How to Prepare for Amazon Prime Day: A Checklist for Sellers
Amazon Prime Day Checklist for Sellers
With Amazon Prime Day’s July 2024 date quickly approaching, e-commerce companies need to prepare for this annual summer surge in online shopping. As one of the biggest shopping events of the year, Prime Day presents a significant opportunity for retailers to boost sales and attract new customers. If your organization needs to get its ship together for a rush of orders come July, our transportation and fulfillment experts at CTL can help you prep with our Amazon Prime Day checklist below:
1. Stock Up on Inventory
The first step to preparing for Prime Day is to make sure you have enough inventory to meet the expected increase in demand (according to Amazon, 2023 was the biggest Prime Day ever with over 375 million items purchased worldwide). To forecast demand, analyze your sales data from previous years for estimates on how much stock you will need and place orders with suppliers well in advance to avoid stockouts.
2. Offer Fast and Free Shipping
In 2024, customers expect fast and free shipping, especially during major shopping events like Prime Day. Consider offering free shipping on all orders—or implement a minimum order value for free shipping.
3. Plan Your Marketing Strategy
Develop a comprehensive marketing strategy to promote your Prime Day deals and convert traffic to conversions. Utilize a multi-channel approach and engage customers through your owned spaces with social media posts and emails. Remember, Prime Day is not just an opportunity to drive sales but to build brand awareness and generate excitement around your company.
4. Evaluate Amazon’s Advertising Tools
Another way to attract attention is through Amazon’s suite of tools for creating discounts, coupons, and other deals. The Lightning Deals tool, for example, can place a product on the Amazon Deals page for a limited time, boosting visibility, driving urgency, and generating buzz.
5. Adjust Paid Advertising Campaigns
If you’re running paid advertising campaigns on platforms outside of Amazon, pay close attention to budgets and take advantage of schedule-based budget rules. With these tactics, ad campaigns that do well by attracting more customer clicks than normal won’t hit spend thresholds and pause prematurely, turning your ads off for hours at a time.
6. Prepare Your Website for Increased Traffic
Ensure your website can handle the increased traffic expected during Prime Day. Optimize your website for speed and performance and consider using a content delivery network (CDN) to distribute traffic and improve load times.
7. Monitor and Analyze Performance
Throughout the actual Prime Day event, monitor your performance metrics, such as sales, traffic, and conversion rates. Analyze this data to identify areas for improvement and adjust your strategy in real-time.
8. Partner with an Expert Third-Party Logistics (3PL) Provider
With a good 3PL partner, this checklist could end here!
An expert 3PL with experience managing peak seasons like Prime Day will optimize your fulfillment process to ensure orders are processed and shipped quickly.
In all seasons, a 3PL helps organizations scale operations and reduce shipping times, which ultimately bolsters the customer experience. CTL’s centrally located fulfillment centers are close to most U.S. customers. This not only helps with order fulfillment but also affects customer experience (better shipping = greater satisfaction + repeat business).
We consider most of the tactics above simple table stakes for any reputable 3PL partner. The best 3PLs have been seasoned by multiple peak events and have developed a playbook of best practices that unlock swift reactions to the unexpected changes that surface during the organized chaos of an event like Prime Day.
To learn more about some of the more advanced tactics an expert 3PL partner like CTL will take off your hands, stay tuned for another blog coming soon in our series entitled, “How a 3PL Partner Elevates Prime Day Fulfillment Operations.”
Final Thoughts
By following this Amazon Prime Day Checklist for Sellers, organizations can prepare for this annual summer rush of orders and maximize sales and shipments during one of the biggest shopping events of the year. From stocking up on inventory to optimizing fulfillment processes and marketing strategies, careful planning and execution can help businesses capitalize on the opportunities Prime Day presents.
With a 3PL partner like CTL, you can count on us to assist you in preparing for Prime Day and capitalizing on one of the year’s biggest e-commerce events. If you’re ready to prepare your Prime Day strategy, get started today.
