We usually recommend selling evergreen products as they are the ones that bring success in the long run. But you know what? Seasonal products are also not worth writing off. With the right approach, they can benefit you from selling booms. Last year, Amazon set a new sales record for the Christmas season by shipping over a billion items to the US via Prime. In comparison, two years earlier, such a result was achieved in total around the world.
To make selling seasonal goods your success and not failure, it is crucial to plan everything correctly and minimize errors, as the sales window is limited in time. Stay tuned to learn how to do this.
Table of content:
- Seasonal Product Definition
- Examples of Seasonal Products
- How to Boost Your Seasonal Product Sales
- Extra Tips for Selling Amazon Seasonal Products
- FAQs About Seasonal Products
- Final Word
Seasonal Product Definition
Seasonal refers to products desired at a particular time of the year. During a certain period, products can be very profitable due to high consumer demand, but consumers show little interest in them the rest of the time.
International trade can be an exception, as when the season ends in some countries, it just begins in others (e.g., in a different hemisphere).
Seasonal vs. Year-Round Products
Seasonal product selling requires more preparation and can be stressful, but markets are well-defined, and turnover is more dynamic. At the same time, year-round products are a long-time game without bursts and surprises but with stable sales.
The best option is to complement your year-round products with seasonal versions to double your annual cash flow. Or sell both types of goods. This model is successfully used by large retailers like Walmart and Target, allowing them to make a considerable profit.
Examples of Seasonal Products
In most cases, under seasonal goods, sellers mean those associated with 4 seasons:
Spring Products
Spring is the time for a fresh start and romance. Offer products that help end the winter blues and enjoy the first warm days:
- Bird feeders;
- Garden tools;
- Plant seeds;
- Flower pots;
- Spring dresses.
Summer Products
Summer is the time for vacations, picnics, hiking, and beaches. Give your consumers products that satisfy their needs and maintain comfort in the warm season:
- Water bottles;
- Sunglasses;
- Hiking boots;
- Camping equipment;
- Picnic sets;
- Beach umbrellas;
- Swimwear.
Autumn Products
Autumn is the season of rainy coolness, harvest time, and preparation for school. You can achieve success by selling products such as:
- Stationery;
- Fleece clothing;
- Knee-high boots;
- Raincoats;
- Rake;
- Baskets.
Winter Products
Winter is all about freezing weather, holidays, and winter activities. Choose products that warm up and give a holiday vibe:
- Leather gloves;
- Thermal underwear;
- Snow shovels;
- Tire chains;
- Winter hats;
- Buffs;
- Ski goggles;
- Ski equipment.
Other Seasonal Products
Seasonal products do not necessarily refer to a specific season — spring, summer, autumn, or winter. Some of them are suitable for certain groups of people at certain times.
Holidays
Do not forget about holiday-themed products and make them available a month before X-Day:
- Halloween costumes and decor;
- Christmas decorations;
- Decor for St. Patrick’s Day;
- Cards and gifts for St. Valentine’s Day;
- Christmas trees and decorations;
- Festive gift wrap;
- Holiday gift sets.
Special Occasions
Products for special occasions that are not seasonal and official but are treated as such and celebrated annually:
- Graduation cards;
- Sports event products.
How to Boost Your Seasonal Product Sales
Why do some good seasonal sellers get pissed off and write angry reviews on the forums while others do not have time to replenish stocks? It is all about the business approach. We have highlighted the most effective tips that would help you get the desired sales volume:
Identify Seasonal Products
A year-round product is like an evergreen tree that pleases you with green pines all year round. In contrast, a seasonal product is like a flower that blooms for a short time and withers to repeat a year later.
How to distinguish one from the other? Try using these tools:
Google Trends
Google Trends is the most popular tool that shows customer interest in a product.
Enter any keyword to see its search, engagement, and share activity. You can choose any period — from the last hour to several years, but data over the previous 12 months is automatically pulled up.
The line chart shows how pumpkin carvers’ demand grows in 1,5 months as people start thinking about decorating their homes for Halloween. The demand drops off after the holiday, but you can see occasional bursts of activity throughout the year.
Larger time frames provide more reliable data. Data analysis over several years shows whether product purchasing is a sustainable trend. Also, you can notice if it is becoming more or less popular and draw the correct conclusions about the benefits and risks. If demand rises and peaks at the same time each year, it is a stable trend. Chaotic, rapid bursts of demand indicate the product’s unreliability.
Keepa
Keepa is a free-to-install tool (with a paid premium version) that shows product sales and price history on Amazon.
To avoid getting confused in the data abundance, uncheck all buttons except “Create,” and you will see the lowest price at which the item is sold. Data from third-party sellers on sites outside of Amazon is also available.
To explore product seasonality, look at “New,” “Sales Rank,” and “Rating.” Let’s look into analytics using the example of the Hydro Flask bottle.
