Amazon Prime Day 2021 Vendor Operational Preparedness

Unlike the anomaly of last year’s event which fell at the beginning of Q4, Prime Day 2021 will take place sometime around the middle of the year, most likely in mid-July. With Prime Day, brands have a huge opportunity to connect with the millions of shoppers who are looking to snag themselves a deal.

Amazon recently shared some information about Prime Day 2021 operational preparedness for vendors. All brands need to plan carefully for the biggest online retail event of the year, but vendors should spend extra time planning ahead, as they need their wholesaler-retailer relationship with Amazon to function seamlessly during this peak traffic period.

In today’s article we’ve shared the operational preparedness statement from Amazon, and delivered some of our own recommendations about how vendors should be approaching Prime Day 2021.

Operational Preparedness – Amazon’s Update

Vendors were delivered the following message via the News section of their Vendor Central dashboards on March 18:

With Prime Day approaching, please be aware that we will be issuing U.S. purchase orders (POs) in the beginning of May for approved Prime Day deals. You will continue to receive regular, non-Prime-Day POs throughout May and June. Please fulfill these regular, non-Prime Day POs as usual.

Immediately following Prime Day, you should expect to receive out-of-stock (OOS) replenishment orders. Confirm those POs as soon as possible with your available inventory.

All Prime Day deal inventory should be ready to ship by mid-May to reduce the risk of OOS during the event. For collect vendors, please remember to route early, accurately, and completely, and be ready to ship by 8 a.m. on your freight ready date (FRD).

To ensure a smooth supply chain and flow of shipments, please make sure to review the following important notes:

Deal POs:

• Ship/delivery windows will be extended +8 days on deal POs to allow for more prep time due to the increase in order volume.

• We require all Less than truckload (LTL) freight to be palletized. Small Parcel shipments should not be palletized.

Operational requirements:

• Submit deals by Friday, April 16

• Ensure your catalog is accurate.

• Update Vendor Central with correct operating hours and night/weekend availability

• Confirm your purchase orders within 24 hours

• Tell us as soon as possible about products you will not be able to supply

• Proactively manage against auto-cancellations

• Actively manage transportation and enable your carrier to request the earliest possible appointment

• Cut a case on Vendor Central to escalate transportation-related issues and pickup delays. Carriers can request a callback via the Click 2 Call (C2C) functionality in Relay 4 Drivers or Carrier Central for appointment delays/reschedules.

Bobsled’s Prime Day tips for vendors

3P sellers generally have more direct control of their Amazon presence compared to 1P vendors. However, that doesn’t mean vendors can’t take strategic steps to win big on Prime Day. We’ve outlined a few examples below.

• The main perk about being a Vendor during Prime Day is that you can create Lightning Deals on your own compared to the Seller Central model where Amazon needs to recommend and enable a Lightning Deal. Vendors should be analyzing inventory levels, profit margins and sales velocity across their Amazon catalog to create Lightning Deals that will resonate with Prime Day shoppers.

• There’s an additional option for Vendors when creating Lightning Deals - you can opt in to have Amazon evaluate your deal and consider placing POs at a reduced promotional cost. If margins allow for discounts, Vendors can get large POs this way. However, there is a risk of Amazon overstocking and then not ordering for quite some time. Therefore, Vendors always need to be careful with how much inventory they actually accept with such POs.

• When creating a price discount promotion in Vendor Central, Amazon may have the promo optionally merchandised by site merchandisers, the Amazon email team, and the Amazon Deals team, which can result in more traffic.

• When doing promo codes in Vendor Central, Vendors can opt in to share the promo code with Amazon Influencers and Associates. Opting in does not guarantee placement, however, it’s yet another way to gain more traffic if Amazon decides to share the promo.

• In the window before Prime Day, some vendors may notice impressions and clicks increasing, and a reduced conversion percentage for both organic and paid traffic. You should definitely consider reducing your paid spend in the immediate period prior to Prime Day so that you can give yourself more PPC bandwidth during the high traffic period.

• 3P resellers (both authorized and unauthorized) can cause big headaches for brands during the Prime Day event. If another seller owns the buy box, this means your PPC campaigns won’t run, and this competing offer may be getting the lion’s share of sales, especially if there’s a significant selling price disparity. Vendors have a precious couple of months to restrict which parties can obtain their inventory in anticipation of Prime Day. 

• More traffic means more competition. How do your product listings stack up against the other brands in your category? Improving your product images or even adding a video could mean all the difference on Prime Day. 

💡Check out Video Content For Amazon

We will be delivering more Prime Day 2021 recommendations for all brands in the lead up to the event (sign up to our mailing list so you can don’t miss a thing). If you would like to chat with one of our experts please book a consultation below.