been released yet, these are the expected Amazon Prime Day Deadlines:
- 13 May: Lightning Deal submissions Deadline. This is the UK deadline for telling Amazon which Lightning Deals you would like to run.
- 6th June: Coupon Submission Deadline. This is our anticipated cut off date for submitting your Coupon requests in time for Prime Day.
- 20th June: Inbound Shipping Cut-off Deadline. This is our anticipated cut off date for getting your stock into the Amazon warehouse.
- 8 July: Prime Exclusive Discounts Deadline. If Prime Day falls on our expected date, it is likely that you will need to apply your Prime discounts by this day.
We will update the date list as more information becomes available, but it’s worth working towards deadlines in advance of these estimated dates.
Getting ready for Prime Day 2022 – Checklist
1. Choose your products
Choose your products wisely. Check your historical performance during previous Prime Day sales to help you plan.
Select a product that could realistically achieve high sales, and one that can be heavily discounted. High sales on Prime Day will deliver longer term visibility benefits on Amazon, so look beyond the sales benefits. There are successful brands that strategically make losses on Prime Day in order to meet other goals.
It goes without saying that you need to check inventory levels now. Unintentionally running out of inventory or being unable to fulfil orders is a disaster when selling on Amazon.
2. Submit your Lightning Deals or Coupons
If you want to get in on the Prime Day Lightning Deals action, you must submit a deal demonstrating the discount on your products. Deal types for sellers are Lightning Deals and 7-Day Deals. Deal types for vendors are Lightning Deals and Best Deals.
Plan your deal now and understand what’s available to your brand. Note that lightning Deal fees will be higher if you run one during the Prime Day window. It’s also worth noting that not all sellers will have the option to submit these deals.
Even if you are not able to run Lightning Deals during Prime Day deals week, you can capitalise on site traffic by running coupons/vouchers instead. Coupons can help drive traffic to your products. They can also help clear out any overstock, old product variations, or simply focus on certain lines.
3. Optimise your landing pages
There is no point in investing in discounts and promotional ads if your landing pages are not fully optimised. Remember, Prime Day may generate a lot of traffic, but it is still highly competitive. Therefore, it is essential to give visitors to your pages an exceptional brand experience.
Make sure your titles, images, and descriptions are fully optimised. In particular, use high-quality images, and if you are a brand, be sure to storyboard your images. Give your product descriptions the same level of attention by using our best practice for Amazon listings.
In addition, use the new Amazon’s brand story features to communicate your brand message and build trust.
Check this blog from Optimizon’s creative experts about how to fully optimise your Amazon listings.
4. Prepare your ads
If you haven’t already, get your Amazon advertising in place. Big brands normally begin their Prime Day targeting up to 90 days in advance. So your ads and creatives need to be ready.
Optimise your Amazon Ad campaigns in the knowledge that traffic will increase +30% even in the week leading up to Prime Day. This will require you to fine-tune your bids and targets in order to remain competitive.
Having good data intelligence, analytics, and automated solutions to stand out among your Amazon competitors is always a smart choice. It’s never too early to speak with an Amazon Advertising expert about adopting a data-driven approach to your Prime Day deals.
Beyond the technical aspects of your ads, ensure that your ad creatives are clear and concise, and that your offers are appealing and easy to understand. Again, you will be competing for visibility on Prime Day, so don’t over-complicate your offer. Make it generous and eye-catching.
Remember, high sales on Prime Day will deliver long-term visibility benefits on Amazon, so don’t run half-hearted campaigns. Go for it and reap the rewards.
In addition, you should leverage your presence outside of Amazon. Offering deals and promotions on brand websites is an important way to maximise Prime Day sales.
Understandably there is a tendency for brands to resist sending traffic from the brand site to the Amazon listings. However, driving inbound traffic to your listings will pay dividends later. In other words, Amazon loves seeing inbound traffic coming to your products – particularly traffic with a high buyer intent, and Amazon will reward you for it. Using coupons and deals to pump-prime your listings is a fantastic way to climb up Amazon’s rankings.
5. Ensure your logistics are in place
Make sure that the entire consumer experience matches the quality of your brand. Once an item is sold, you want it to arrive with your customer without any issues or delays. If you aren’t using Amazon FBA, ensure that your sale items are ready to dispatch immediately (this is what Prime customers expect).
6. Take advantage of the Halo effect after Prime Day ends
Amazon rewards you for ‘feeding the Amazon flywheel’. As a result, the increased sales velocity you generate on Prime Day will help your organic ranking. In addition, you can boost your non-Prime Day deals by running targeted ads for high-traffic keywords to move all of your products up the rankings off the back of this increased momentum.
7. Don’t forget your customers
It’s an obvious point, but when it comes to selling on Amazon; customer experience should always be your top priority. This, after all, is what Amazon cares most about, which the Amazon Flywheel perfectly demonstrates. This should be no different when it comes to your Prime Day 2022 offers and fulfilment. Too many brands can end up providing a poorer customer experience during sale time, which can damage your brand instead of promoting it.
If you need any assistance with optimising your listings or preparing your sales, please get in touch with us to see how we can help your brand to increase sales.
