Amazon Flash Sales-DOTD, BD and LD

1. Classification of flash sales

Amazon Deal Categories

Today's Deal includes three types: Lighting Deal, Best Deal and Deal of The Day.

1. Lighting Deal

Lighting Deal, referred to as LD, is a time-sensitive flash sale event, which usually lasts for 4 hours to 6 hours (different for sellers and vendors, 4 hours in the United States and 6 hours in Europe), and each ASIN costs US$150.

It should be noted that not all products can participate in Lightning Deals. Amazon clearly stipulates that e-cigarettes, alcohol, adult products, medical equipment, medicines, and infant formula cannot participate in LD activities. It is worth mentioning that Lightning Deals are the most effective way of promoting all products on Amazon. Amazon is very confident that sellers who participate in Lightning Deals can increase product traffic 1,000 times the normal level.

2. Best Deal

Best Deal, referred to as BD, is usually displayed as "Savings & Sales" on the interface. It is free and lasts for two weeks, covering the US and Japanese sites. The price of Best Deal will not be automatically modified and needs to be manually modified by the seller.

3. Deal of the Day

Deal of the Day, or "DOTD" for short, is free and only lasts for one day. There are only three ad slots per day, which are extremely valuable and free of charge. This is the best of Amazon's flash sales and the most difficult to apply for. When you open the Amazon App on your mobile device, the first thing that appears is Deal of the Day.

4. Outlet Deals

Outlet Deals are not so common. In fact, this flash sale is a limited-time flash sale promotion like LD and BD, which can usually last for three weeks. It is aimed at clearing out some products that are about to be removed from the shelves. The discount is usually very large, 25% OFF or even more.

Categories of Deals outside of Amazon

HotukDeals is also a large deal website in the United States. Its posting requirements require 1,000 Feedbacks and local registration (if the information is found to be registered by Chinese sellers, most of them will be deleted and the brand will be blocked). Compared with SD and HotukDeals, Kinja and Groupon are deal websites with very low requirements. As long as your product has more than four stars, you can apply for it for free. In fact, not every category of products is suitable for promotion and for using deals to attract traffic. Sellers must have a full grasp and understanding of the products before judging whether they can be promoted or not. In addition, the types of off-site deal websites are different. There are great differences between the overall audience and the common population. Sellers should choose the website category according to their products, such as clothing, maternal and child care, etc. The appropriate channel determines the conversion rate and sales of the seller's products. SlickDeal (SD for short), the largest deal website in the United States, has very high posting requirements. The number of feedbacks of the store posting on SlickeDeals must be greater than 1,000, the number of product reviews must be greater than 50, and the product rating must not be less than 4.0 points. For off-site deals such as SD, once they are on the homepage, it is basically certain that there will be more than 1,000 orders a day.

2. The difference between various flash sales activities

1. Different application channels

(1) Lightning Deal

A. When a Lighting Deal recommendation appears in the Amazon backend, sellers can apply directly through ADVERTISING--Lighting Deals in Seller Central;

B. Fill in the application form according to the investment manager's requirements.

Note: Because new products are not recommended for Lighting Deal, sellers can take the initiative to contact the investment manager to apply to participate in the Lightning Deal.

(2) Best Deal

You can only apply through the investment manager, who will submit the final version of the application to the US flash sale team for final review, and then the account manager will make the final submission to determine the launch time of the flash sale.

(3) Deal of the Day

This promotion is not open to sellers yet and cannot be applied for.

(4) Outlet Deals

Outlet Deals has always been an invitation-only program. Generally speaking, sellers can only submit the application form after receiving an invitation email from Amazon. Of course, you can also sign up through the Merchant Manager.

2. Different application frequencies

(1) Lightning Deal

Application frequency: once a month. Note: Electronic cigarettes, alcohol, adult products, medical equipment and medicines, infant formula and other products are not eligible for Lighting Deals.

(2) Best Deal

Application frequency: Up to 2 times per month.

(3) Deal of the Day

Unable to apply at this time.

III. Requirements for Flash Sales

1. Lighting Deal

Application requirements:

A. The flash sale price should be 20% lower than the gold shopping cart price. The product price within two weeks after the flash sale must be higher than the price when participating in the flash sale.

B. Flash sale products are 3P exclusive products. If the product has multiple sellers sharing the page, the flash sale customer must win the golden shopping cart, and the price should be the lowest at that time.

