Your Q4 Checklist
Tips on Preparing for a Surge in Holiday Sales
Introduction
The most wonderful time of the year is also the busiest time period for Amazon sellers. In 2022, E-commerce sales are projected to increase by 13.5% during the and Amazon is a major driver of that growth.
In 2021 Amazon accounted for 17% of total Black Friday shopping. 3rd party sellers are a key driver in Amazon earning 17% of each dollar. Sellers sold 11,500 units each minute between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, that is >190 units a second!1.
Black Friday to Cyber Monday is the Super Bowl of eCommerce, and you need to prepare to capitalize on the available demand. We are going to walk you through a checklist for everything you need to do to crush this Holiday season.
Refresh Your Content
Images
Holiday is a great time to review your listing and double check your content. Do you have a great hero image? Now is the time to find out. You should test creative to see how customers respond. I recommend testing through Amazon’s UI or using a testing service like PickFu2 to measure customer response. Pro tip - add a few holiday themed images to your set and watch conversion spike.
Title & Bullets
Make sure that your title and bullets are communicating the most relevant attributes of your product. Trends change and your content needs to evolve with the changing themes. Start to incorporate holiday themed keywords into your copy as well. You also need to think of SEO and optimize for relevant keywords. Remember - ‘holiday gifts’ starts to increase in early November so you need to incorporate those keywords as soon as possible.
A+ Content
Don’t over think this. Update your content with Holiday branding, ensure you are focusing on the product’s value props, and drive cross-sells where they make sense.
Storefront
Ensure you merchandise promotions front and center in within the store. Build gift guides to help customers discover new products and use Holiday creative.
Inventory
FBA
Monitor storage limits and start sending inventory of your most popular items. Try to resist items that were previously out of stock. Note: You need to send inventory to FBA by November 2nd for it to be received and available for Black Friday.3
FBM
If you ship orders directly to customers, make sure you check on-hand inventory levels. Consider adjusting your shipping cut off times to support the volume. Remember, the last thing you want to do generate account health issues due to late shipments.
Promotions
At this point, we have missed the deadline for Black Friday - Cyber Monday 7 Day and Lightning deals, but all is not lost. What can you do?
Coupons & Prime Exclusive Discounts
You still have time to submit coupons for Black Friday and Cyber Monday coupons. Coupons have the benefit of appearing in the search results and catching a customers’s eye. Tip: Dollar-off coupons tend to work better than percentage off coupons.
Prime Exclusive Discounts are another lever to pull to drive exposure. I love these - they show strike through pricing and badging that captures a customer’s eye. The only downside if the promotion is only available to prime customers, but who does have prime? Here is an example of how a prime exclusive discount shows on a detail page.
Marketing & Advertising
PPC
Now is the time to get focused on PPC. You need to be ruthless in evaluating the data and removing inefficient targets. Expand your keyword coverage to include holiday related terms. Do a quick audit to ensure that you are supporting all major items with PPC.
It’s a fact that CPCs are going to increase, but don’t fall into the trap of ramping your bids. Black Friday - Cyber Monday is a marathon, not a sprint. Let other sellers blow their budgets early. That way we will be able to capture low-cast traffic throughout the Holiday event.
Sponsored Display
Holiday is the perfect time to retarget visitors who have not yet purchased. This tactic will work even better if you are offering a coupon or deal to entice the customer to purchase.
SEO
You have 6 weeks to try and rank your products for as many relevant keywords as possible. Start with a keyword map of the most desirable targets and model the return you can earn by improving your rank. Based on the analysis, start investing heavier into PPC to drive traffic and conversions against those keywords.
Bonus: Amazon Posts
I’m bullish on Amazon Posts which is Amazon’s version of Instagram. The product is free for any Brand Registered seller. Posts helps to drive brand awareness and product discovery. The best part of Posts is that Amazon show the content across the site, including competitive listing. All that said - you need to start with Posts today and post a few times a week to build your audience.
Conclusion
Take some time over the next week and address the checklist above and you’ll have covered your bases to capitalize on Holiday demand. Start with inventory and getting items into FBA, then review your listings and the rest should all come into place.
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https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/11/30/2343314/0/en/AMAZON-WINS-BLACK-FRIDAY-FOR-2ND-CONSECUTIVE-YEAR-NUMERATOR-REPORTS.html
This is an affiliate link, but on the bright side if you want to run a poll with PickFu you can save 50% with code bowtiedamazon
https://www.amazingmarketingco.com/2021/09/27/fba-inventory-cutoff-2021/