Hi,

Amazon generated a total net sales of 87.44 Billion U.S. Dollars in the fourth quarter of 2019. With Prime Day getting pushed to October this year, the opportunity for sellers to maximize their revenue potential is only getting bigger. The flagship event clubbed with Cyber Monday, Black Friday, and the holiday season is set to create a whopping sales record, and businesses must be prepared in advance.

In this edition of the newsletter, we examine key factors to consider to win big this festival season:

Stock up on inventory to cater to the massive surge

Generally, Q4 witnesses a 30% to 50% rise in sales compared to Q3 for most sellers on Amazon. With the demand expected to skyrocket this time, you need to aggressively plan inventory to keep up with the uptake in sales.

• • • Q4 history and inventory forecast – To make an educated decision, you need to analyze previous years’ Q4 sales history, various marketing initiatives, and demand surge. Forecast inventory requirements and ensure that the shipment is received by Amazon on time. In the past few months, several sellers reported large delays by Amazon in inbounding their inventory, despite delivering on time to the warehouses. To avoid such issues and missing out on the sales window, inventory management becomes extremely crucial for success in Q4.
    • Storage space and fee optimization – For FBA sellers, remember that Amazon’s storage fee increases dramatically during Q4. Create removal orders for unfulfillable and stranded inventory. This will help you use the storage space more optimally, especially as Amazon continues to put storage limitations on many accounts and products.

 A well thought out pricing strategy can lead to unparalleled results 

A well-planned pricing strategy is a must for raking in revenue during this time. It will help surpass competitors and attract more customers.

• • • Effective competitive pricing – You need to keep your product pricing competitive to not only lure more customers but also to win the Buy Box/Featured Offer, which leads to increased sales. Last year, a detailed pricing strategy helped one of our client’s products become more competitive without incurring a loss, and thereby, garner more sales during the festival season.
    • Monitor pricing changes just before deal days – Price changes in 30 days before the event need to be closely monitored as it will act as a benchmark for prices on the event days. Price drop/increase decisions should also be matched with the inventory at hand.

Optimize your product listings to make it specific to the event

Make sure your Amazon product listings are optimized and contain all the bells and whistles. Before the arrival of the Q4 season, you need to utilize the rest of the year to understand the strategies that work best for your products.

• • • High-conversion photos and descriptions – You should test listings with different images and titles before settling on the one with the highest conversions. Upload high-resolution product photographs and descriptions that meet the Amazon guidelines. Make sure to optimize the listings for mobile devices as well.
    • Targeted content – Thoroughly analyze your listings to ensure that you are targeting the right keywords. Tailor your A+ Content to meet the demands of the festive season. This can be done by identifying product features and benefits to highlight seasonal relevance and gifting opportunities.

Finetune your ads strategy to budget for the festive season

An efficient, targeted ads campaign strategy can bring your products to the attention of customers and help increase traffic as well as overall conversions. During this time, the cost increases massively, therefore, you need to spend your ads budget wisely. Last year, for one of our clients, we crafted an extensive ads strategy by gradually upscaling the ads campaign, focusing on top-selling ASINs, and increasing the Sponsored ads expenses by 2-2.5x. It led to 3x sales growth during sale days with a controlled ACoS and better conversions.

• • • Keywords and search placements – We recommend bidding more aggressively on the relevant topical keywords and focusing on top search placement to drive more impressions. The festival season is also about diversifying spends. Explore placement in core competitive categories. Increase spends on sponsored brand and product campaigns during peak season as they drive better conversions.
    • Product prioritization – Decide which of your products work best for this season. They must be apt for festive shopping, have a considerable number of product reviews, have a 3.5-star rating or above, and should lead to appealing product detail pages.

Competitive deals and promotions strategy for enhanced reach

You need to create robust deals and promotion strategies to increase the visibility of your products and attract more customers. Deals are featured on high-traffic pages leading to greater product promotion.

• • • Amazon’s gift guide – Amazon FBA sellers should apply to include their products in Amazon’s gift guide. For categories such as electronics, health, beauty, personal care, handmade items the sellers should strive to get their products featured in the gift guide. Keep in mind the deadline for the same and prepare for the application in advance.
    • Participation in sales events and offering promotions – We recommend participating enthusiastically in the Diwali and year-end deals to increase the traffic and conversions. Amazon has cut-off periods for promotional offerings and thus, it is critical to keep track of this. They are already open for this year. Additionally, coupons increase visibility by placing your products on Amazon’s coupons pages, which are among the highly visited during this time as people are on a look-out for the best deals and offers.

All in all, the Amazon Q4 season requires a lot of preparation. With scores of products competing for the same position, it can be quite overwhelming for sellers. The season may be a month away, but sellers need to start preparing for it right now to make the most of it and stay ahead of the competition.