With little time to prepare, brands and retailers must get inventory, listings and campaigns ready for the lift in traffic Prime Day offers.

Chris Palmer

Chris Palmer, CEO of SupplyKick

Following a record-breaking event last year ($10 billion in global Prime Day sales) and a record first quarter for Amazon (60% revenue growth in Q1), Prime Day 2021 promises to be bigger than ever as more shoppers continue to buy more online.

Officially announced by Amazon on June 2, Prime Day will occur on June 21-22, 2021. Besides Father’s Day gifting and graduations, June is generally a slower season on the retail calendar. Last year due to the pandemic, Prime Day moved from its usual mid-July slot to October 2020, resulting in an early kickoff to the holiday shopping season.

With little time to prepare, brands and retailers need to get inventory, listings, and campaigns ready for the guaranteed lift in traffic the multi-day event provides. Here’s what should take priority right now to ensure Prime Day success.

Accurately forecast inventory levels before Prime Day

With backed-up supply chains and ongoing warehouse restrictions, brands and sellers need to evaluate and forecast their Prime Day inventory as soon as possible—especially with less than three weeks to adjust. 

There’s nothing more frustrating than missed sales due to products being out of stock. Take the time to analyze your inventory and allocate based on increased or decreased demand for your products over the past year and review Prime Day sales and trends from 2020. Be sure to keep in mind and track how long it will take for your inventory to be processed, categorized and appear in stock on Amazon. Only push promos on products you know you can be stock sufficiently during Prime Day.

Set up Amazon ad campaigns early and increase budgets

If you turn your ads on for the first time during Prime Day, chances are you won’t be successful. Ideally, you should start running Prime Day campaigns at least two weeks in advance to build authority and earn sales history within the Amazon platform.

The early launch also allows you to adjust your Sponsored Ads (Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, Sponsored Display Video) as needed leading up to, during, and after the main event.

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You also must be prepared for higher CPCs. Prime Day is a high-competition event for advertising, so increase your daily campaign budgets to 2-3 times their typical daily allocation. Spending more is the only way to make sure your campaigns are more visible than those of your competitors.

Stay competitive with Prime Exclusive Discounts

Last year, 58% of Prime members spent $100-plus on Amazon during the event. Millions of customers are swarming Amazon—and other marketplaces and big-box retailers hosting similar savings events simultaneously—all looking for the same thing: amazing deals. 

Attract deal-seeking shoppers and increase your click-through rate with Prime Exclusive Discounts. Amazon places a “Prime Day Deal” label on your product, which helps your listing and promotion stand out amongst the 350M+ products currently on the marketplace. 

Engage shoppers with thoughtful storytelling, video, and graphics

In a world of unauthorized sellers, knockoff products, fake reviews, and plenty of brands selling your same or similar product, Amazon customers are more cautious and selective over who they purchase from than ever before. Your Amazon content is key to building that trust and transparency. 

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To create conversion-driving content for Prime Day, focus on:

  • Creating an Amazon store/storefront that acts as a landing page for ads during Prime Day and showcases your unique brand messaging and full product assortment.
  • Updating the A+ content on your product listings, ensuring it clearly states key differentiators and proactively answers common questions or safety considerations. 
  • Giving your product photography an upgrade with lifestyle photography, graphic variations that highlight features and uses of your product, and even video.
  • Revisiting your Amazon SEO strategy and updating the keywords in your listings to target popular searches or 2020 Prime Day trends.

Prime Day is a multi-day event—don’t quit after Day 1

Once you’ve got everything up and running, it’s incredibly important to analyze your sales, listing and ad performance, and customer engagement after Day 1—then make necessary adjustments ahead of Day 2 to ensure you’re pulling the right levers that lead to sales. 

After Prime Day 2021 is over, summarize key takeaways (Which products sold well/poorly? How did the logistics and fulfillment process go? What reviews/returns did you receive that you could learn from and apply to your Amazon content? How did engagement on your Storefront and Amazon ads do? How did your competitors do?) to apply to future peak shopping seasons.

While the past year has been anything but predictable for the ecommerce industry, retailers can count on one thing: Amazon Prime Day 2021 will once again be a major sales event. Brands and sellers can capitalize on this two-day event by driving sales and new customers, thereby making June—generally a slow sales month—one of the best-selling periods of the year.

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SupplyKick provides marketing and inventory management services for manufacturers selling on Amazon.

 

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