New
Note that Hydro Flask has a regular price and drops in mid-May. It indicates either poor demand or promotion. Further examination shows that the item is $12 off.
Since the price does not peak during summer (the high-demand period), we understand that the product is not seasonal. To better understand this data, compare it to Google Trends.
Conclusion: if product price history is stable, we can define a year-round demand.
Sales Rank
Check out the Best Sellers Rank (BSR) to find out how quickly products are sold in a particular Amazon category. The lower the BSR of a product, the faster it sells.
In May, Hydro Flask moved up to number 4 at $37. At the same time, even at the full price (which is $49), Hydro Flask took 8th place.
Conclusion: a strong brand helps hold positions despite price fluctuations.
In addition to the general BSR and price, you can see product ranking in specific categories.
Rating
The rating shows the average product rating in the reviews.
Hydro Flask’s rating stays at 4.8 stars throughout the year, and seasonality has little effect.
Understanding that high-season products are more susceptible to bad reviews during peak season is essential.
Niche Hunter
Niche Hunter has both an online interface and a Chrome extension. Whenever you search for something on Amazon, the software automatically extracts all the statistics for that keyword.
When researching product seasonality, pay attention to BSR and the average price of competitors’ goods.
Analytics shows us that the average annual price of a product is about $36. However, it recorded a price fall to $20 until March, then a sharp rise to $38 in May. It indicates product seasonality.
As for BSR, before the beginning of March, it was 370,000, and already in April, it was 3,000. This is also an argument that the product is seasonal.
You can see a consistently low BSR with little bounce than a year-round Hydro Flask water bottle. The product price is also relatively constant, with a recent promo-driven drop.
Build Seasonal Versions of Year-Round Product
Your business needs cash flow all year round, not just in a specific season. Monetize your product by creating seasonal and year-round versions for different purposes.
It can be achieved with these four tips:
Create Toy Product Version
For any product, you can create a seasonal toy version.
It can be an inexpensive way to create a seasonal product. You already have the design and marketing gear, so nothing could stop your manufacturer from making a toy product version that is smaller and more affordable.
First, check if there is demand for this product version, and then understand that you will deal with a different type of customer.
Create Festival/Party Product Version
Creating a festival/party product version requires more imagination and effort as you must make up something new. To do this, you need to look at the product differently.
For example, you sell tea — a year-round product with stable demand. How to create a version that will be swept away during the Christmas holidays?
First, the packaging. You can create a festive Christmas design that emits coziness and magic. That is the way ordinary tea becomes a gift.
Secondly, think about the product itself. If you want to imitate mulled wine, add spices (ginger, cinnamon, cloves, pink pepper), fruit pieces (orange, apple), rose flowers, and honey flavor.
Add cinnamon bun, gingerbread, or marshmallow flavors to your tea.
Find Seasonal Keywords
You can find additional ideas by searching for seasonal keywords that complement your product.
Let’s look at the services that will help you do this.
MerchantWords
For example, if you sell costumes, you might see seasonal variations in MerchantWords, such as a snowman costume. There are about 26,000 searches per month for this keyword.
Keyword Tool Dominator
In the Keyword Tool Dominator, you can find additional keywords related to your seasonal product. In our case, there are different target audience variations.
Niche Hunter
A service like Keyword Tool Dominator helps you find additional keyword ideas related to your keyword. A good thing is that the results are based on actual Amazon search terms.
Use PPC Reports
PPC reports show you the keywords buyers are searching for. Pay attention to the following metrics:
- Impressions — over 1000 impressions in 10 days;
- Click-Through Rate (CTR) — 0.25% or higher.
Compliance with these two criteria indicates a high product demand.
You can also track seasonal demand spikes during the last quarter.
Sell Seasonal Private Label Products
Selling seasonal products under your private label brand can be an excellent idea for your Amazon business. Some sellers focus on this model and get the most sales during 2-3 months.
Maximize Your Cash Flow
If you sell both year-round and seasonal products, launch sales 3 months apart. It creates a stable cash flow and helps grow your business faster.
And to get extra money, provide a significant discount on the product at the very end of the season. It motivates buyers to purchase profitably for the following year.
Stick to the Right Strategy
Plan and control your inventory to ensure stable sales.
Promote Products Before Launch
Many Amazon sellers make unforgivable mistakes:
- Launch seasonal products at the start of the season. This is a losing strategy because the season will already be over by the time the product begins to rank for keywords. At the same time, launching advertising a month before the season starts makes the product more visible and attractive.
- Sell seasonal items only during the season. As some buyers prepare for future seasons, you can lose some of your profit. A two-pronged approach helps sellers boost sales during a product’s peak season.
For promotion, you can use the following:
- Amazon PPC;
- Facebook ads;
- Email marketing;
- A gift or free sample in the packaging;
- Amazon Early Reviewer Program.
Set Up Steady Sales Stream
Distribute your goods so that you can make a profit all year round. In the months when you do not sell seasonal products, focus on year-round ones.