C. The product details page and pictures meet Amazon requirements, and the product rating is no less than 3 stars.

D. The more reviews the better. Electronic products, home decoration products, and office products require more than 10 reviews.

E. New products have a higher conversion rate and are more likely to be recommended or captured.

F. Lightning Deals are usually for Prime members and must be delivered using FBA with sufficient inventory.

2. Best Deal

Application requirements:

A. The product rating should be at least 3 stars (no requirement for new products).

B. 15% off or less of the current shopping cart price.

C. Use FBA for delivery.

3. Deal of the Day

This promotion is not open to sellers yet and cannot be applied for.

After successfully applying for the deal, you will receive an email from Amazon telling you the time to participate. If you feel that this time period is not suitable, you can choose to cancel and apply again.

4. Outlet Deals

Outlet Deals have always been invitation-only. Generally speaking, sellers can only submit the application form after receiving an invitation email from Amazon. Of course, you can also sign up through the investment manager. For the purpose of clearing inventory, the price must be low. According to the requirements, the product price must be 30% off the average selling price of the past 30 days, otherwise the registration is likely to fail. During the event period, the background will not automatically change the price. Sellers need to modify the product listing in the background to the price you quoted in the Deals. The modified price must be modified within the time given by Amazon.

There are also some requirements for ASIN participating in the event:

A. ASIN must meet the slow-moving requirements;

B. ASIN uses Amazon Logistics;

C. ASIN does not belong to categories such as clothing, shoes, jewelry, and watches.

4. Benefits of Flash Sales

Advantages of in-site deals:

1. The procedure is simple. You can apply directly through the account manager. If your product is good enough, Amazon will invite you to participate in the deal.

2. Traffic is more accurate and more LD appears on one of the most visited pages on Amazon, and its activities are also included in the search results. Deals can attract a large amount of free traffic from Amazon, which is huge.

3. It can improve ranking and sales.

4. Drive sales of other related products.

5. Help you clear out slow-moving inventory and seasonal products.

Difficulties of Dealing on the Site:

1. Amazon has strict requirements for applying for deals, and the first image title must be modified completely in accordance with the requirements.

2. The review time is long, which will affect the Listing Session and conversion.

3. If it is a Best Deal, Amazon will require a direct price reduction and can only raise the price after the event.

4. The price is much higher than that of off-site deals.

Advantages of off-site deals:

1. It is not restricted by the platform rules within the site.

2. Increase in recommended traffic.

3. Keyword rankings rise. Rapidly increase short-term sales and improve rankings.

4. Increase repurchase rate. Shopping guide websites generally attach great importance to interaction, and reasonable use of it plays a big role in increasing repurchase rate.

5. How to launch flash sales activities more effectively

When the natural ranking and sales volume of the listing keywords are not high, continuous flash sales will have obvious effects, gradually accumulate the weight of the listing (traffic, conversion rate, sales volume), and try to include multiple variants. Before the flash sale activity starts, the seller must first consider the competitive environment of the product category and whether similar products often appear in the flash sale interface. Secondly, the discount strength of the flash sale, that is, the price. Although the price of the flash sale is 80% or less of the shopping cart price, the seller can decide according to the competition situation in the industry when setting it. If the seller's category competition is very fierce (such as mobile power, Bluetooth headsets, etc.), then before doing the flash sale activity, you should often go to the front desk to browse the Deal page, check the flash sale situation of similar products, the price of peers participating in the flash sale, and track the sales volume of peers' flash sales. It is recommended to track for a long time. Then the seller should analyze the effect of the flash sale based on his own listing price and data. With the same flash sale price, what is his advantage, is it the picture, selling point, or the quality and quantity of the description and evaluation? Otherwise, even if the profit is sacrificed, the activities will be in vain. This is why many sellers do not have obvious effects in flash sales, or even no orders. Although flash sales can bring short-term exposure to sellers, if they do not lead to conversions, it will have a negative impact and will lower the natural ranking.

Buyers enter keywords and find the most suitable products through natural search to compare and place orders. Similarly, in Today's Deals, buyers are also looking for the most suitable products. They will compare prices, discounts, and product ratings before placing orders. However, flash sales are limited in time and quantity, which will stimulate orders. Buyers have an impulse to consume, so this situation will have a much higher conversion rate than products found through natural search. However, when sellers do flash sales for the first time for new products, they should not have too high expectations. After achieving the first small goal of flash sales, sellers can set the next small goal and proceed step by step.

