Q4 Guide is a step-by-step adviser for the most profitable season of the year, based on our work experience with 7-9 figure brands.
Are you ready to make some mad bank during these notoriously lucrative holiday weeks? If you are struggling to come up with the right Amazon Black Friday strategy, then you are in the right place. This blog post will give you some good Amazon Black Friday tips to help you deal with the holiday rush. Read on and arm yourself with must-have practices!
Table of content:
- What is Black Friday & Cyber Monday?
- When is Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2022?
- When is the Deadline to Submit Lightning Deals for Black Friday/Cyber Monday 2022?
- Why Black Friday & Cyber Monday is Important for Your Amazon Business
- Amazon Black Friday Tips for Sellers
- Summing Up
What is Black Friday & Cyber Monday?
The upcoming holidays are the last golden opportunity to profit before Christmas: great deals, big exposure, huge revenues. Many items are on sale these days so that people will be buying things and gifts for their family, friends, and themselves.
Black Friday is named this way because it is the first time in a while that businesses are going into “black”. This means that retailers are making a profit (or at least a larger profit) during this time of year. Before and after Black Friday, retailers spend a lot of time in the “red”, which means they are losing money.
Amazn Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals are the biggest in the US because they epitomize mass consumerism nearly all year round. Coming up with a powerful Amazon Black Friday strategy is an opportunity to leverage marketing possibilities and grow your brand.
The graph above displays Amazon Black Friday earnings from 2018 to 2020. Take a look at Profit Whales analysis data that shows the surge in user activity in 2020:
As you can see in this graph, the three days with the highest user activity are Prime day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday. The number of interactions on Prime day is 2.7 times more than on the average day of the year.
Next, let’s figure out what day of the week Amazon users preferred to shop during the 2020 holidays:
Even though Prime day was on Tuesday, the most popular shopping day (out of 7 days of the week) was Sunday.
Take a look at the numbers showcasing consumer spendings:
The relationship between conversions and impressions is shown in the graph below. As you can see, after a drop in impressions, conversion drops after a while.
When is Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2022?
Black Friday traditionally takes place one day after the Thanksgiving holiday. This year it is the 25th of November.
Cyber Monday, on the other hand, takes place on the first Monday after Thanksgiving; in 2022 it will be the 28th of November.
Profit Whales had a short conversation with Amy Wees, CEO at Amazing at Home, about the upcoming holiday season and the right Amazon Black Friday strategy. Here’s what she had to say about Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2021:
“This year’s Amazon Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals are going to look very different due to supply shortages and price increases across the board in many retailers. Customers will not be able to buy the popular gifts they usually find on brick and mortar department store shelves. So they will be flocking to Amazon and other major dot com e-retailers to look for solutions”, Amy stated.
“Additionally, the popular deals on small appliances, toys, and electronics that normally run on Black Friday and Cyber Monday will be limited this year, so private label brand owners should be ready with deals of their own AND be prepared to share those deals on social media and mainstream media channels outside of Amazon where customers look for these deals.”
Finder researched what generation is more likely to spend on Black Friday.
Source: Finder research
Amazon, which is always looking for ways to reignite its holiday shopping season scheme, recently unleashed “Black Friday-worthy” deals across several product categories to attract early holiday shoppers.
Amazon has also introduced a new mobile app feature that allows Prime members to send gifts. Users only need to enter the recipient’s phone number or email address, and the recipient of the gift will be notified of the present and can withdraw it by confirming the email address.
Holiday spending has been predicted to increase significantly in YOY. However, as the industry faces many problems (supply chain shocks, inflationary pressures, labor shortages), most major retailers encourage their shoppers to start their holiday shopping early.
When is the Deadline to Submit Lightning Deals for Black Friday/Cyber Monday 2022?
In the image below, we show the dates relevant for 2021.
Unfortunately, Amazon hasn’t released the latest information for 2022 yet.
Why Black Friday & Cyber Monday is Important for Your Amazon Business
Amazon Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals usually show impressive year-over-year growth. But record sales, many times higher than expected, came after a global pandemic locked people in their homes. The tendency towards online shopping continues to grow.
Also, on Prime Day 2020, small and medium-sized businesses marked the two biggest sales days ever on the platform, growing 60% from 2019. A robust growth model, coupled with a supportive online shopping environment, suggests that we are approaching Amazon’s record spending season.
