Amazon Prime Day, the largest annual members-only retail event, usually takes place mid-July but will now be delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic, giving brands the chance to take stock and re-think their plans.
As of December 2019, there were an estimated 112 million Amazon Prime subscribers, with sales from last year’s Prime Day amounting to an incredible estimated total of $7.16 billion – up from 2018’s $4.19 billion. In fact, Amazon sold more than 175 million items during last year’s Prime Day shopping event, more than its sales for the past Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.
So, it’s no surprise that this 48-hour online spectacular attracts the attention of so many retailers and brands. If businesses aren’t already building a dedicated strategy for the online e-tail giant into their core marketing plans, these figures are a strong call to action. Vendors could miss out on a huge opportunity if they don’t prepare and maximise this year.
To keep pace with growing interest and the evolving shopper landscape, the e-tailer is introducing a number of new features for brands this year. The new tools will help brands and sellers understand and measure their pages’ performance better, optimise and increase their stores’ presence and gather detailed insight about traffic, sources, pages and sales via comprehensive reporting.
New headline search placement options and a custom bid adjustment feature for bids of other headline search placements will also give vendors more control over how much they’re willing to adjust their bids, providing improved Amazon vendor management.
These changes follow last year’s launch of ‘Business Prime’ in the UK; a service that extends the benefits of Prime delivery such as unlimited One-Day, Same-Day and Nominated-Day delivery to large or small businesses. It also allows customers to review data spent, identify opportunities to save money and set policies that improve their compliance with purchasing policies to help maximise their budget.
All of these innovations suggest that Amazon is predicting an even bigger sales opportunity this year for brands who are prepared. To ensure you don’t miss out, we believe the key is proper Amazon account management and maintaining your performance during the event itself. So, here are our top recommendations on how to win this Prime Day:
1. Amazon choice products
2. Building compelling A+ content
3. Long and short-term tactics for effective AMS and AMG campaigns
4. Maximising every opportunity to attract and convert shoppers
1. Amazon choice products
There is no shortcut method to getting the ‘Amazon choice’ label on your product’s page, but it is undeniable that this stamp of approval gives an additional appeal to buyers. So, when searching for the ‘best toaster oven’ for example, your product can be pushed up in the results, based on price, availability and rating. Brands must ensure their product pages encompass good reviews, decent prices and fast shipping options which, if not granting them the ‘Amazon choice’ label, will at least get them a step closer to it.
2. Building compelling A+ content
It’s important to ensure you have the correct, descriptive copy for your product pages, enhancing your product’s visibility. Many vendors still make the obvious mistake of using low resolution or old product images, which hinders performance. The right media choice for your A+ content, like optimised images, video material and comparison charts can increase sales by an average of 3% to 10%. This helps customers overcome purchase hesitations and make an informed buying decision.
3. Long and short-term tactics for effective AMS and AMG campaigns
While Prime Day is a short 48-hour burst, it’s important that vendors spend time fine tuning both short-term tactics (for Prime Day) and long-term strategy – whether for product launches, incremental sales or an always-on approach. Maintaining a consistent presence throughout the whole year and optimising stores and product pages in terms of media choice ahead of a product launch or Prime Day is vital to boosting customer confidence in the purchase process. Brands need to be constantly testing their strategies and methods, analysing their products’ performance and undertaking shopper-focused research throughout the whole year to safeguard their potential success.
Many choose to partner with external specialists, who can provide the expertise, skillset, experience and insight needed to complete focused optimisation programmes. Using an external company can also help businesses hold on to increased Prime Day traffic, which often requires a lot more time, attention and work than the rest of the year. This can help build a strong foundation to serve brands from this Prime Day to the next. Ecommerce activity is a cycle that requires considerate maintenance.
4. Maximising every opportunity to attract and convert shoppers
While Amazon is a huge player in the eCommerce space, physical stores and brands’ websites continue to drive plenty of business. As such, maintaining consistency inside and outside of Amazon’s platform is crucial to upholding a seamless shopper journey that customers increasingly expect and demand. Sustaining consistency in tone of voice, pricing, product description and presentation across all channels can further help cater to their shoppers’ needs.
Yet, some businesses, including consumer electronics brands, have been slow to the party. Better late than never we say. A growing number of businesses are seeing the positive results, and consequentially ROI, they can achieve if they have their own Amazon brand stores, instead of working with distributors. Even if they’re only just starting to use Amazon marketing services now, knowing that brands’ sales off of Amazon grew by 30% on Prime Day 2017 means many businesses can already envision the benefits the events’ online shopping holiday brings.
We recommend that brands start using Amazon’s full suite of features and tools, maximising the e-tail giant’s services so that that they can build a solid presence that drives sales. The stronger your Storefront, the more it shows up in searches, the more it gets clicked on, considered and chosen. Many choose to entrust and work with knowledgeable partners who can support their activity on the platform by adopting the right strategic process for them. Not maximising on Prime Day will be a missed opportunity for brands, especially considering the current challenging and unpredictable climate.
Written by Matthew Howes, Client Partner at Melody, an Amazon agency based in London.
