How to Prepare for Amazon’s Prime Early Access Sale 2022

Prime Day 2022 has passed, but Amazon surprised its customers with another big sale to kick off the holiday season: Prime Early Access Sale 2022. This big sale will take place on October 11th and 12th and will feature exclusive discounts and deals for Amazon Prime members. 

Customers can expect “Black Friday caliber deals” during this event and on a wide variety of products. 

So, as a seller, how can you prepare for this large “fall Prime Day” with such short notice?

What Amazon sellers can do to prepare for the Prime Early Access Sale 2022

Amazon didn’t give sellers much notice for this upcoming sale, so you need to act right now. In order to fully reap the rewards of the Amazon Prime Day fall event, it’s important to take steps now to get your business ready for the potential uptick in sales. Our seller calendar can help you keep track of important, upcoming dates like Prime Day — we’ll go over the details here. 

1. Create FBM offers if you do not have enough FBA inventory 

Since the event is only six days away at the time of this publication, you likely won’t have enough time to send new inventory into FBA. Another solution, if you do not have lots of FBA inventory available, is to create FBM offers on your listings so you can still offer deals and meet customer demand by fulfilling your own orders (or by using a third-party fulfillment center).  

2. Offer customers multiple ways to save

In order to entice customers to purchase your products during the Early Access Sale, we suggest you create deals, discounts, and promotions on your listings. 

Some sellers don’t run deals at all and see a bump in sales simply due to the increased traffic. But it’s a good idea to offer customers ways to save. Here are three ways to do it:

• Use Amazon Coupons. A coupon is the best way to let customers know you’re offering discounted prices, because it shows up as a bright green tag next to the list price on the product detail page — customers can’t miss it, and they don’t have to go hunting for deals on a separate page. 
• Create a Promotion. In Seller Central, Amazon sellers can create different promotions, such as “buy one get one free” or “buy one get one 50% off.” You can also create a custom social media promo codes to share with your audience or with an influencer off of Amazon. You will receive a custom marketing page to send potential customers to. 
• Adjust your list price. While Amazon does not recommend simply lowering your price, this is another option during the big sale day. If you add a list price alongside a sale price, Amazon will display the discount offered on your listing. Last year, this functionality was disabled, but we’ve noticed it is back.

 

This is still a good option to save you from long-term storage fees that unsold inventory can accumulate over time. Plus, it could boost your Best Sellers Ranking (BSR) organically. 

Note that customers can use Coupons simultaneously with other promotions like Lightning Deals to save even more money.

3. Optimize your listings 

Sellers should also focus on listing optimization in advance of any big sale event. While discounted prices are important to today’s shoppers, your product listing needs to be as attractive as possible to clinch those conversions. 

• Audit your listings: Check your title, bullet points, images, and descriptions to make sure they’re up to date.
• Split test your A+ content: If you are brand-registered, consider using Amazon’s split-testing feature to maximize your listing’s conversion potential.

4. Boost your marketing strategy

Make sure customers find your listings on Prime Early Access Sale by boosting your brand’s visibility, on and off Amazon. Start now, so by the time the sale rolls around, you can entice your broadened audience with incredible deals.

• Review your PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns. Consider bidding more aggressively for your product’s most important keywords to increase your organic ranking. If you’re a brand-registered seller, now’s the time to take advantage of your access to Amazon’s advanced PPC advertising solutions. These include Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Brands Video, and Sponsored Display ads.  
• Run off-Amazon ads: Drive external traffic to your deals to increase sales. Try using Facebook and Google ads’ sophisticated targeting capabilities, and remember to track your off-Amazon traffic and conversions with Amazon Attribution.  
• Use social media to alert customers to your upcoming Prime Early Access Saley deals. Consumers are increasingly interested in finding products on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and even TikTok — capturing their interest with posts, Instagram Stories, and short videos letting them know how much they can save on your products on Prime Day. You can even recycle some of that content through Amazon Posts. 

Automate your review requests. Accumulating great product ratings and reviews is an essential component of your marketing strategy. Make it easier on yourself by automatically requesting reviews from your Amazon customers.

About Amazon Prime Day

In 2015, Amazon introduced Prime Day — a day of deals and sales across Amazon.com — as a way to celebrate their Prime members on Amazon’s 20th birthday. The first iteration of Prime Day happened on July 15 and ran for 24 hours. Now, Prime Day runs for two full days. Initially, Prime Day deals were only available in nine countries, but the list expanded each year, with the number of participating countries reaching 18 in 2019. 

The sales event has been a massive success ever since — even the events of 2020 couldn’t stop it. 

Prime Day success over the years

2015 

Amazon raked in even more earnings during Prime Day 2015 than it did during its record-breaking 2014 Black Friday sales event. Additionally, in its first year, FBA sellers worldwide saw a 300% increase in sales, with 34.4 million goods sold.  

2016 

The following year, in 2016, Prime Day grew. Belgium participated (bringing the total number of participating countries to 10), sales worldwide were 60% higher than in 2015, and 3P sellers offering deals nearly tripled their orders year-over-year.

2017

Prime Day 2017 saw even greater growth, not only in terms of products sold (50% more than in 2016) and participating countries (up from 10 to 12) but in the length of time the deal day lasted as well — from 24 hours to 30.

2018

Then, in 2018 and due to the success of the extended hours, Amazon took it a step further and ran Prime Day for 36 hours. Once again, it paid off.

Prime members worldwide bought over 100 million products, SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) earned over $1.5 billion in revenue, and it was Amazon’s largest day-and-a-half of sales globally.

2019

Finally, Prime Day 2019 ran for 48 hours, and sales eclipsed 2018’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales combined. 

During that two-day time frame, shoppers bought more than 175 million items, generating over $2 billion in revenue for third-party sellers. In fact, some sellers reported experiencing an increase in sales anywhere from 23% to 200%. 

2020

Amid concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused manufacturing slowdowns and the prioritization of essential goods, Amazon delayed Prime Day 2020 until October 13-14 in the U.S. Despite Americans’ widely reduced consumer spending during that time, Prime Day still charted record-breaking sales, with Prime members saving over $1.4 billion over the course of the event. 

2021

In 2021, Prime Day occurred on June 21-22, earlier than any other year. Despite some consumers being more cautious about their spending, it didn’t stop everyone from finding a good deal during this year’s event. 

Prime Day 2021 marked another record year for Amazon with total event sales reaching $11.2 billion, compared to $10.4 billion in 2020. Amazon also highlighted Prime Day 2021 as the biggest two-day period ever for third-party sellers.

2022

In 2022, Prime Day occurred on July 12-13, which was the typical timing for this event. In 2020 and 2021, Amazon Prime Day occured in October and June, respectively, due to the pandemic. 

Prime Day 2022 was Amazon’s biggest year yet. Sales were up 15% from Prime Day 2021 and revenue was up 29% – while saving customers a total of $1.7 billion.

 

*Methodology

Between February 4-8, 2022, Jungle Scout conducted an anonymous survey among a panel of 950 U.S. consumers about their buying preferences and behaviors. Respondents represent every U.S. state, all genders, and ages 18 to 75+, as well as all employment types and varying income levels. See our Consumer Trends Report page for more information.