Amazon Prime Day: Should Sellers Bid Up To Leverage Higher Traffic?
Announcing Amazon Prime Day 2015
It looks like the holiday season came early this year thanks to Amazon’s latest announcement to celebrate its 20th anniversary and host “Prime Day”, a one-day global shopping event on July 15, 2015, with more deals than Black Friday, exclusively for Prime members.
According to the announcement, “On Wednesday, July 15 new and existing members will be able to shop thousands of Lightning Deals, Deals of the Day, and will receive unlimited Free Two-Day Shipping. Members will find deals starting at midnight PST, with new deals starting throughout the day, as often as every ten minutes.”
If you are not already a Prime member, online shoppers can register anytime to get immediate access to the upcoming deals.
Prime members can find deals on products across categories including electronics, toys, video games, movies, clothing, patio, lawn and garden, sports and outdoor items and more.
The special promotion is great way to spike numbers as we enter Q3 with deals on items perfect for summer adventures, family road trips, back to school supplies, and everyday essentials. Prime members can shop on any device, including smartphones and tablets and enjoy deals anytime, and anywhere.
Impact of Amazon Prime Day on Third-Party Sellers
We spoke with 4 industry professionals to find out what impact Amazon Prime Day could have and how retailers should prepare their bidding strategy in advance:
Q. What will be the impact of Amazon Prime on retailers & consumers?
A. 
“Retailers will benefit from increased conversion rates on the Amazon platform whether they participate in discounting or not. Once consumer wallets are out it’s pretty safe to assume they’ll be willing to ring up for one ore two additional products.”
“Retailers will benefit from increased conversion rates on the Amazon platform whether they participate in discounting or not. Once consumer wallets are out it’s pretty safe to assume they’ll be willing to ring up for one ore two additional products.”
“Additionally, this is a chance for retailers who have inventory sitting on FBA shelves to liquidate inventory to make room for Q4 inventory investments.”
– Nii Ahene, COO at CPC Strategy
Q. What are the pros and cons of Amazon Prime Day?
A. The pro is that Amazon Prime Day is sure to increase traffic. The con is slightly less qualified traffic due to the fact that some people might be doing more shopping than buying. Also there could be a higher advertising cost of sale (ACOS) (Sponsored Products), as other brands may be trying to leverage the same tactic.”
–Sprigley Allan, Head of Amazon Program Development
Q. Should retailers drastically up-bid (in Sponsored Products) for this day?
A. “There will definitely be an opportunity to capture more volume as Amazon member flock to the site. However, since Amazon is promoting it as a “deal day,” customer might be more likely to be looking for discounted offers or promotions, so we might not see much of an uptick on regularly priced items. Traffic quality is also likely to be lower on non-featured items which, for PPC campaigns on Amazon (Sponsored Products, AMS), means potentially a poorer ROI.”
“We always recommend retailers take advantage of Amazon’s strike-through pricing display which appears automatically if you’re advertising a list price along with your current sale price. And with so many deal-focused customers on Amazon during Prime Day you’ll want to get this implemented if you haven’t already.”
“It could also be an excellent opportunity to try out a promotion, too. Especially on aged inventory that isn’t selling. Consider bundling that in as a gift or discounted offer with purchase of one of your more popular items to help those slower-moving products get some attention on Prime Day, too. On the PPC side, consider also breaking out separate Sponsored Products and AMS campaigns specifically for that day with elevated bids on key items. That way the variation in data you’re likely to see doesn’t throw off the data for your other campaigns.”
–Jeff Coleman, Director of Account Management at CPC Strategy
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