Shortly after their blockbuster Prime Day event in July, Amazon announced it would hold a second Amazon Prime Days 2022 event in the fall. Sellers were informed in Seller Central they only had days to submit lightening deals before the July 22 deadline whilst still in the midst of processing the record-breaking sales made only hours before.
Now that the dust has settled it’s time to look at what this Amazon Prime Days echo means for Amazon and its sellers and create a game plan for taking full advantage of the increased consumer traffic to boost sales.
Why Amazon Offers Prime Days
Prime Days, named for Amazon’s premium membership subscription service, began on their 20th anniversary and has evolved into a manufactured and heavily promoted shopping extravaganza to combat the commercial doldrums of summer.
In what has effectively become “Black Friday in July,” Amazon uses this event to boost sales in an otherwise stagnant quarter and help clear excess inventory ahead of the busy Q4 shopping season. Since they began, Amazon Prime Days have always been in the second or third week of July, except in 2020, when the global pandemic delayed the event until October. As the event has grown over the years, other large retailers have begun promoting their own summer deals to attract online shoppers eager to save money on high-ticket items.
In the past couple of years, Amazon has experimented with additional sales events to attract shoppers, including a beauty products event last October, and “Amazon Pet Day” this past May. Looking at the trends of the past couple years with supply chain issues still plaguing many industries, consumers are making their holiday purchases earlier than usual, which may help explain why the fall Amazon Prime Days event is purportedly being billed as an Early Access Prime Deals event.
How to Prep for Amazon Prime Days
You can prep for this unexpected second Prime Day in much the same way that you prepped before. As we discussed in our webinar on the topic, there are a few key areas to focus on going into Prime Day:
- Strategies for when and how much to increase ad spend during Amazon Prime Days 2022
- Knowing which promotions historically yield the greatest ROI
- Having a plan to manage inventory and reverse logistics before, during, and after Prime Day
The worst thing you can do on Prime Day is run out of inventory on your promotions and deals, so make sure you have a plan in place should this occur (we discuss such strategies in the webinar and in our Prime Day blog). As we mentioned in our more recent webinar on Surviving the E-Commerce Roller Coaster, it is crucial that brands plan early for Q4 sales and have strategies to get that inventory in place now. Otherwise, look at strategies to promote and offer deals on existing inventory, even if it cuts into profit margins. As warehousing and storage costs continue to rise, moving stagnant inventory might save costs in the long run and immediately frees up space for the inventory you want to have on hand going into the holiday shopping season.
In addition to inventory management, make sure key listings are optimized and take steps to clean up and protect your account in advance of this busy shopping season. Have strategic campaigns and sponsored ads in place targeting specific customer groups.
Fall Prime Day Deadlines
Amazon has not announced the dates for this event (or even acknowledged it publicly) but if we look at past fall sales events, we can predict that it will fall somewhere in the second or third week of October, most likely on a Tuesday. As mentioned, the Lightening Deals deadline has come and gone, but the FBA cut off for this Fall Prime Event is September 12th.
It’s also never too early to submit Lightening Deals for the upcoming holiday season. The deadline for holidays 2022 submissions for the Turkey 5 / holiday shopping season is September 2, and November 2 is the FBA inventory cut off.
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