Why should Prime Day matter to you?

It's often said that when the United States sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold. We can draw the same parallel when it comes to eCommerce because when Amazon does anything, there are consequences for the rest of the e-commerce industry.

Prime Day is probably the best example of what I'm talking about. These are days of very strong offers that condition the market, creating a seasonality that we could define as "artificial."

Throughout this article, I'll tell you why Prime Days 2023 should matter to you and, moreover, how you can take advantage of them even if you don't sell on Amazon.

Amazon Prime Day 2023 is a very important piece of information to consider. It will take place on July 12th and 13th. Of course, it will be two days, and interestingly, they have chosen the same dates as last year.

Strategically, it makes sense to institutionalize Prime Day so that users have it marked on their eCommerce calendars. The idea is to become like Black Friday or Singles Day: a period when customers concentrate their purchases.

Artificial or not, the truth is that this seasonality generates a concentrated sales peak and, as we know from experience, a decrease in conversions from the moment Amazon announces it.

When analyzing the impact of Prime Day, it's important to distinguish between two main profiles: the eCommerce seller who also sells on Amazon and the one who doesn't use this marketplace as a sales channel.

In the first scenario, it obviously depends on whether you apply these offers or not. If you do, you will probably sell a lot (with less margin), and if you don't, your competition can "dominate" during those two days.

However, we find the second scenario more interesting: people who don't sell on Amazon but want to use Prime Days to increase sales in their online store.

Here are 5 recommendations for them.

Online buyers are characterized by always comparing prices. Prime Day is no exception.

How can we take advantage of this? By counter-offering (if possible and economically viable). Keep in mind that the offers are directly published on Amazon's website and app, so we can easily see what they promote within our niche.

If we have the same products or similar ones, it's time to highlight them in our eCommerce store and, of course, prioritize them in our SEM campaigns by bidding specifically on them.

One of the key aspects of Prime Days promotions is that Amazon plays with urgency and scarcity. To do this, they announce the products that will be available for purchase before the offer is applied.

What if you apply your offers earlier? It may be a somewhat tedious task, but it could be worth it to do that research and be more agile. This strategy is similar and complementary to the previous one since it also relies on the user's need to compare.

Amazon Prime's main attraction, aside from the offers, is the promise of fast delivery. If you want to remain competitive, at least during Prime Days, you'll have to play with shipping costs and, especially, delivery times.

Offering express delivery for your entire online store inventory may be an unsustainable cost, but you can apply that type of delivery to those products that compete with Amazon during that period (it can also be a way to build loyalty with your most frequent customers).

When you run such an intense and short-term campaign, it's inevitable that many interested buyers will miss out.

That list of products included in Prime Day will be very useful in the following days to launch and enhance your own promotions. Not only will you know exactly which products had discounts, but you will also know the best-selling ones, allowing you to promote those that generated the most interest and, therefore, are more likely to have left customers wanting more.

This is probably a circumstance that is overlooked. Amazon requires affiliation with the Prime program in oder to shop on Prime Day

Of course, there are many people subscribed, but it's clear that they don't represent 100% of online buyers. Let's not forget that subscribing has a cost (€4.99 per month or €49.99 per year), so in the hypothetical case of wanting to buy a product, we would have to add that cost.

We can and should play that card, communicate on our social networks, website, and paid campaigns that our offers are open to everyone.