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!
A gift for you and a gift for your customers! Amazon is pulling out all the stops by offering Video Production for you and Gift Wrapping for your customers!
Watch Jenna Lieber, our Director of Client Services discusses Video Production Reccomendations & Gift Wrapping Options on this week’s Facebook Live
There are so many opportunities on Amazon as a seller and it is important that you take advantage of as many as possible!
One new opportunity you should definitely take advantage of is Amazon’s video production recommendations. You can find their recommendation here!
Using this service, videos can be produced in as little as 24 hours once they have your product. These production companies know how to provide content tailored to sellers and their brands.
These videos will bring your product to life by demonstrating key features that cannot be shown in a single image. This is a quick, cost-effective way to get professional videos. If you do not have a video on your listing and you are brand registered we highly suggest looking into this opportunity as soon as possible.
Another opportunity sellers should take advantage of is gift wrapping for customers!
With the holidays about to be in full swing, offering this on Amazon can be the difference between you and a competitor getting the sale.
To enable this feature head to Seller Central → Settings → Gift Options and choose to enable the gift wrap options for your brand.
From there you can choose what gift wrap option to use, and set the price for this add-on. Gift wrapping is free to sellers so you can choose to even offer free gift-wrapping or increase your margins a little bit by putting a price on gift wrapping.
Watch Jenna Lieber, our Director of Client Services discusses Q4 Strategies on this week’s Facebook Live
It is officially Quarter 4 and you know what that means…it is time to start planning!
Sending inventory into Amazon – Plan to do this as soon as possible! In order for your products to be available for purchase please use the following guidelines:
Black Friday and Cyber Monday – Products should arrive at the Amazon warehouse no later than November 6th.
The December Holiday Rush – Products should arrive at the Amazon warehouse no later than December 3rd.
That being said, our TurnKey team suggests you plan even further ahead of these deadlines considering the Amazon warehouses are always behind during this time of year!
Planning out your shipments – Feel free to use the projection report template we’ve attached in this email. This will help you predict the inventory amount you’ll need in order to keep with the rush of sales you will get with Q4.
Amazon’s holiday return policy – Speaking of holiday shopping, Amazon’s new policy allows customers to return products that were purchased from November 1st to December 31st as late as January 31st. This applies to those of you selling through FBA as well as FBM.
TurnKey Says Goodbye to Amazon Giveaways!
As of October 10, 2019, Amazon Giveaways is no longer a feature hosted by Amazon. We loved this strategy so much and are sad to see it go!
That being said, the principles that made the giveaway effective still apply:
Leverage social media, email lists, etc. in order to send people over to a landing page to collect even more customer email addresses.
Use squeeze pages to share more information and connect with customers. Video is a fantastic medium to include on the landing page because it gives you the unique opportunity to talk to your customers and pitch to them as if you were in the same room.
Offer a discount code to people who watch the video.
So don’t worry just because Amazon isn’t offering this feature anymore. You can still find ways to incorporate aspects of the strategy we taught you in your own way and have it really impress your customers and lead to more sales!
If you need more support, we have lots of other strategies to help you grow your sales so don’t hesitate to reach out.