For your Amazon business, they are opportunities to grow sales and increase traffic significantly.
Amazon Black Friday Tips for Sellers
Sellers know what a pain in the rear it can be to sell on Amazon’s platform holidays: there are so many things to take care of. And then, when Black Friday or Cyber Monday rolls around, sellers are often poorly equipped to handle the influx of traffic.
With these essential tips, you’ll be able to sell on Amazon during the upcoming holidays successfully.
Start Preparing Early On
The earlier you start with your seller strategy, the less likely you will miss out on something. Thorough planning is the key to a good start.
Prepare Before November
You want to start your preparations in September – two months ahead. It can be tricky to find the time to do this. You may have to juggle the holidays with existing tasks throughout the year or commit to a rigid time frame for shipping to ensure it’s done in time to take advantage of holiday sales. That’s why you have to prepare your Amazon Black Friday strategy way before November – better be planning throughout the year to get this done without burning out.
Amy Wees had this to say about Amazon Black Friday and Cyber Monday preparation:
“This may also be a great opportunity to increase sales channels. If you weren’t selling outside of Amazon before, look to some of these other dot com retailers who will be looking to add new offers. Walmart.com and Etsy.com are popular choices but remember you will need to have logistics set up outside of Amazon FBA to fulfill customer orders on these platforms.”
She also added that “from a business perspective, sellers should not be afraid to increase prices to cover increases in costs in shipping and supply chain to make this a profitable Q4.”
Scope the Competition
Black Friday is the most significant online shopping day of the year and one of the most competitive. These holiday shopping days are prime opportunities to understand your rivals better. What are top brands doing this time of year? What are their marketing strategies? You need to mark up your Amazon Black Friday competition to uncover valuable secrets.
Perform Research on Price and Demand
The key to a profitable Amazon Black Friday strategy is understanding your products or services’ strengths and weaknesses. Armed with this knowledge, you’ll be able to promote the products that you know will succeed. Some argue that you do not need to research the price and demand of the product you are selling/manufacturing. While you are free to skip this step, still, it can be a costly mistake.
Let’s say you are a cosmetics retailer, who is getting many inquiries about a line of products you are about to expand. You want to get a sense of the demand for these products to get a better idea of how much to charge for them.
How do you go about doing something like this? That’s right. You do the price and demand research. To know how profitable a pricing strategy would be, one has to understand the price elasticity of the target market.
Take Care of Inventory
Don’t expect Black Friday week to be like any other week. The day after Thanksgiving, millions of consumers and businesses set out to find the perfect present. There’s a lot of demand for many goods, and there’s a lot of competition for those goods.
Chelsea Cohen is a co-founder at Sostocked and an inventory expert. Here’s what she said regarding Amazon Black Friday FBM:
“This year, as I did last year, I am telling sellers to be ready to fulfill via FBM. Between restock limits, long check-in times, and recent delays on the fulfillment-to-customer side of Amazon inventory, it has become evident that Amazon is not currently a stable distribution channel. So even if it is your only sales channel, sellers should be prepared with their own backup distribution channel via FBM. If you haven’t already, reach out to a reputable third-party fulfillment center that can fulfill your customer orders when Amazon can’t. This could be a crucial part of your sales season.”
Review Inventory Storage Limits
Customers across the world will descend on your website to take advantage of discounts. That leaves the question of what the ideal balance of product inventory to meet demand should be. So, now is that time of year again to check that all your inventory items show the correct amount of available quantities.
Whether you’re stocking up for Amazon Cyber Monday, Black Friday, ordering supplies for the holidays, or just taking a peek to see what you have to work with, it’s an important step to take before the craziness starts to cook up.
Ryan Cramer and Thomas Incorvia from PingPong had this to say about the upcoming inventory limits hurdles:
“Sellers are still seeing inventory limits and cost increases for goods and PPC. With these uncommon hurdles in place, most sellers are concerned with staying in stock and spreading budgets across longer periods of time throughout Q4.”
Ship Your Inventory to FBA by Critical Dates
The sooner you know when your inventory is due to ship, the sooner you can make sure it’s ready to load up to Amazon’s fulfillment warehouses. The dates are important because Amazon itself has specific darkening dates for different types of products that will cause your products to lose Amazon Prime status.