For example, if you have been selling beach umbrellas since May, offer ordinary ones the rest of the time.
Control Your Stock
To maintain the right amount of inventory, pay attention to the following points:
Product Ranking
Determine the actual and desired product positions. Rank affects how soon prospects will see your product in response to a keyword term. Make sure that your product ranks as high as possible, as 70% of sales come from the first page results.
Daily Sales
Determine how many daily sales you need to make to get the desired position. To do this, look at how many sales your competitors make from the top half of the first page. Software from Helium 10, Jungle Scout, or Niche Hunter may be helpful.
If your top competitors make about 30 sales daily, you should also target that number.
Inventory
Divide the inventory number by the target sales per day to determine how many days you will have enough goods.
If you plan to order 3,000 units of a product and sell 50 units per day, you will have enough inventory for 60 days.
Manufacturing
Calculate how long it takes to fulfill an order to produce a new batch of products.
For example, batch production is 20 days, and delivery takes 10 days. For unforeseen situations, we can leave 5 days. In total, it takes 35 days to produce and deliver a consignment of goods.
We subtract this figure from the projected 60 days of stocks and get 25 days. It means that already 25 days after the launch, it is necessary to start production of new products.
Money
Find out how much money it takes to place an order for the next batch of inventory.
For example, your product sells for $40. We determine how much money you will have by ordering the next batch. We multiply this amount by 50 sales per day for the 25th day of sales:
40 x 50 x 25 = $50,000
If it costs $20 to produce a unit of an item, you need $60,000 to produce a batch of 3,000 items.
The standard prepayment for launching the next batch is 30%. Multiply $60,000 by 0.3 to get $18,000 upfront.
Your sales will be $50,000, and prepayment is only $18,000, which means you still have $32,000 left.
Extra Tips for Selling Amazon Seasonal Products
What else should you consider before selling seasonal products? Pay attention to these crucial aspects:
Create a Plan B
Imagine all negative scenarios and figure out how to deal with them:
- If a large amount of inventory is left and costly to store, you can sell it at a discount or find another, cheaper storage to keep until next year.
- If, on the contrary, stocks run out faster, you can pause the listing to buy yourself some time and avoid negative reviews.
Prepare Your Listing
To appear in the SERPs, prepare your listing well. Write a good description with relevant keywords and add high-quality photos, including the product on a white background for the cover.
Do not put it off until the last moment. Everything should be ready, so you can start promoting your listing a month before the season.
Collect Reviews
Ask for feedback before the product peak season. Hunt for reviews despite good sales, as they help you move even higher in the search results — and generate more profit.
Get Some Experience with Year-Round Products
Selling seasonal products carries certain risks and requires more careful preparation. Therefore, it would be better to try your hand at year-round products to strategize and understand the nuances of working with Amazon.
Keep Prices Competitive
Re-evaluate your products from time to time to stay competitive. But in the race for the consumer, only cut down the price on some products. Let goods with a lower price be sold out faster, and those with a higher price wait for their buyers.
However, if your competitors have much lower prices and an extensive range of goods, it makes sense to set a more reasonable price to attract prospects.
Increase Some Products’ Prices
You can raise prices if your products have a steady demand and good sales. Cheap competitors’ products will be quickly sold out, and buyers will still be forced to turn to you. But you should consider that the higher priced item sells more slowly, and its listing and reviews should be perfectly set.
Orient on Shipment Time
The fulfillment process takes some time. The product price you set on Monday may not be relevant on Friday. So if you use FBA, once the item is delivered to Amazon warehouses, make sure your price is competitive.
Analyze Multiple Sales
Many sales of the same product can indicate good ranking and optimized listing and extremely low price. Raise the price to open your path to maximum profit.
FAQs About Seasonal Products
Want to get quick answers to the most common questions? Stay tuned.
What are Amazon Seasonal Products?
Seasonal products are popular in a particular season but are in low demand for the rest of the year. The season refers to spring, summer, autumn, winter, or holidays like Christmas, Halloween, and St. Valentine’s Day.
Does Selling Seasonal Products Worth It?
Selling seasonal products can be very profitable if you:
- Approach the product choice and its price;
- Plan the production and inventory storage;
- Prepare and optimize the listing;
- Use paid promotion.
Selling seasonal products always comes with risks you do not face when selling year-round products.
When Should I Start to Launch Seasonal Products?
You should launch seasonal products at least 30 days before the start of the season.
Final Word
Selling seasonal products can become your complete success or crushing failure. In this article, we have highlighted what you need to pay attention to and shared services to help determine seasonal products and their market prices. Nevertheless, self-promotion can be challenging even for experienced year-round sellers.
At Profit Whales, we help entrepreneurs increase sales and profits through PPC ads. Contact us if you want to be confident in seasonal and evergreen product promotion on Amazon.
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