Amazon Prime Day is one of the most eagerly awaited and lucrative events of the year for sellers. Prime Day 2024 is scheduled for July 16th and 17th in the US, this annual two-day event is notoriously famous for steal deals and high discounts on Amazon’s top products, presenting a golden opportunity for sellers to amplify their sales. Notorious, because, if you don’t plan properly, the highly profitable Amazon Prime Day 2024 can turn into a double-edged sword for your eCommerce business.
Leveraging Amazon Prime Day 2024 can significantly enhance your year-over-year growth, making it a pivotal event for any seller. However, capitalizing on this opportunity requires strategic planning and execution in the ever-evolving eCommerce landscape. Without the right guidance, the challenges can be daunting.
This comprehensive blog around Prime Day tips and strategies will help merchants like you navigate complexities like operational overload, lack of customer traction, buyer’s choice paralysis, etc. In this guide, we’ll explore strategic tips and solutions to these problems, plus how leveraging Buy with Prime on DTC sites can be a game-changer. CedCommerce is here to help you navigate these challenges and maximize your Prime Day success.
Prime Day Challenges for Merchants
Inventory Management
Managing inventory efficiently during Amazon Prime Days is crucial but often challenging due to the massive surge in customer demand.
Solution – Choosing the right integration solution can help you automate your selling operations on Amazon.com. Robust integration tools like the Amazon Shopify Channel can help merchants streamline their selling operations, especially helpful during mega-events like Prime Day 2024. These tools sync your inventory and orders across Shopify and Amazon, enabling you to focus solely on business growth while it does the heavy lifting.
Heavy Rush Of Customers
The spike in traffic can lead to processing delays and out-of-stock issues if not managed properly.
Solution – Early preparation with inventory management can be a real game-changer. To help online merchants, CedCommerce’s Amazon Shopify Channel also comes with inventory threshold options to help you avoid overselling and stockout problems.
Lack Of Efficient Integration Solutions
Many sellers struggle with integrating their sales channels, leading to inefficiencies and missed sales opportunities.
Solution – Despite its highly profitable outlook, Prime Days also becomes testing waters for eCommerce merchants. As, your strategies, choices of integrations, and even your own DTC site operations play a crucial role in shaping your success. Choosing a highly efficient and robust integration solution can make or break your year-over-year growth during and beyond Prime Day 2024.
Difficulty In Driving Traffic To Store Sites
With the overwhelming competition on Amazon, directing traffic to your store can be challenging.
Solution – Now, this is a layered issue. Since there will be high competition amongst merchants during events like Prime Day or BFCM. High competition means more choices for customers – which also becomes a problem due to the buyer’s choice paralysis. Services like Amazon’s Buy with Prime can make a real impact in tackling this prevalent challenge (more on this later).
Prime Day Essential Tips for Merchants
Curating Inventories as Per Top Performing Product Categories on Amazon
Prime Day is known for its deals across a wide array of categories, but some consistently top the charts. For Prime Day 2024, focus on the following high-demand categories:
- Electronics: Always a hot seller, items like headphones, smart home devices, and gaming accessories are in high demand.
- Home Goods: Products that enhance living spaces, such as kitchen gadgets and decor items, attract significant attention.
- Fashion: Clothing, accessories, and footwear are major draws during Prime Day.
- Health & Wellness: With the ongoing focus on health, products like fitness equipment and supplements see a spike in sales (Sell on Amazon).
Effective Inventory Management
Predicting demand and managing stock levels are crucial. Leverage tools and data analytics to forecast sales trends based on historical data and market analysis. Ensuring that your inventory is aligned with anticipated demand can prevent stockouts and overstock situations, optimizing your Prime Day performance. Apart from this, managing your inventory across multiple channels can also become a daunting task. You can explore CedCommerce Integration Solutions to effectively manage your products and orders while you sell on multiple eCommerce platforms.
Also Read: Merchant success stories with CedCommerce integration solutions
Utilizing Automation and Advanced Tools to Stay Competitive
CedCommerce’s suite of tools, powered by robust and flexible features can help you streamline your selling operations during and beyond Prime Day. Here’s a brief look at some of the notable functionalities that can help you stay flexy and boost sales with better store management:
Repricing Capabilities — Automatically adjust prices to stay competitive
CedCommerce integration tools for Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Etsy, etc., feature a repricing functionality. This helps you set price rules and stay competitive in the eCommerce landscape by regulating your prices in real time to ensure you stay ahead.
Real-Time Inventory and Order Tracking — Keep your stock and orders updated to avoid overselling
With the rapidly evolving technical landscape, it is recommended to rely on integration tools powered by AI and ML capabilities. The CedCommerce Amazon Shopify Channel and other integrations are built on a solid yet highly flexible infrastructure that empowers you to make the best out of your selling experience.
Shipping Templates Management — Ensure timely and accurate deliveries
Each marketplace has its own set of shipping templates. And, they might not be necessarily compatible with the ones you might’ve created for your products on your online store. To resolve this issue, CedCommerce integration solutions also offer shipping template mapping, creation, and editing. This ensures that you can keep track of all your orders from a centralized place.
