Amazon Prime Day 2021 met and surpassed mammoth expectations, with small and medium-sized businesses reaping much of the benefits.
Customers taking advantage of steep discounts unquestionably weren’t the biggest winners of Amazon Prime Day. Third-party sellers on the Amazon marketplace, comprised almost entirely of small and medium-sized business. They took home record-setting sales numbers during the mega sales event.
Lasting 48 hours, this Prime Day proved to be the biggest two-day period ever for Amazon’s third-party sellers.
According to Amazon, shoppers spent more than $1.9 billion on more than 70 million products from third-party sellers during the promotional period. Compared to Prime Day 2020, held in October, these small and medium-sized businesses experienced more than a 100% sales increase.
Furthermore, the report stated the deals were available to more than 200 million paid Amazon prime members. The massive figure was first announced in late April, within a letter from Jeff Bezos to shareholders.
In January 2020, Amazon revealed it had reached 150 million Prime members. Picking up over 50 million subscribers in less than two years is a remarkable sum. Even for a company as large as Amazon. While the pandemic created issues for many industries, the surging amount of Prime subscribers showcases the strength of e-commerce that has yet to show signs of slowing down.
Indeed, these numbers are incredibly encouraging for the current and future state of the industry. Likewise, the continued rise of Prime subscribers and massive sales numbers underline the tremendous opportunity afforded to third-party Amazon sellers.
Amazon released a few interesting tidbits related to categories and specific products that crushed it during the sales holiday.
Amazon reports the best-selling categories worldwide included tools, beauty, nutrition, baby care, electronics, apparel, and household products.
Top-selling products worldwide for Prime Day 2021 included iRobot Roomba 692 Robot Vacuum, Keurig K-Slim Coffee Maker, Apple Cider Vinegar Gummy Vitamins by Goli Nutrition, and Crest 3D White Professional Effects Whitestrips.
Prime members worldwide saved while gearing up for back to school purchasing more than 600,000 backpacks, 1 million laptops, 1 million headphones, 240,000 notebooks, 40,000 calculators, and 220,000 Crayola products.
In the United States, top-selling deals included the Waterpik Electric Water Flosser, Orgain Organic Plant Based Protein Powder, 23andMe Health DNA Test, iRobot Roomba 692 Robot Vacuum, Instant Pot Duo Plus 6 Quart 9-in-1 Pressure Cooker.
Overall, Prime Day 2021 was undoubtedly a major success even when compared to its lofty standards.
With the accelerated prominence of Amazon and e-commerce, it’s never been a better time to be one of the hundreds of thousands of third-party sellers who have realized their entrepreneurial dreams on Amazon.
Want the latest Amazon news and updates sent to your inbox? Sign up below!
Don’t let Prime Day sneak up on you! With one of the largest shopping holidays of the year approaching, find how to prepare for Prime Day.
Amazon Prime Day 2021 is almost here! Amazon’s signature shopping event — the 48-hour event kicks off June 21st — will surely be a smash hit once again.
For Amazon sellers, it goes without saying how massive of an opportunity Prime Day represents. Even though Prime Day 2020 was delayed due to COVID-19 and placed in a jam-packed holiday season, it became the largest grossing Prime Day yet, cracking over $10 billion in sales for the first time.
Amazon Prime Day sales by year, since 2015.
Of course, every seller wants to get a piece of the action. A successful Prime Day can feel like hitting the jackpot, delivering a windfall of profits as your business receives a massive influx of orders.
While the wave of sales provides the most exciting benefit, there are plenty of additional benefits that can serve as a catalyst for your business. As millions of Prime members search Amazon for Prime Day deals, their purchases can reasonably viewed as a way for sellers to increase their rank in a brief timeframe. On top of the opportunity to boost rank, sellers who capitalize on Prime Day traffic will likely garner more reviews as a result.
At Viral Launch, most questions we receive revolve around how to increase sales, boost rank, or generate reviews. Simply put, Prime Day offers the opportunity to achieve all three.
With stakes so high, the competition escalates in the lead-up to Prime Day. Conquering your market for this sales event requires more time and energy than during typical times. Below, we’ll list a few ways you can set yourself up for a successful Prime Day as the big day draws nearer.
Set Up Your Deals
Don’t forget about the fundamentals! At the most basic level, customers on Prime Day are looking for a deal. They want to see markdown prices they can’t resist or put off for later.
The tried-and-true way to achieve that would be through Prime Exclusive Discounts. Just as the name implies, they allow your product to be discounted to Prime members. These deals must be at least 10% off non-member, non-promotional price.
Exactly how much of a discount you offer is entirely your decision, but take careful consideration of your best possible offering. Assume your competition will deliver their goods for markdown prices and strategize what it will take to make your product offering the most compelling.
Even if trimming your profit margin doesn’t sound like fun, review the benefits we mentioned earlier that can provide a boost for your business. If you were seeking more reviews or want your organic keyword ranking to rise, even the smallest of profits could answer potential problems for your product that increases your chances at sustained, long-term success.
How to set up Prime Exclusive Discounts
In Seller Central, select Prime Exclusive Discounts within the Advertising tab.
Download the Discount Upload template spreadsheet. Then, fill in the spreadsheet appropriately with product and pricing information.
On the Prime Exclusive Discounts page, click Create Discount. Enter the name of discounts, date, and upload the completed promotion upload spreadsheet.
Optional: Review and edit the information of any products that fail the upload and submit.
In case you’ve never created a Prime Exclusive Discount or haven’t done so in a while, be sure to check the eligibility requirements beforehand to ensure your products meet the criteria.
