The Orca Pacific Blog
The holiday season is closer than you think–and as an Amazon Seller, it’s critical that you start planning early. If you’re planning to sell products on Amazon during the holiday season, it’s important to have a solid plan of action that will allow you to improve your selling strategy and make it easier for you to capitalize on the holiday shopping season. Putting your holiday selling strategies in place now will make for a smoother holiday sales season with higher profits and greater revenue potential.
Strategies In This Article:
- Prepare Your Inventory
- Use Fulfilled by Amazon
- Offer Promos & Deals Early
- Optimize Product Listings for the Holidays
- Check Prices
- Examine Your Metrics
Strategy #1: Prepare Your Inventory
Take a look at your past sales and do your best to forecast potential holiday sales. Are you selling hot ticket items for which sales are likely to skyrocket during the holiday season? Do you have specific items that are more likely to sell during the holidays? For some product categories, your Prime Day sales are a good indication of what to expect during the holidays. Did your Prime Day sales go up or down and by how much compared to last year? Use that data to compare last years holiday sales and adjust your sales forecasts accordingly.
It’s a good idea to front load inventory through Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) at the beginning of the quarter, if your storage limits allow, to avoid out-of-stock during peak shopping times. Pay particular attention to any items that you plan to offer deals on during Black Friday & Cyber Monday. You should also have plenty of inventory on hand to carry you through early January: many so-called holiday shoppers will continue their celebrations long into that month, and you don’t want out-of-stock inventory to cause you to miss out on sales.
Pro Tip: Earlier this year, Amazon introduced new FBA inventory storage limits to better manage their fulfillment center storage space. FBA inventory storage limits are based on an Inventory Performance Index that measures how effectively you manage your inventory levels through FBA. Maintaining a score above 350 ensures that you will have unlimited storage space with FBA during the busy holiday shopping season.
Strategy #2: Use Fulfilled By Amazon (FBA)
During the holiday season many buyers want Amazon Prime’s guaranteed two-day shipping–and many of them want it rather desperately. To be eligible for Amazon Prime, sellers must use FBA for Amazon to manage your shipments to customers. You may pay higher fees for using FBA, but you’ll likely see an increase in sales from Amazon Prime customers looking for free 2-day shipping.
Strategy #3: Offer Promotions & Deals Early
At Orca Pacific, we work with our clients to have holiday promotions ready as soon as Amazon starts their holiday messaging on November 1st. One of the most effective sales programs on Amazon is Lightning Deals. They’re a great way to gain visibility and the only way for Sellers to be merchandised on Deals pages. Check your Lightning Deals Dashboard in Seller Central for products that are eligible.
Strategy #4: Optimize Product Listings for the Holidays
Consumer shopping behavior changes during the holiday season. Shoppers tend to be more critical during their purchasing decisions and therefore, it’s important that your product pages be fully optimized to exceed their exceptions. Do you have high-quality images (plural) that clearly display the product in multiple angles and highlight different features?? Have your product descriptions and enhanced content been edited so that they put your products in the best possible light? Are you addressing holiday shoppers concerns and questions with your content? Take the time to check all of your product listings. Make sure that they’re optimized for holiday search keywords and phrases, then read through them to make sure that they’re clear, easy to understand and provide the information customers are most likely to need to know about your products (especially as it relates to giving your product as a gift).
Strategy #5: Check Your Prices
Do you have stale inventory that you need to clean out? High-volume items that you want to stand out amidst the other sellers on Amazon? Take a look at your prices. Dropping your price will help get those items noticed, whether it’s for a silly white elephant gift designed to draw in a few laughs or a serious gift for a friend or family member.
This is an excellent time to move stale inventory and still make a profit on those items. Offering prices that are slightly lower than other sellers, especially for high-volume products, will often allow you to win the buy box and increase your sales during this busy shopping season.
Strategy #6: Examine Your Advertising Metrics
Take a look at the advertising metrics you’ve been tracking. What Amazon ads are most likely to attract customers? Are there specific products that sell better than others or a specific method that is more likely to reach them? Do you have better luck with some specific types of ads? Now is the time to examine your metrics to ensure that your holiday advertising strategy is as effective and optimized as possible. Read our blog on Advertising Strategies for the Q4 2018 Holiday Season to learn more.
It’s time to start getting ready for the holiday season. From planning your prices to planning the products you want to highlight, you need to act now to ensure that your holiday season will result in the sales you’re hoping for. Need more help managing your Amazon sales during the holiday season? Contact us today to learn more about how we can help.
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