Inventory Threshold Rules — Set rules to prevent stockouts
A simple yet highly effective feature of a reliable integration tool. With inventory rules, you can easily choose to control your stock on marketplaces. This is extremely important when it comes to smartly managing inventory during shopping events like the Prime Day 2024.
MCF Connector — Amazon Fulfillment on Non-Amazon Channels
Same-day delivery is growing at a whopping rate, approaching almost $10 million in 2024. Additionally, over 41% of customers expect to receive their products within 24 hours. (Source: Roadie, a UPS company). This showcases how same-day and one-day deliveries aren’t just a fad!
Offer Amazon’s lightning-fast delivery services on platforms like eBay, Shopify, and TikTok. This MCF Connector by CedCommerce is developed to provide smooth syncing of your products across MCF and your eCommerce platform. You can also easily bundle items and provide an early tracking number (as soon as the order is packed) to your customers. This is incredibly helpful for merchants nowadays when delivery is as much a part of the product itself.
Did you know that the number of online shoppers is expected to reach 333.5 million in the US alone?
Prime Day Success with Buy with Prime
Prime Day’s influx of shoppers can lead to issues like product shortages and choice paralysis. To counter these, directing Prime shoppers to your DTC site to offer the same product with similar discounts can help you overcome the buyer’s choice paralysis.
Buy with Prime, an Amazon service, can help you solidify the purchase decision of the buyer by offering Amazon’s trust and credibility to your site. How? Buy with Prime integration for your DTC site can help you offer Amazon MCFs fulfillment services, a familiar Amazon checkout experience, trusted payment gateways like Amazon Pay, and even access to customer information for future purposes.
Did you know that Buy with Prime has proven to increase the conversion rate for merchants by 25% on average?
Benefits of Buy with Prime for Sellers
Cost-Effective Solution
Reduce costs associated with marketplace fees on each sale you make. You need to pay Buy with Prime’s fee for 3% of the order value (and a minimum of $1 per order). Furthermore, there’s a fulfillment fee, and a payment processing fee (depending on the type of payment gateway you choose). The best part about using Buy with Prime is that merchants only pay for what they use.
Bring the magic of Amazon to your DTC store! Check out the ROI calculator by Buy with Prime to evaluate the cost and benefits yourself.
Leverage Amazon’s Customer Reviews
A buyer’s purchase decision is heavily governed by the verified reviews they see. Over 93% of shoppers admit that the reviews impact their purchase decisions. With Buy with Prime, you can feature the Amazon.com reviews on your DTC store site.
Customer Data Acquisition
Buy with Prime’s integration for your DTC site also provides access to customer information after the purchase. This helps you maintain and nurture relationships leading to effective customer retention. You can use personalized email campaigns, newsletter marketing methods, product recommendations, etc., to bring the shopper back for more.
This feature is highly effective in preparation for Prime Day and other mega events during the holiday season.
Utilizing Retail Media Opportunities During the Prime Day Event
Advertising Campaigns
“Amazon reported that brands who advertised through all phases of Prime Day saw a 216% increase in awareness and a 214% increase in consideration, in contrast with brands who did not advertise at all.” (Source – adlucent)
Creating ad campaigns around Prime Day can significantly boost your sales. The high conversion potential during this period is unparalleled, as shoppers exhibit heightened purchasing intent and engagement. Targeted Prime Day ads effectively capture this intent, driving traffic to your listings and increasing sales. Leveraging Amazon’s advertising tools, such as Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands, can enhance visibility and attract deal-hungry customers, making your products stand out in a crowded marketplace. Utilizing these ads strategically ensures that the right audience sees your promotions at the right time, maximizing your return on investment.
Leveraging Social Commerce
Social media platforms are particularly effective during Prime Day due to their ability to create buzz and foster community engagement around your deals, enhancing both awareness and sales potential. By integrating social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok into your marketing strategy, you can reach a broader audience and drive more traffic to your listings.
In a CedCommerce survey, it was found that over 59% of eCommerce merchants face challenges in driving traffic to their DTC sites. CedCommerce’s Social Ads for Buy with Prime helps merchants drive more conversion rates with targeted marketing campaign management. CedCommerce saw more than 30% of merchants increase their revenue by effectively utilizing ads on socials.
How Can CedCommerce Help You Make Prime Day 2024 a Success?
CedCommerce’s Amazon Shopify Channel can help you streamline your inventory and order management from a centralized place. This integration solution is packed with a comprehensive suite of features like:
- Save time and effort with bulk product syncing, editing, and listing
- Ensure consistency with near real-time syncing of inventory and orders
- Provide the best post-purchase experience with order fetching and creation for a centralized management
- Reach out to millions of shoppers with category template management for a highly proficient product mapping on Amazon
- Avoid stockouts and stay competitive on Amazon with inventory and pricing rules, especially useful during Prime Day, to help you boost sales
- Get notifications about your inventory stock levels and subscription plans in the Amazon Seller Central to avoid any unexpected hindrance during Prime Day 2024
Since listing products effectively also plays a huge role in increasing your sales during Prime Days, CedCommerce’s retail media services for promotions can help you drive more sales. Choose from a range of services like organic and inorganic ad campaigns, listing enhancements for better results, and more! Click here to connect with CedCommerce experts and boost your online presence this Prime Day.