Monitor Your Keyword Ranking
As always, your product’s organic rank remains a top priority. As Prime Day nears, your rank only grows more critical. For the most convenient keyword tracking, utilize a tool like Keyword Manager.
Tracking rank trends can inform you of plenty regarding your strategy and execution. On Prime Day, millions of customers will perform searches. Positioning your listing in prime digital real estate puts you in an excellent spot to win the day.
Make sure your rank isn’t falling over the next few weeks to avoid the rug being pulled from under your feet during the big rush. Each spot represents a piece of the pie your business will receive on Prime Day. Doing whatever you can to stay on top of your ranking to maintain or improve your rank could pay off exponentially.
Also, closely monitor the placement and performance of your sponsored ads through June 21st. With sellers looking to accelerate sales before Prime Day, bids for keywords become more expensive. A bid that would normally win the top billing for a keyword may not land on the first page of search results.
You may want to increase your bids, or try a new strategy altogether. Perhaps bidding on low-to-medium search volume keywords provides a better return on investment at this time.
It’s important to remember that this time is not normal. As a result, maintaining a “business as usual” strategy may not work. Those who recognize market changes and adjust appropriately will reap the benefits.
Keep An Eye on the Competition
When considering how to prepare for Prime Day, the competition plays a tremendous role in your actions.
Much like Texas Hold ‘Em poker, you must consider your assets versus what your competitor may play. Think about the start of Prime Day as the final flip of the cards, when the better hand is determined and the winner is crowned.
Continuing the poker analogy, you never truly know which cards your opponent possesses. But like poker, you can read your opponent’s “tells” to inform your decision-making and use it to earn the upper hand.
Unlike poker, you can eliminate much of the guesswork with a good competitor tracking tool, like Competitor Intelligence. Within Competitor Intelligence, you can enter a competitor’s ASIN and instantly understand their strengths, weaknesses, and a deep dive into their performance.
Competitor Intelligence spies on your competition, so you can make more informed decisions.
By tracking over time, you can also see their performance in keyword rank both organically and in sponsored ads to know what moves they’re making. In return, you can play defense and strategize appropriately to gain or maintain an edge.
Just as you’re gearing up for Prime Day, so is your competition. Accessing crucial metrics such as organic and sponsored rank by keyword, pricing changes, seeing who owns the buy box, and many more may open your eyes to their strategies.
Now just imagine how much of an advantage knowing your competitor’s thinking would be in poker…
Conclusion
With the amount of money and traffic driven through Prime Day, every second invested into optimizing your offering should be considered time well-spent. These are just a few ways on how to prepare for Prime Day.
Hopefully, at this stage, your inventory levels are prepared for a monster Prime Day. Also, your copy and product photography should already be optimized to maximize traffic and conversions. For those with the resources, Amazon Posts and Lightning Deals may also be intriguing ways to differentiate your product from the competition.
However, the clock is running out before Prime Day for drastic changes. With under two weeks to prepare, prioritizing your needs and wants first may be the way to go.
Best of luck to you in your quest to dominate Prime Day!
Want the latest Amazon news and updates sent to your inbox? Drop your email below!
Unfortunately, Amazon did not announce an exact date for Amazon sellers and customers alike to circle on the calendar. But Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky did drop some hints and key information about Amazon’s signature sales event.
“I will remind you that Prime Day has been scheduled for later in Q2, and we’ll have more on that as the quarter unfolds.” This would mean Prime Day would take place in April, May, or June.
With April in our rear-view and roughly a week into May, it’s highly unlikely Amazon would make a surprise Prime Day without giving sellers a few weeks in advance to prepare for the massive wave of sales that come with Prime Day.
For that reason, we’d imagine that an official announcement regarding the date of Amazon Prime Day 2021 is coming soon. At the present time, we’d recommend planning on Prime Day kicking off in mid-late June.
Additionally, Olsavsky mentioned Prime Day 2021 is slated to be a two-day event. As Amazon did for Prime Day 2020, he stated it will heavily emphasize small businesses.
“Another popular benefit of Prime membership is Prime Day. And we are excited to announce that we will hold the two-day savings event during the second quarter. Prime Day is also a great opportunity for our selling partners to reach more customers and will make supporting small businesses a big focus again this year.”
Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky
When is Prime Day typically?
Since its initial launch in 2015, Amazon Prime Day has been held in mid-late July with one exception. In 2020, the mid-summer sales event was postponed until October, making one of the world’s largest shopping days the unofficial kickoff to the holiday season.
The usual mid-July date marks the anniversary of Amazon.com going live in 1995. Known for massive markdowns and discounted deals, it’s estimated that sales on Amazon surpassed $10 billion over Prime Day 2020.
Over the years, Prime Day has grown into one of the largest shopping days globally.
In summary, the tidbits of information gleaned from Olavsky’s comments certainly deserve much attention. With a blockbuster Q1 behind us, the return of a mid-summer Prime Day marks another reason to believe Amazon sellers can keep the sales momentum going.
For Amazon sellers positioned to take advantage of Prime Day, the potential for record-breaking sales is stronger than ever.
UPDATE: In order to ensure your inventory is properly stocked for Prime Day, Amazon advised sellers to the following countries by these dates:
June 1: Australia
June 6: United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Turkey
June 7: United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia
June 13: Japan
As more information becomes available, we’ll be sure to update. Lastly, feel free to let us know how you feel about Amazon Prime Day 2021 in June in the comments!
Want updates on Prime Day and Amazon seller news sent directly to your inbox? Stay informed by signing up for our email list below.
Download our Newest eBook!3 Steps to Finding Your Next Great Product
Discover proven methods for identifying and validating profitable Amazon products in our comprehensive guide.