Chelsea Cohen added this about trucking and Amazon:
“While Amazon Partner Carriers are often cheaper, they are much more likely to have significantly longer net check-in times than Non-Amazon Partner Carriers. This is because Amazon Partner Carriers are contractually bound to drop their trailers off at Amazon vs. trucking companies outside of the Amazon Partners system who empty their trailers at the loading dock upon arrival. So even if you have faster delivery appointment dates using Amazon Partner Carriers, your net check-in time is generally proving much faster with non-partnered trucking.”
“Will this change in the future? I think it will, but not this Q4. The difference between getting your inventory checked in before or after Christmas could be as simple as the shipping method you select, so this data is vital to know going into Amazon Cyber Monday and Black Friday season.”
Optimize your Product Listings
You know all about the power of product listings on Amazon. But you might not know the best way to optimize your listings. So what can you do to maximize chances for success with Amazon product listings whilst still running a profitable business?
Optimize Titles and Bullets
Advertisers know that the headline is often the first impression a consumer gets before actually seeing an ad. And now, this is not just limited to text – advertisers are now increasing the use of images and videos in their ads as a good image really does an excellent job at grabbing a person’s attention quickly.
Conduct keyword research so you can also enhance your SEO efforts by optimizing titles and bullets of advertisements. You also need to be sure that your title and bullet all say what you want them to and tell the right story about your product and target your specific audience.
Optimize Your PPC Campaigns
The road to a successful Amazon Black Friday strategy can be long and bumpy. Optimizing your PPC campaigns could help you reach your goal faster. It can be challenging to upgrade marketing activities during the holiday season, but the different strategies you should implement now could lead to more robust performance before Black Friday.
Get an edge over your competitors and put your ad dollars to the best use. It’s essential to pay attention to the details, like keywords. Make sure your Amazon Black Friday PPC campaign is up to snuff!
Update Your Amazon Brand Store
Are your products sitting in brand-registered stores? Great, it’s time to update them. Your Amazon listing needs to be rolled out in a way that balances high-quality content with a remarkable experience – just like your brand. We recommend you make minor changes like adding a new product line to your store and updating your imagery to be more festive.
Plan Marketing and Advertising Strategies
It is not enough to merely sell; you also need to sell in the proper manner. Understanding the specific goals of your desired customers may help you in creating more effective advertisements. Leverage Amazon marketing tools to address your customers with relevant – and sometimes even branded – messages.
Offer Free Shipping and Returns
Most people love to buy online. As a seller, you understand the value of the customer experience more than most. You’ve got to give them a reason to come and buy from you, and then come back and buy again and again. Fortunately, you can do both with simple techniques like providing free shipping and return.
Choose Products Wisely
Amazon is the juggernaut of the consumer market, and millions of people shop and sell on the site every day. So how do you know what to sell? Let’s see what was the most sold item on Black Friday 2020: according to CNBC, kitchen appliances, electronics, and clothingare the most popular goods on Amazon during the holidays.
“The most popular categories are always electronics and home goods, but personalized gifts are also trendy. Because of the global pandemic, people want to feel connected more than ever, which means thoughtful and meaningful gifting. Etsy sales were insane last Christmas, and that will continue this year. Sellers of giftable products will be thrilled this holiday season. As for me, I also try to personalize my gifts. I love the print on demand. I either make gifts myself using my favorite POD platforms, or I buy personalized gifts on Etsy. I also like to send gift baskets using floral delivery services.”
– Amy Wees
Consider Lightning Deals and Coupons
Businesses increasingly turn to lightning deals, coupons, and giveaways to build brand awareness and drive traffic. It’s in your best interest to release discounts and coupons when the timing and demand are right. With so many techniques available for creating sales, coupons pose a decent opportunity to boost sales and attract users’ attention. Still, they require an investment in time and effort upfront to get an effective result.
Increase Advertising Budget
Traditionally, Amazon has been utilized as a destination to purchase items. Now, Amazon is becoming a destination for lead generation.
Within an Amazon Black Friday strategy, content marketing is essential and lucrative for those business owners who know how to leverage it for their own advertising needs. Therefore, it is crucial to make it work for your business and use the right policies to make it pay off. When marketing and advertising your Amazon store, make sure you’re using the right strategies and methods to make the most of your budget.
Add Videos to Your ASINs
When you add a video to your ASIN, you add a whole new layer of value to your product catalog. It may surprise you to hear, but Amazon measures and tracks critical metrics for the ASINs associated with each product on the marketplace. For example, Amazon will break down how many video views each ASIN receives and what product types get the most views.
