Prime Day 2019 is quickly approaching. Amazon has announced the long-awaited dates for this year's epic summer sale as July 15 and 16. The 2019 deals are launching at midnight on July 15 and will continue for 48 hours. For Prime Day in previous years, the longest sales event was 36 hours. Prime Day 2019 is poised to be the longest deal in Prime Day history.
Prime Day 2019 will be big
Given sales results from previous years, we can expect Prime Day 2019 to be the biggest Amazon shopping event ever. In 2018, Prime Day broke sales records that were only topped later in the year by Cyber Monday 2o18. Prime members currently sit at over 100 million members worldwide. In 2019, Amazon has expanded the number of countries outside of the US participating to 16, including the United Arab Emirates for the first time this year.
While Amazon focuses on selling Alexa-enabled devices, Fire Tablets, and own-brand products, it is also a huge shopping day for sellers on Amazon. With other retailers stepping up their summer sale game to match Amazon, it's a great time for customers to capitalize on deals.
Prime Exclusive Deals
Along with announcing the Prime Day 2019 dates, Amazon announced a new feature for this year, the Prime Exclusive Discount. This advertising option is available for FBA sellers. To enroll products, there are a few rules:
- Any product on which you offer a discount must have at least a three star rating (or no rating for new products).
- The Prime exclusive discount must be at least 10% off the non-member non-promotional price (that is, your price in Manage Your Inventory page), and at most 80% off your price. For a Prime Day discount, the discount must be at least 20% off your price.
- The Prime exclusive discount must beat the lowest price in past 30 days.
If your product meets the criteria, you can login to Seller Central to enroll products in the Prime Exclusive Discounts section. On Prime Day, products enrolled and accepted will display an exclusive Prime Exclusives badge and strike-through pricing. They will also appear with a savings message for Prime members in search results and on the product detail page. Prices adjusted for discounts are displayed on the detail page buy box for Prime members.
If you're interested, move quickly to setup your items. Prime Exclusive Deals are due by July 5.
How to prepare for Prime Day
With Prime Day now just weeks away, there a few ways sellers can still prepare. By now, you should have sufficient stock available and checked in at Amazon fulfillment centers. Sellers should be working to ensure detail pages are optimized and EBC content and stores are completed and live. Check in on your seller reputation by responding to customer questions and monitoring reviews.
There is still time to check in on your Amazon Advertising budget and setup relevant and timely campaigns. According to Amazon's press release, "During Prime Day 2018 more than 100 million products were purchased worldwide by Prime members. Advertisers observed a 5x increase in ad-attributed sales from their sponsored ad campaigns." Maximize your visibility through Amazon Ads in the two-week period surrounding Prime Day to drive traffic to your items. You can help encourage conversion by taking customers to well-optimized pages.
For sellers with plenty of stock, creating coupons or other discounts can also help boost sales.
Amazon has promised Prime Day 2019 will be a "two-day parade of epic deals." Are you ready?
