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It’s official. After months of speculation, Amazon finally confirmed that Prime Day 2020 will happen in October. The 48-hour retail event will span October 13 & 14 and some deals will run on Amazon’s Global Store until October 15.
Like years prior, Amazon has started offering certain deals prior to the official kick-off. Read on to learn more.
Pre Prime Day Offers
Shoppers can go to the Prime Day landing page right now and snag themselves a deal.
Above: Screenshot from the Amazon.com Prime Day landing page
As Bobsled CEO Kiri Masters predicted on Forbes earlier this year, Amazon’s own tech and daily essentials products are getting pushed with these pre Prime Day deals. There are always new versions of the Kindle, Echo and Fire tech products on the way - Amazon needs to act quickly and sell mass amounts of hardware at a steep discount if necessary.
COVID has also placed great strain on Amazon’s fulfillment capacity - by selling through a lot of their own bulky essentials inventory this creates valuable space at their FCs. Considering all of these factors, it’s highly likely that Amazon will continue aggressively pushing deals for their own products until the end of Q4.
Above: Currently 19 of Amazon’s daily essentials products are being promoted via the highly trafficked Amazon.com Prime Day landing page
What This Means for Brands
Amazon’s ‘our house, our rules’ ethos in respect to using prominent marketplace real estate to promote their own line of products has been contentious for a long time. Platform ethics aside, the reality is that the channel will be plastered with fantastic deals from a range of sources for the duration of Q4. Brands need to understand that fighting for internal Amazon traffic can be difficult and costly, and directing sources of external traffic (email marketing, social media, influencer marketing etc) to your Amazon listings might be a less risky approach for certain Q4 deals, otherwise your promos may get lost in the shuffle.Support Small
In the lead up to October 13, there’s a promo running called Support Small. By spending $10 on select small businesses, Prime Members will get $10 credit for Prime Day deals. This $10 credit will be funded entirely by Amazon. Support Small is currently being promoted on the main Prime Day landing page with a prominent banner ad.
Above: Screenshot from the Amazon.com Prime Day landing page
Amazon have used the Support Small landing page to promote select small business owners selling on their platform.
Above: Screenshot from the Amazon.com Support Small Landing Page
There is also a banner ad at the bottom encouraging small business owners to sign up for Seller Central.
Above: Screenshot from the Amazon.com Support Small Landing Page
What This Means for Brands
This promotion of small businesses is an interesting counterpoint to Amazon’s own in-house Prime Day deals. It’s letting customers know ‘sure, we do sell a lot of our own mass market products, but here’s a bunch of interesting items from smaller brands too’. Amazon’s fulfillment machine was a saving grace for many small businesses during the first wave of COVID. Support Small is a strategic play by Amazon to get more small businesses on the channel, widening their total product assortment.
Sitting Out Prime Day 2020?
As outlined in our recent Prime Day 2020 Prep Guide, many brands have decided to sidestep this year’s event for a variety of reasons. A common concern is selling too much inventory at the beginning of Q4 and then running into stock-out issues later in the quarter.
If you have decided not to participate in Prime Day 2020, there may be an opportunity to grasp in the immediate aftermath.
“I would encourage all brands to pay very close attention to the top performers in their category during the Prime Day window,” says Kiri Masters. “If these players sell through all of their inventory, this creates a temporary vacuum. Emerging brands can boost their PPC spend levels and scale their BSR significantly. We saw this during the first wave of COVID. So, even if you’re not running any Prime Day deals, keep an eye out for these types of opportunities. Getting to the top of your category now could mean a lot more organic sales during Q4, which will really help your channel profitability.”
On the right: Bobsled CEO Kiri Masters
Prime Day 2020 Tips For Brands
If you are participating, here are some suggestions from the Bobsled team:
- You can no longer submit for Amazon’s official Prime Day promos, but you can still set up your own DIY promotions.
- Amazon’s fulfillment capacity will be under great strain during Q4. Plan to have FBA inventory available at all times, enable FBM as a back-up.
- Lean heavily on your own channels. For many Bobsled clients social media was the biggest driver for Prime Day sales in 2019.
- The retargeting capability of Sponsored Display ads are incredibly useful. Learn more - Amazon Sponsored Display vs DSP.
- Consider creating bundles for giftable items.
- Don’t forget to update your storefront to highlight Prime Day deals and bundles.
- There’s a lot of competition for eyeballs on Prime Day - leveraging free tools such as Amazon Live & Amazon Posts can be a great way to stand out.
“I'm telling clients that have high turns and low storage costs to essentially plan to max out all SKU-level inventory maximums, and then plan to have another restock queued up and ready to send out immediately the last week of the month in October. This gives them the best chance at having max inventory available for Prime Day, followed by a quick replenishment that receives in time for Turkey 5. Considering the anticipated delays we’ll be really threading the needle with this strategy, so I'm also pushing hard for FBM as a back-up too.”
On the left: Jordan Ripley, Bobsled Project Manager
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