6. Deal flash sale skills

1. Avoid negative reviews on the product homepage

To avoid having obvious negative reviews on the homepage of products participating in flash sales, sellers are advised to add some positive reviews for the products two weeks before the deal begins, and optimize the title, pictures, description, and A+ graphic page of the product details page.

2. Write a flash sale title

The writing of flash sale titles is very important. The number of characters in them is less than that of product titles. When writing, sellers should try to highlight the characteristics, functions and advantages of the products and use the simplest description to show the selling points of the products.

3. Post outside the site

Before the flash sale, post some posts outside of Amazon, such as Amazon Deal groups on Facebook, to drive traffic to the flash sale.

4. Change product prices before declaring a flash sale

According to US data, buyers are more willing to accept discounts of 71-73%. Sellers can change product prices before declaring a flash sale to increase the discount between the selling price and the list price. It is recommended to set the discount between 71-73%.

5. Streamlining the number of applications

The seller’s flash sale completion rate will be assessed by Amazon’s flash sale department. The flash sale completion rate will directly affect the seller’s frequency of participating in flash sales, so the number of submissions should not be too large, just slightly more than the minimum recommendation to ensure that the flash sale can be completed on time.

6. Advertising

Advertising can attract customers, increase traffic and click-through rates, and thus increase product conversion rates, but sellers must ensure that the budget is sufficient to ensure maximum exposure of the product.

7. Common Problems of Flash Sales

·Price issues of Deals on Amazon:

According to the official statement, it is usually 20% off the lowest price of all offers under the listing within a month. The price of deals can be directly referenced by camel camel camel. Generally speaking, it is profitable, but if it involves being copied at a low price, the deal cannot be made. When encountering the situation where the price of deals is lowered by copying, the seller can directly open a case to Amazon to explain the situation, or directly contact his own account manager, who has the final decision authority on the price of deals.

Many sellers are concerned about the price manipulation of Amazon Deals. In fact, there is no effective way to solve this problem. It is nothing more than planning when new products are launched. Anyway, most of the time during the new product period, orders are fake and there will be no real consumers to buy them. In the early stage of new products, the prices are raised a little, and then more flash sales are made to improve the ranking. Later, the prices can be lowered after stabilization. Of course, there are special methods for BD. After the BD application is successful, the price can be adjusted back to the original price in the background, which is also an important reason why BD is sought after.

Ranking issues of Deals on Amazon:

The ranking of Amazon Deals is very important, because there are many channels for applying for Deals now, and the backend is also open. There are more and more Deals on the site, and the effect of Deals is far less than before. The competition for Deals ranking is no less fierce than the natural ranking of normal products. And it is the same as the natural ranking. If the ranking is low, basically there will be few orders from Deals, and sometimes even no orders. It is really annoying to spend money to apply for Deals, but no orders are made.

The ranking of Deals is determined by the following factors:

1. The performance of the last Deals of the product will show the order situation. If the performance was good last time, the ranking this time will be high. If the performance was bad last time, the ranking this time will be low.

2. The traffic volume and order status of the listing during the product deals period and a few days before the deals start.

3. The listing time. The newer the product, the higher the Deals ranking.

4. This is for LD. The higher the percentage of LD progress bar, the higher the ranking.

Manipulating the ranking based on these ranking determining factors, combined with the operation progress bar and shopping cart, the effect is very good. The best golden time for manipulation should be three days before the start of the deals and the period when the deals officially start. However, if you are a firm supporter of white hat gameplay, then you only need to increase the advertising budget and increase the advertising keyword bidding in the three days before your product runs deals, including the day of the deals, to have a good promotion effect on the ranking. If you can assist with off-site promotion, such as Facebook advertising, it will be even better. The purpose is to introduce high-quality traffic during the deals period and increase orders as much as possible.

8. How to avoid being included in the flash sale blacklist

1. The main reasons for being blacklisted include but are not limited to:

• The manufacturer's suggested price was not reset to zero before going online;

• The price is not changed in time when it goes online or the changed price is higher than the deal price;

• Displaying inflated discounts when going online;

• Manipulating prices after going online (for example, deliberately raising prices during a certain period of time and then lowering them);

• After going online, an illegal main image was used;

• After the product goes online, it is out of stock (or taken off the shelves) without proper control of the front-end price.

