Are you one of those last-minute shoppers who binge buys on Christmas Eve? Or do you have you had your shopping list all checked off since late August? The holiday season and end of Q4 are MAJOR opportunities for sellers to up their game and achieve their highest sales of the year (unless you sell boogie boards, then December is probably not your top month!). Increased sales don’t happen on accident, you need to properly plan in order to see maximum returns in Q4.
When should you start planning for the holidays?
Since you may need to apply for some of the promotions you’ll want to run, we recommend planning for the holidays and its coordinating promotions at least a month in advance. This ensures you won’t miss the window to apply for certain deals.
Once you know what promotions you want to run, you should immediately start applying for them. Opportunities disappear the closer you get the holidays. If you know you want to do a Black Friday deal or a coupon, look for the application window NOW so you can ensure you don’t miss out.
Beginning prep this early will also ensure you have enough time to order the inventory you’ll need to get you through the holidays. Don’t miss out on sales because you’ve run out of stock in Q4! Avoid this hazardous mistake by forecasting early and planning ahead.
What promotions are most effective?
The answer is that it varies for everyone. To start, look at which promotions have worked best for you in the past. Have lightning deals been successful? Does it work to offer a discount on multiple quantity purchases? Have coupons been effective?
TurnKey Pro Tip:We see coupons that offer a dollar amount discount convert better than the percentage off ones because customers don’t like doing the math!
If you take the time to run promotions and ads for the holidays, make sure you get the word out about your deals. In addition to reaching out to existing customers, now is the time to attract new customers into the fold. Running external ads work very well in order to share your deals. People tend to trust Amazon more than purchasing on individual random websites, so it’s worth pushing people over to your Amazon listing versus just advertising to your website.
So, take some time to prepare for the holidays and maximize your Q4 sales. If you want even more strategies, our Client Manager Jenna is over on our Playbook for Amazon podcast chatting with Jeff on Episode 18 all about what she’s doing to help clients prep for the end of Q4!
Watch Jenna Lieber, our Director of Client Services discusses Coupon Clipping Advertising on this week’s Facebook Live
Wow, we have big news for you this Wednesday!
Amazon will now officially let you advertise your coupon clippings!
Now, whenever you create a coupon clipping in Seller Central, Amazon will give you the option to create a Sponsored Products Campaign to advertise your coupon clipping.
How do you set them up? It is super easy!
First, set up your coupon clipping as you normally would.
Second, Review your coupon clipping and ensure everything was set up correctly.
Next, submit your coupon clipping and BOOM Amazon will ask you if you would like to create a Sponsored Products Campaign around the coupon clipping.
After that, all you have to do is select create a Sponsored Products Campaign and go through the steps of setting it up.
What are you waiting for? Go set this up as soon as possible and take advantage of this opportunity!
No matter how amazing the product, how phenomenal the price, or how finely composed the listing, one of the challenges that any Amazon seller faces is listing visibility. Your ideal customer cannot purchase your product if they do not know that it exists. Utilizing Amazon’s coupon clipping feature can help you to increase both your visibility and your sales.
What Are Coupon Clippings
Coupon clippings are essentially the same as their real-world counterparts. Customers on Amazon can virtually “clip” the coupons you set up and the savings are applied to their purchase at check out. In addition to the incentive of a discount that is given to customers, coupon clippings help boost your visibility.
Not only do these clippings appear on your listing, but they also are compiled in a virtual “circular” on Amazon’s website. All of the clippings that are currently active amongst Amazon sellers are sorted here by category. This gives you an opportunity to put your product in front of customers who are looking for your product but who might not have otherwise known that it existed.
How Do They Work
When setting up coupon clippings in Seller Central, it is important to understand exactly how they work. To begin, you will need to set a budget for the clipping. The budget you set for your coupon will be used for both the USD equivalent of the discount you are offering and the fee Amazon charges you each time a coupon is redeemed (currently this fee is set at $0.60 per redemption). Once the budget you’ve set for the clipping is depleted, your coupon deactivates.
For example, let’s say you are offering a $4.00 off coupon on a $25.00 item and the first day your coupon becomes active 50 customers redeem it by purchasing your product for $21.00 after clipping the coupon. This is how you would calculate the cost regarding these transactions:
(USD equivalent of the discount you are offering times the number of redemptions) + (redemption fees times the number of redemptions) = ($4.00 * 50) + ($0.60 * 50) = $200 + $30 = $230
The next day, your budget will be decreased by $230 as a result of customer interest.
When setting a budget, please keep in mind that you can always increase your budget, but you may not decrease it. It’s also important to note that if you do not use your entire budget, you won’t be charged that money. For example, if you set a $2,000 budget and $1,500 is used, you will only be charged the $1,500.
Real Life Results
Our clients have had great results when using coupon clippings. Here is an example of one of our clients’ actual numbers:
As you can see, the return on investment for coupon clippings is well worth it! Factor in the increase in exposure, the possibility of repeat or subscribe and save customers, and a larger pool of customers for reviews and there should only be one question remaining: How quickly can you set up your first coupon clipping?