Get a Grip on Your Social Media Marketing
While you’re sitting there contentedly scrolling Instagram or Facebook, your audience is scrolling your competitors’ social media pages. That’s because you’re not leaving any footprints on their radar.
More businesses are experimenting with social media marketing to reach customers multi-channel and boost external traffic. The good news is that social media is much more than just posting content. As long as you know your social, you can control how your brand spreads, the types of interactions you see, and your ROI.
With social media marketing game-changing so rapidly, it’s hard to know where to start. This is one reason for social media marketers to gain a better understanding of the platforms they are targeting.
Monitor Your Spend
It’s easy to get emotionally invested in an ad campaign for your product or service that you are proud of, but it can be tough to keep spending under control during that run. Poor campaign tracking could mean higher costs for you, or worse, missed opportunities to optimize your ad spend to higher-quality impressions. That’s why you should measure advertising expenses by advertising media to determine your optimal spending allocation for Amazon Black Friday.
Stay Consumer-Focused
As a seller, there are many tips that you need to know to succeed in various aspects of the market. One that we believe is not talked about enough and that definitely should be elaborated on in your Amazon Black Friday strategy is customer service.
Provide Excellent Customer Service to Your Buyers
Buyers trust companies more when they see the company put the customer first. If you want people to stay on your site longer, buy products and return for more, they need to be given a reason to keep returning. One way to do this is by offering excellent customer service.
Part of an excellent customer service strategy is being responsive to customer inquiries, resolving problems faster, and being clear about what they can expect from your business. With so many different ways sellers can communicate with their audience, they must give their buyers the attention and efficiency they deserve.
Ask for Product and Seller Reviews
Nothing builds trust like reviews. Reviews can be used strategically to influence your brand’s reputation when considering products for purchase. It’s no longer sufficient for a seller of a product to rely on advertising their products and services with hopes that they will generate new customer leads during Amazon Black Friday. User reviews are vital because they serve as a kind of product validation.
Don’t Focus on Least Sold Products
Many sellers put too much effort into pushing products that don’t sell well. But as any marketer will tell you, you can find all the insights you need by looking at product SKUs and the outlets they sell the most. If done right, this analysis can point you toward top-selling products, those with the most potential for market expansion, and that might even help you cross-sell and upsell.
Your Amazon store must offer the best of the best, but that doesn’t mean you should neglect your least eager items. It just means that you shouldn’t focus too much on the products that you least expect to sell. Focus on the ones that are generating the most profit.
Analyze and Plan Ahead
Analyzing past experiences and creating a backup plan can save your entire Amazon Black Friday strategy.
Analyze Past Experience and Create Future Guidelines
It’s easiest to learn in retrospect when you can think back in historical context. It’s because this hindsight enables you to conclude the movement of the situation. Analyze data from past holidays sales, your performance, and earnings vs. spendings. Define what you did right and what needs to be improved.
You can also search the Internet and learn from the feedback of successful businesses: what are the unique factors of their success? Then, you can try to apply these factors to your website’s design and content.
Have a Backup Plan
Amazon Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals are definitely irresistible and beneficial. But they can also leave your company in a tailspin if you don’t have a proper plan in place. It can be so tempting to have one big sale event, but the risk of enormous losses could outweigh the benefit.
Consider how much you can expect to earn from each customer versus the amount you’re spending now to reach them. Sellers often end up with a lot of orders that they simply can’t fulfill. Some retailers give their customers a refund, and some offer customers other products. All this can lead to negative feedback and customer churn. To avoid this, have a backup plan to be able to resolve issues leaving shoppers satisfied.
Summing Up
This year’s Q4 is going to be very different, but sellers, however, have high expectations. To quote Ryan’s response:
“Traditionally, Amazon Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals mean extreme spikes in online sales growth. 2021 is expected to see growth, but temper expectations! Coming off an uncharacteristic 2020 (and quite profitable Q4) for many sellers, don’t be surprised to see slower growth YOY on these dates. I expect growth in Q4 YOY, but look for revenue to be more spread out instead of sharp increases on traditional holiday shopping days.”
Are you confident in the strength of your Amazon Black Friday strategy? If not, please contact us and we will check it together so you can sleep peacefully at night. Let’s make this year’s Amazon Cyber Monday and Black Friday skyrocket!
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