2. Refer to the following settings:

• Standard settings:

• Normally and during LD/DOTD:

• Your Price: Normal selling price;

• Sale Price: Leave blank;

• List Price (MSRP): Regular selling price/leave it blank (preferably left blank). (ie, do not set a Sale Price)

• BD seckill settings:

• Report BD time:

• Your Price: Normal selling price;

• Sale Price: BD Deal price (set the corresponding BD running period, usually two or three weeks);

• List Price (MSRP): Regular selling price/leave blank (preferably leave blank);

• Among them, the so-called normal selling price of List Price must be consistent with the main daily transaction prices in the past 30 days, and should also be consistent with Your Price, and cannot be a high price that is rarely traded or has never been traded.

IX. Q&A

Q: After Amazon approves the registration for the flash sale, can the price of the product still be changed?

A: The listing cannot have any price increase before the flash sale, Amazon can detect it.

Q: How to get a better ranking in a flash sale?

A: Amazon will promote the most attractive (lowest discount, best sales) flash sales products on or near the homepage of the Deal promotion. Amazon's flash sales activities compete with each other, and the positions will change constantly. If sellers want their flash sales products to have the opportunity to be displayed in a prominent position, they need to consider the following when creating a flash sales activity: Buyers like flash sales products with strong supply capabilities, so the flash sales products need to include as many variants as possible (such as size, color, style, etc.); Buyers like low-priced products, and if sellers offer as low prices as possible, they can also improve the display position.

Q: How can I check the submission status of a flash sale?

A: Find the status of the flash sale in the All tab on the right side of the flash sale control panel. The following are the various flash sale statuses.

Draft: The deal has been saved but has not yet been submitted for review, or the submission has failed.

Under review: The deal has been submitted for review and is awaiting approval from Amazon.

Needs Editing: The deal requires action before it can be approved.

Waiting: The deal is eligible, is waiting for a deal schedule, and will be provided before the deal start date (usually within 7 days).

Starting Soon: The flash sale meets the conditions and the system has assigned a scheduled date and time. Please note that the scheduled date and time are automatically generated and cannot be changed. In other words, the flash sale time is scheduled by the system and cannot be modified by the seller. If you are not satisfied with the time scheduled by the system, the seller can delete the flash sale application and resubmit it to change the flash sale time.

Ongoing: The deal is currently ongoing.

Ended: The flash sale has ended.

Suppressed: The deal does not currently meet the eligibility criteria. Sellers need to take action to run the deal and avoid it being cancelled. This situation requires sellers to resolve some issues to make the product eligible, such as ensuring that available inventory meets the minimum quantity required to run the promotion and the promotion price is not higher than the maximum promotion price. However, not all eligibility criteria issues can be resolved by sellers.

Cancelled: The deal has been canceled and will not be launched. This may be because the seller manually canceled the deal before it was launched, or the deal did not meet the eligibility criteria.

Q: How to cancel a flash sale?

A: You can cancel a flash sale at any time before it starts. However, if you cancel a flash sale within 25 hours of its start time, you will receive the following warning: "If you cancel a flash sale within 25 hours of its start time multiple times within a year, the system may revoke your permission to create a new flash sale."

Q: Why can’t I create an effective flash sale after receiving a product recommendation?

A: This may be due to a number of reasons, including but not limited to: if the product is a variation ASLN (e.g., an ASIN with multiple child products), the product may have too many ineligible child products and can only create a flash sale for the ASINs of eligible child products; there may not be enough available inventory to fulfill the minimum promotional quantity; the eligibility criteria changed between the time the initial recommendation and the time the seller attempted to create the flash sale.

Q: What should I do if I receive the message "You must add at least all product variations (such as size, color, etc.) in the proposed Lightning Deal"?

A: Amazon's system will only display this information for variant ASINs. The percentage of child ASINs may vary by marketplace and product category and is subject to change at any time. While Amazon does not provide any guarantees, increasing the number of child ASINs in your Lightning Deal may increase the likelihood of meeting this specific eligibility requirement.

Q: The backend just gave the seller a flash sale. Can I modify the title?

A: You can modify the title, but you cannot raise the price.

Q：After setting Your Price and Sale Price, will the flash sale price be affected after the event starts?

A: No. The flash sale is calculated based on the lowest transaction price and has nothing to do with the original price.

Q: If I offer a Lighting Deal on one of the European sites, will it be valid across all European sites?

A: No, the five sites are independent. We will do LD at the site that has a recommendation.