The countdown to Prime Day 2023 is on! Are you ready?
While the exact date hasn’t been announced, we expect Prime Day to take place in early to mid-July based on last year’s dates of July 12 and 13. That means you need to start preparing now.
How to Prepare for Prime Day 2023
There are several areas to consider in your Prime Day preparations, from content and advertising to pricing and fulfillment. To make sure you’re ready on every front, check out these helpful tips.
Inventory Planning and Preparation
- Prep inventory. Ensure you’ll have plenty of inventory for Prime Day and the rest of the week thereafter. Forecast inventory demand by looking at your Prime Day sales from last year, as well as holiday performance. Remember, the last date to send inventory to Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is June 15.
- Allocate inventory. Think through which SKUs you want to fulfill yourself versus externally through FBA. You may want to advertise the Prime badge on high-volume SKUs to encourage purchases, whereas you may keep lower volume or niche products merchant fulfilled.
- Monitor account KPIs. No Amazon seller wants to have their account suspended on the platform’s biggest shopping day of the year. Double check your account KPI performance to avoid suspension during peak traffic.
- Prepare internal teams. Inform your warehouse staff of critical deadlines and prepare them for inflated order traffic as Prime Day nears. You’ll also want to prep customer service for the possibility of increased message volume and return requests.
- Don’t forget other channels. The Prime Day “halo effect” has been known to increase sales on other marketplaces too. Plan accordingly by setting aside inventory and ad budget for other channels like Walmart, Target and eBay.
Fulfillment
- Expect delays. Set proper delivery expectations with your customers in anticipation of delays from major carriers. Review your carrier restrictions and capabilities for the Prime Day period so you don’t encounter any surprises.
- Prep for order caps. While not extremely common, FBA does sometimes place order caps on volume. Keep an eye on your inventory performance indicator (IPI) to maximize allowed space and prioritize high-volume SKUs for FBA only. If needed, look at third-party logistics companies to diversify your fulfillment and accelerate delivery.
Pricing Strategies
- Analyze pricing opportunities. Amazon’s business reports in Seller Central provide information like your Buy Box percentage over time and impression share. Assess your listings one by one for competitors and the areas in which they might be winning (e.g., price, Prime budget, etc.).
- Build a repricer strategy. Use the Amazon Pricing Console to review competitor pricing, Prime designation, handling times, shipping prices and seller ratings. From there, you can build a repricing strategy around the opportunities you identify.
- Watch multichannel pricing. Amazon is notorious for crawling other websites to monitor your pricing. If your prices dip on other sites, Amazon may remove the Buy Box altogether, confusing shoppers and leading them to competitors. Synchronizing your multichannel pricing ensures shoppers experience consistent pricing wherever they find your product(s). Plus, it keeps you in Amazon’s good graces.
Deals and Promotions
- Review previous year performance. Look at the success of your Prime Day promotions from last year. Then, evaluate what sold well in the past year and what’s trending now. Use these factors to determine what will perform best this year.
- Meet deal submission deadlines. The deadline for Amazon Lightning Deal submissions has already passed, but opportunities to promote other deals are still available. Create a coupon, share promo codes or use Prime Exclusive Discounts to stand out in search and product pages. There are no deadlines for these options yet, but the submission deadline is often the week before Prime Day.
Monitoring Results and Reporting
- Determine how you’ll measure success. How will you know if you performed well on Prime Day? Set goals with metrics around revenue, profit, conversion rate or Buy Box percentage.
- Track seller metrics. Monitor your on-time shipments and cancellations three times per week (beginning at least four weeks before Prime week). Keeping a close eye on your seller health will prepare you for the influx of Prime Day orders to avoid suspension.
Content and Advertising
- Launch ad campaigns — NOW. Now is the time to complete any new campaigns. This allows ample time for optimization and fine-tuning before Prime Day. Remember to include both FBA and merchant-fulfilled items in your campaigns to ensure comprehensive coverage of your catalog.
- Optimize product pages. Prior to Prime Day, make sure your product pages are in tiptop shape by ensuring you have:
- Six or more high-resolution images
- 80 or more characters in page titles
- Comprehensive product descriptions
- Concise and captivating bullet points on features
- Use A+ content. Amazon A+ content can help you craft an engaging brand or product narrative with captivating visuals, customized layouts and a more appealing storefront. Consider adding A+ content to increase purchase values on Prime Day.
- Select promo options based on your strategy. Choose the right ad types for your strategy. Product detail page (PDP) targeting helps you gain optimal product page coverage and high impressions, while sponsored brand video showcases top sellers with engaging video. Or, use Sponsored Display for targeting competitors and remarketing to new audiences.
- Create a flexible budget. Look at month-over-month and year-over-year ad spend to better forecast your budget during this time. Consider adding more budget to well-performing campaigns and products you want to showcase. Your budgets will most likely run out during Prime Day, so check in regularly during Prime week to keep top performing campaigns fully funded.
Are You Ready for Prime Day 2023?
Prime Day is like Christmas in July. Is your brand prepped and ready for the surge of traffic? Rithum helps brands feel prepared for any fluctuations year round with automated repricers, brand analytics, advertising strategy and expert guidance.
Get more tips for Prime Day 2023 from our recent webinar, Countdown to Prime Day 2023: Top Strategies for Fulfillment, Pricing and Advertising. Or contact us today to request your own advertising analysis ahead of the big day.
