Amazon has announced that it’s seventh-annual Prime Day will be Monday and Tuesday, June 21-22—the earliest it has ever been held. For the first five years, Prime Day has been in July and last year it was postponed to October due to the pandemic.
For the second year in a row, Amazon seems to be focusing more on its marketplace sellers—which it refers to as small businesses—than in previous years. For example, it will once again have “curated small business collections” during Prime Day on Amazon.com/SupportSmall where consumers can browse marketplace sellers’ products by category, business location and collections such as Black-owned, woman-owned and military family-owned businesses.
Additionally, Prime members will receive $10 to shop on any products during Prime Day when they spend at least $10 on items sold by marketplace sellers starting June 7 through June 20. More than 300,000 sellers are eligible for the “Spend $10, Get $10 promotion,” more than twice as many as last year, the company says. This promotion is funded by Amazon. Echo device owners in the U.S., U.K. and Germany can say “Alexa, shop small business” to hear deals on marketplace sellers’ products eligible for the “Spend $10, Get $10” promotion.
The “Spend $10, Get $10” deal generated more than $900 million in marketplace sales in the two weeks leading up to Prime Day 2020, Amazon said last year. The best-selling categories for marketplace products in 2020 were home goods (specifically bedding products), electronics, nutrition and crafts.
Sales of marketplace sellers’ products grew nearly 60% during Prime Day 2020 and—most notably—grew faster year over year than sales of Amazon’s own products, which includes its private-label goods, Amazon devices and products it buys from manufacturers to sell itself. This suggests Amazon’s emphasis on small businesses at least in part helped boost marketplace sellers’ sales last year.
So, as the owner of an ecommerce store, how does this impact your business? Certainly, if you are selling on Amazon, you should be taking advantage of this marketing opportunity. Amazon is giving you a tool to grow your sales and your brand during this time.
If you are not selling on Amazon, Prime Day can still impact your business – and not just because sales might be going to some other vendor who does sell on Amazon, but because of what you can learn from the event. Prime Day began in 2015 as a celebration of Amazon’s 20th year in business. It turned into a summer sales holiday designed to drum up additional business for Amazon—and the retailer’s marketplace sellers—before the holiday shopping season.
Have you ever thought about holding your own celebration like a Prime Day? I’m not talking about just having a 1 or 2 day sales event (although that should clearly be a large part of it). And you don’t have to have a marketplace like Amazon with lots of vendors selling on your website. But you do need to have a celebration!
If you are a manufacturer of your own products with lots of wholesale customers who resell your product, you will want to get them involved. If you are a retailer, get your customers involved. Hold contests throughout your celebration. Do live video streams with specials that people can only get by watching your live streams. Stream your videos simultaneously on your social media platforms as well as on your own website.
You will need to update your home page and your graphics just for this event. You will need to send out a ton of emails. You will need to promote this on social media. You will want to send out press releases. Perhaps you want to create your own t-shirt about your celebration. If it is a local event, have a hot dog stand and popcorn. Bring in local celebrities. For this to be successful, it is going to require some serious effort on your part.
But the truth is, these are things you want to do to make your online venture successful anyways. Holding a big hoopla once a year that is your event, and not just another holiday that all businesses celebrate could be your key differentiator.
Tony Robbins likes to say, “success leaves clues.” Ever since I wrote my book years ago called “Amazons Dirty Little Secrets“, I’ve been advocating that you take a look at what Amazon is doing and copy those things that make sense for your business. Prime Day is a great example.
Let me know if you decide to create your own celebration for your business – I look forward to seeing what creative things you come up with (and of course, WebStores Ltd would be happy to help you pull it off!)
By the way, here is a t-shirt that I sell on Amazon that makes a great conversation starter. Grab one for yourself this Prime Day!
Note: When you click on this link, you get a really cool t-shirt that promotes your business, and since this is an affiliate link – I make both a commission on this referral link and on the shirt. It’s a win-win for everyone!
Greg Jameson has been writing blog articles on ecommerce and internet marketing for over 10 years. Learn more about Greg at https://webstoresltd.com/about/
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