What Should Brands Do After Prime Day Ends?

Prime Day 2021 is nearly over. How is the event panning out for your brand so far?

Bobsled CEO Kiri Masters just published her latest piece on Forbes – The Halfway Point: How Is Amazon Prime Day Performing For Retail Brands So Far? Kiri’s initial observations are as follows:

• Large companies and small businesses have been offering deep discounts: some of LEGO’s most popular sets are 30% off, and some OSMO play sets are 50% off
• Most Bobsled clients are actively participating in the event by offering Prime Exclusive Discounts, coupons, or flash sales in the 10-40% range
• Amazon sellers are seeing strong take-up of deals. Mark Samuel, Founder, and CEO of IWON Organics says that his company had already hit their sales record for Amazon by 7 AM on Monday. “I am becoming more bullish on Amazon,” Mark says. “We are now close to 3X my comparative sales numbers by 2:30 PM on Day 1 of Prime Day.”

Brands should now be thinking about what their next move is immediately after PD concludes. Find the Bobsled project team’s recommendations below.

Prime Day Halo Effect

Here is a simplified version of the PD event cycle:

• More ‘browsing’ traffic in the lead-up. These are Amazon shoppers that put together wishlists and then wait until PD to see what deals go live before making a purchase decision.
• Traffic and total revenue on Amazon will go up drastically during PD.
• Your direct competitors will be trying to win PD conversions through a combination of boosted PPC spend and PD promo deals.
• Brands that performed well during the PD window will observe a ‘halo effect’ afterward. This is because more conversions during PD leads to more product reviews and an improved Best Seller Rank (BSR).

Therefore, after PD concludes, brands who invested in the event via promos and boosted ad spend will be looking to further solidify their position within their category. On the other hand, brands that didn’t run any PD deals will be looking to play catch up.

Get Clear on FBA Inventory Levels and Replenish Immediately

Many brands will have sold through a lot of inventory between June 21-22. To ride the halo effect wave, brands need to ensure critical SKUs stay in stock.

Ideally, your pre-PD inventory planning was on point, and you still have enough active FBA inventory. Brands that sold more FBA units than expected should prioritize sending a replenishment shipment immediately, and how you send inventory to Amazon can make a huge difference. 

“If multiple ASINs are a priority, sending in smaller FBA shipments more frequently is the way to go,” explains Bobsled Team Lead Armin Alispahic.

“If a large shipment gets lost or delayed, this could really set you back a long time. Smaller shipments mean less risk and this generally equates to better account health.”

If you do run out of stock while you are waiting for an FBA shipment to be received, consider switching to FBM (Fulfilled by Merchant) or using a 3P fulfillment provider. This ensures your items will stay in stock while other inventory-less brands will vanish from the search results page.

To add further importance to your post-PD inventory management efforts, there is currently a shipping crisis unfolding in China, and this backlog will undoubtedly impact inventory levels on Amazon for the remainder of the year.

Brands that are more efficient with inventory management now will reap the rewards later!

🔔 Bobsled will be publishing a Prime Day 2021 Results recap next Tuesday, June 29 – sign up for our free newsletter so you don’t miss a thing.

Consider What Promos to Run Immediately After Prime Day

There are ways to keep the PD momentum going after the event winds down. Many brands will be taking a step back from promos for a while, which creates a vacuum.

“I recommend using flash sales and coupons the day or two following Prime Day,” explains Bobsled Project Manager Lindsay Baker.

“This is because a successful Prime Day period has a tangible halo effect and these types of promos can help brands capture additional sales. The ultimate goal should be leveraging Prime Day promos to obtain a better BSR, which you can maintain by tweaking your paid advertising strategy.”

💡Learn more – Which Amazon Promotions Work Best?

Update Your Creative Assets

If you modified your Amazon Storefront or product display pages to help promote PD deals, to avoid customer disappointment about elapsed deals, be sure to update your creative assets.

There are more and more ways you can keep your Amazon presence fresh and stand out from the competition, and you should get into the habit of updating your Amazon creative regularly. For some ideas, check out Best Amazon Brand Stores: Tips, Mistakes, and Examples

Above: REN brand store screenshot on Amazon.com

Reduce Amazon PPC Budgets

Most brands increase their Amazon PPC budgets to account for the massive bump in traffic that comes with PD. So after the event, you will want to recalibrate your budget accordingly. 

Amazon recommends raising bids during high-traffic events such as PD, but at Bobsled, we find that our performance typically scales well by simply adjusting budgets to take the higher traffic into account. However, it’s important to carefully monitor your hero keywords at all times! If you are not getting optimal placements you may need to get more aggressive on your bids.

The best way to measure placements is a share of shelf analysis, learn more – Amazon Share of Shelf: Benchmarking Performance

Use Sponsored Display and Amazon DSP to Retarget Gun-Shy Browsers

There are likely many shoppers who browsed your products during PD but didn’t buy anything for a variety of reasons. You can utilize Sponsored Products Display and Amazon DSP to efficiently retarget these shoppers, especially if you are continuing to run promos on those particular ASINs. 

💡 Learn more – Amazon Sponsored Display vs DSP

However, advertisers need to be careful not to overspend when retargeting immediately after a high-traffic retail event. When creating audiences for post-PD campaigns, be sure to negate customers who recently purchased something from yourself or a competitor. Also, go for tighter time windows, like the last 7 or 30 days, as these shoppers will be the hottest leads.