In 2023, Amazon Prime Day achieved record-breaking sales, generating $12.9 billion globally, a 7.5% increase from the $12 billion reported in 2022. This marked the highest sales ever recorded for Prime Day, with over 375 million items purchased worldwide​. 

Although the exact date is to be confirmed, Prime Day 2024 will be happening in July – available across Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the U.S., and the UK.

As a global marketplace expert full of Amazon specialists we’ve identified five tips that brands can implement to upgrade their growth with Prime Day.

1: Negotiate and establish the right Prime Day deals on Amazon

What Brands Can Do: Negotiating with Amazon means that brands need to do their homework. This includes a variety of calculations. What are the exact deal terms that Amazon is offering? For example, will Amazon send back unsold stock at your brand’s own costs? What do they expect in terms of marketing spend? Make sure that for every product that is eligible for Prime Day, solid calculations are done to weigh cost prices, volume discounts, and potential returns. 

2: Prepare all your products, even the ones that aren’t for Prime Day 

Not all sellers, vendors, or even products are invited to participate in Prime Day. For the brands that are invited to join, it’s certain that they’ll experience high traffic. This means that even though a lot of their products won’t be directly included in the Prime Day event, brands would still benefit from preparing all their available products; customers will likely browse through your products and experience various touch points outside of the Prime Day deals. Prime Day can in fact boost website traffic by up to four times the average rate, as well as Amazon traffic by 300-400%.

What Brands Can Do: Don’t just prepare your Prime Day products on Amazon, be sure to prepare all the other products and touchpoints that your customers could potentially come across (such as on your website) – before, during, and after Prime Day. Ensure that your content performance is competitive, your SEO keywords are optimized, your website is technically equipped for increased traffic, and all your Prime Day and non-Prime Day deals, promotions, and vouchers are set.  

Every year, Amazon invites brands to benefit from Prime Day deals. Smaller brands are invited by an automated system, while larger ones are invited and managed by an Amazon vendor manager. However most of the time negotiations are necessary before brands agree to participate – as Amazon will ask for significant discounts from them. It’s up to the brand to determine whether or not these discounts will be worth the extra volume and exposure that Prime Day will give them.

3: Craft and execute a Prime Day-specific advertising strategy

It’s not enough to simply ‘have’ products on discount during Prime Day. Competition is fierce and attention is hard to catch, especially during peak events. Advertising is what often gives the push that brands need to make a significant dent in their sales. This is why your advertising strategy will likely need a Prime Day-specific rehaul. Click prices will take a sharp rise due to all the marketing investments that numerous other brands, including your competitors, will make for the period. 

What Brands Can Do: Overhaul your advertising strategy to avoid bleeding out on expensive keywords or increased competition. Examine the keywords your competitors bid on, as well as the bids that are in the system. Select just a few strategic keywords and products that make sense for your campaign and focus your efforts on those. 

4: Benefit from the Afterglow

Once the height of the 48-hour Prime Day event passes, brands on Amazon can still benefit from spill-over traffic and sales. Look at it as more of a Prime Season rather than a mere day (or two). 

One key aspect to look into is the products that were successful during Prime Day. These products will reach a higher *“Best Sellers Rank” (BSR) – sometimes called the “Sales Rank” – after the event, and are therefore likely to generate more revenue for some time post-Prime Day.

*The BSR is an hourly-updated score that the Amazon algorithm automatically assigns to products based on historical and recent sales data, relative to other products in the same category. Being able to understand and take advantage of this tool will be crucial to growing sales on Amazon, especially post-Prime Day.

What Brands Can Do: Don’t underestimate the afterglow. Overall, brands should proactively engage with shoppers that missed the Prime Day deals but are still looking for late opportunities.

• For new-to-brand customers: Shoppers that got to know your brand during your Prime Day promotions are likely to continue being active and loyal after the event. ​​Engage these shoppers throughout the whole year with re-marketing campaigns.

• For late promotions: Inconsistent forecasting (or just bad luck) can lead to overstock after Prime Day. Drive extra promotion after the event to keep your sell through rates up and your stock issues down. 

5. For international players, apply the top 3 best practices for successful business expansion

Amazon is a powerful tool for local businesses looking to go international. However, simply opening your products up to foreign customers is not going to give you optimal results. 

Almost daily, there are companies that simply offer their products on Amazon to international audiences, without a strong underlying strategy or clear, market-specific plan. Such an expansion almost always ends in disappointment, despite the fact that Amazon is an ideal platform for reaching international target groups via ecommerce.

How, then, do you ensure successful international expansion through Amazon?

What Brands Can Do: Follow these three key best practices for successful international expansion via Amazon.

Even if we remove Prime Day from the equation, any brand looking to upgrade their growth through Amazon can benefit from learning the same fundamentals: Conduct cost-benefit analyses, optimize your content, be critical with your advertising strategy, focus efforts on the right keywords and products at specific periods throughout the year, and measure how shoppers are engaging with you across all touchpoints.

Keen for more insights on how your brand can drive sales and brand awareness for Prime Day and beyond? Perhaps you’re already looking to gear up for Prime Day 2.0 later in the year? Get in touch: 

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