Prime Day 2019 - Determining Your Plan of Action

The time of year has come again to start preparing for Amazon Prime Day. Since 2015, Amazon has been celebrating its founding day in a rapidly-growing global deal marathon for Amazon Prime members. Prime Day takes place in 17 countries around the world that offer Prime including the U.S., U.K., Canada, Italy, Germany, and Japan. For Prime Day, as well as the week leading up, Amazon offers many discounts on products, as well as short-lived lightning deals (which appear and disappear at specific times).  

Why Should I Participate in Prime Day?

• 70% of online consumers shop during events for deals and discounts. With 31% of US customers planning on making a purchase on Prime Day for 2019, this is a “prime” time to invest in advertising or in promotions to capitalize on traffic. The graphic below shows the sales for Prime Day by year.

• Prime Day is closing in on Black Friday and Cyber Monday for sales.  Prime Day 2016 beat out the previous Cyber Monday’s sales by 19%. It also comprised 74% of e-commerce sales conducted on that date. In 2017, Prime Day beat the previous Cyber Monday’s sales by 33%.

What Are My Available Options?

1.) Lightning Deals:  A 4-hour flash promotion that is run in the deals section of Amazon. These deals require a specific discount/deal price be offered that is set by Amazon and must be Prime eligible with a 3.5 Star average review.

• Only certain items are eligible to be offered as Lightning Deals.  Amazon tells us which items are eligible.
• Amazon also requires a certain quantity of inventory that has to be in stock at their warehouse during the deal period.
• Amazon will select the date/time that a lightning deal will run.  Once they select the deal, we have until 25 hours prior to the deal running to cancel the deal.
• Amazon can cancel the deal, or choose not to run it, at any time.  If the deal does not run, there is no charge.
• These will cost $500 + the cost of the discount to run during Prime Week.

2.) Coupons: A discount offered to customers that will show up on the product listing and in the coupons section of Amazon.

• Coupons can be offered on any in stock item.
• Coupons can be marketed as a percentage off or as a dollar amount discount.
• The cost is .65/clip + amount of discount.  A budget has to be set beforehand.
• These can be run in a date range that can be edited throughout the course of the coupon.

3.) Advertising: With the amount of traffic increasing rapidly, an increased advertising budget will help increase the visibility of your products and capitalize on the influx of consumers.  

• Competition will be heavy for Prime Day and we recommend doubling ad budgets for the month of July.
• Budgets should be set and monitored starting at the beginning of July.
• A Prime Day strategy may include running specific campaigns to increase awareness of any products on promotion or with low visibility.

When Do I Have to Decide?

This year Prime Day is predicted to bring in over 4 million customers and see over $5 billion in sales. We have years of experience helping brands create an Amazon Prime Day strategy. Retail Bloom wants to help your brand take advantage of this event and the 31% of US customers who plan on making a purchase on Prime Day 2019.

• All Prime Day deals have to be submitted by May 10th.
• All inventory related to Prime Day must be at an Amazon fulfillment center by June 27th.  

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Sources

• https://blackfriday.com/news/amazon-prime-day-history-and-statistics

• https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/2018-letter-to-shareholders

• https://www.businessinsider.my/when-is-amazon-prime-day/

• https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/article/amazon-prime-day-data/

• https://fv.feedvisor.com/rs/656-BMZ-780/images/2019-Amazon-Prime-Day-Playbook.pdf?