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Amazon has continuously broken its own sales records during the year-end shopping season in recent years. Last year, Amazon's global sales broke records again, with 50% of the platform's sales coming from small and medium-sized sellers. During the peak season last year, American consumers spent $126 billion online, an increase of more than 16%.
This year, more than 80% of consumers are expected to shop during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It’s time for sellers to start preparing for their year-end sales plans.
As an FBA seller, you need to ship the goods to the warehouse before the deadline set by Amazon.
1. Optimize peak season inventory recommendations
Here are some optimization tips for peak season inventory:
- Make sure to allow extra processing time for suppliers and shipping services, as shipments to FBA may take longer during busy peak seasons.
- As the peak season approaches, keep track of FBA warehousing trends at all times.
- Keep track of the quantity and size of products shipped to find out when they will be available for sale.
- If the seller is self-delivering, consider the time required to restock.
- Ensuring that there is sufficient inventory for hot-selling products to meet demand will not only improve the customer experience, but also increase the chances of participating in Amazon promotions.
- Ensure that the ASIN matches the product, otherwise it may result in a claim. The product must be consistent with the description on the detail page.
- Pay attention to improving the inventory of seasonal products. For example, if you sell outdoor or garden supplies, you don’t need to prepare as much inventory in the fourth quarter.
- Take proactive steps to improve your inventory performance metrics and avoid inventory constraints.
2. Leverage historical and real-time data
Data can help you prevent out-of-stocks and maintain inventory levels. Using data from last year’s peak season and Prime Day, you can effectively predict sales during this year’s peak season and develop corresponding inventory management strategies.
Through historical and real-time data, you can understand the development trajectory of your business and the changes in hot-selling products. If you are planning to launch a new product before the peak season, you can first check the sales data and competitive strength of similar products to understand the potential of the product.
Analyze the annual trend of products, understand the rising and falling curves, and help you accurately optimize product sales. In the peak season, you should especially use the "80/20 rule" and focus on the 20% of inventory that generates 80% of the profit.
3. Be familiar with key dates
Some holidays during the year-end peak season are peak sales periods. In order to optimize delivery, Amazon requires that products must be sent to FBA before a specific date.
In addition, the application deadline for Black Friday and Cyber Monday flash sales last year was mid-September, but this year it is October at the latest. Specific dates for this year's peak season: Thanksgiving: November 28 Black Friday: November 29 Cyber Monday: December 2 Christmas Day: December 25
Data shows that 58% of consumers who shop on Amazon today plan to shop on Black Friday, and 44% plan to shop on Cyber Monday. But even for Amazon's most loyal customers, only listings that convey effective information can drive them to buy. And 26% of consumers often buy products that rank first in search results. Given that competition on the Amazon platform is more intense during peak season, sellers need to focus more on optimizing product pages to ensure a positive experience for users.
1. Optimize keywords to improve conversion rate
Your product page is the first impression consumers get of you. To get consumers to buy your products, you need to make your products visible to them. Optimizing your listing before the peak season can increase product exposure. The product title is the focus of optimization, as it is the first thing people notice when they enter the product page. Optimizing keywords can help you get more clicks. Pay special attention to optimizing keywords related to holidays. For example, "gift" is a keyword that people will search for during the peak season. Sellers can add it to their listings to capture this wave of traffic. By creating concise, user-friendly product listings, consumers will be more inclined to purchase your products.
2. Optimize product images
In addition to poor product descriptions, low-resolution images can also cause customers to leave your page. Provide product images from multiple angles to make it easier for users to view your products. Use high-resolution product images with a white background, with a resolution of at least 1000 x 1000 pixels.
If the product is seasonal, you can provide seasonal product images. During peak seasons, you can even include gift packaging images of the product and use Amazon’s gift packaging service to attract users who buy gifts.
During the holidays, products are bundled and conversion rates are strong. You can create ASINs consisting of multiple products, which can drive products with slow inventory consumption. Sellers need to bundle complementary products.
Note that a bundle is a combination of multiple products with separate UPCs or ASINs, not multiple packaged versions of a single product. Run promotions and advertising
73% of sellers said that sales on Black Friday or Cyber Monday accounted for half of their total annual sales. In order to take advantage of the surge in traffic during the peak season, sellers need to develop a strategic advertising plan.
According to Juniper Research, Amazon's advertising revenue will reach $40 billion by 2023. As Amazon continues to invest in AI, advertising on its platform will become more inclusive and more efficient.
So the question for sellers now is not whether to advertise, but how to advertise. Especially during holidays, advertising brings more opportunities. You need to start evaluating your peak season advertising mix now and conduct diversified testing and optimization.
1. Amazon peak season advertising suggestions:
- Organize your promotional calendar and schedule marketing activities early.
- Plan new advertisements, promote the development of new business, implement upselling, etc.
- Conduct A/B testing to find promotions that resonate strongly with users.
- If you have a registered brand, consider using Sponsored Brands ads to maximize your brand reach.
- Start a new ad at least two weeks in advance with a budget of at least $100. This will give sellers enough time to make adjustments to their ads.
- Review your ads and consider increasing your budget to improve exposure. When setting your budget, refer to historical data.
- Amazon recommends that sellers set their daily budget during peak season 200% higher than usual to prevent budget shortfalls.
- Combine automatic and manual targeting to expand your audience. Select the best performing ad words in automatic ads and apply them to manual ads. Bid competitively.
- Set your campaigns to run continuously to reduce the risk of missing out on buyers after the holidays.
- It is recommended to add brand content to flash sale activities to improve conversion rate.
- Set negative keywords to avoid paying for irrelevant clicks.
2. Apply for Amazon’s promotions
7-day promotion and flash sales 7-Day Sale and Flash Sale are new promotions launched by Amazon, where products can run promotions for 7 days. If sellers want to increase their chances of getting approved for flash sales, please select products that buyers are most interested in. Sufficient product inventory can also increase the chances of being selected. Sellers can set up promotional activities in the following two forms: - Discounts. For example, offering a 30% discount;
Non-FBA sellers can also offer free shipping during peak seasons.
Among all promotional days, Amazon sellers believe that Black Friday is the day that brings the most sales. Amazon's Black Friday sales have repeatedly set records. Last year, Amazon sold 180 million products from Black Friday to Cyber Monday, and 70% of users bought promotional products during this period. - The seller's products must be priced competitively during the promotion period. Price is still the first factor affecting consumers' shopping.
- Before the peak season, sellers need to consider setting a minimum price for their products, and it must be a price that can compete with other products during the peak period.
- If the price is too high, it will be difficult to sell the product. Sellers can also use this period to clear out slow-moving inventory. On the other hand, if the inventory is about to run out, the price can be raised to prevent out-of-stock and restock as soon as possible.
Before the fourth quarter begins, sellers need to arrange inventory, test new advertising types and allocate budgets, as well as optimize listings and keywords. Start developing your fourth quarter strategy now.
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