Amazon does more than offer a Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale. It hosts an event that allows customers to purchase deals throughout the month of November and into December where sellers experience a large increase in sales and customers can benefit from discounted offers.
This year, Black Friday and Cyber Monday fall on November 26th and November 29th, respectively.
Thanks to major retailers taking advantage of the holiday sale, competition for sales is a lot higher during Black Friday and Cyber Monday but over 50% of consumers start their product search on Amazon, so you can imagine the level of sales these days can bring both arbitrage and private label sellers.
How can you win big this Black Friday & Cyber Monday? Here are some valuable pointers.
Stock Status
Make sure you have a desirable and wide product selection available for consumers. Replenish any popular items early that are currently out of stock.
If you ship items to Amazon for Prime eligibility, there’s an extra layer of logistics to consider, so keep in mind prepping and shipment timescales to ensure you are in stock and maintain good stock levels through the holiday period.
Check that your available products and listings are optimized and all attributes are allocated so they are not placed in an inactive state.
Review Your Black Friday & Cyber Monday Data
Analyzing your previous sales and purchasing data will help predict trends and improve your efficiency for this year’s holiday period. If you have sales data available from last year in Seller Central and purchasing data, cross-reference them, look at what worked well, and review the current sales data for those product listings currently selling on Amazon.
Check across all categories so you can decipher which are doing better during this time of year and be prepared to allocate more spending budget to these products and categories.
Be Competitive
Many retailers online and in-store will be advertising offers which can complicate the pricing on Amazon. Be sure to keep a close eye on the conversion rates and look at the historic data of the product listings to gauge when the prices should increase, so you can decide on your pricing strategy. It is best to set max pricing rules for your products so that you can avoid pricing errors which will cause active stock on listings to be placed in an inactive state.
Set Up Your Ad Campaigns & Promotions
Sponsored ads for product listings that you hold the buy box for are shown to consumers surfing Amazon and you are more likely to achieve sales. Promotions also increase click-through rate and conversions—so you may wish to set up promotions for your products too.
They also help you stay relevant against your competitors, who will almost certainly be offering some kind of deal during the holiday season. Put sponsored ads and Amazon holiday promotions in place, to help increase your chances of consistent sales.
Here are some tips to help you prepare for the Amazon FBA holiday season that we have shared within our advanced Academy group:
Start testing out new ad campaigns. Create new automatic and manual campaigns using relevant keywords for your private label products. You can also use automatic campaigns for arbitrage product listings too.
Turn on Bid+ during the holidays. Bid+ is a feature in Amazon PPC manual campaigns that bids 150% of your normal bid if it would put your product onto the first page of search results. While 150% may seem like a lot to spend per click, remember that unit/session percentages are 200-300% higher during this time, so you actually end up saving money.
First in, first out rule. If you are purchasing stock in the holiday sales from retailers, be sure to have your goods prepped and shipped into Amazon FBA quickly so that you are ahead of the competition and capitalise on higher returns before the prices may tank.
Stay in stock. There’s nothing worse than running out of products before the holidays. All it takes is one great day of sales to have your entire inventory wiped out.
Summary: Focus on the Entire Q4 Period
In the years we have been selling, we have learned that most major retailers spend the bulk of their ad budgets on the days leading up to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, so make the most of the offers available and set a strict routine for sourcing in the lead up to these dates for your arbitrage sourcing.
And remember…the deals that you purchase during the holiday will no doubt continue to sell throughout the Q4 period given the distribution crisis that exists in the UK and consumer demand is predicted to be higher than previous years the closer we get to Christmas.
For private label sellers (and arbitrage sellers), Amazon ads are key to helping to generate additional sales during the holiday period.
Best of luck and let us know how you get on!
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