Amazon Prime Day Kicks Off 10/13

May 4th, 2023 Comments off
Amazon Prime Day. Tuesday, October 13

Unprecedented.

If there’s a word that has been used more than any other to describe 2020, that’s quite possibly it. People have changed their routines and habits in everything from work to school to dining out to shopping, and it’s likely that this will continue into Q4. With the 2020 holiday season fast approaching, it’s anybody’s guess how it will go. This is especially true since one of the biggest online shopping events of the year — Amazon Prime Day — has now entered the fray.

As a result of the global pandemic, Amazon Prime Day, which is typically held in July, will be on October 13th and 14th this year. This brings significant — yes, unprecedented — changes to the online retail landscape. Prime Day is now close enough to Black Friday and Cyber Monday and ready to give those long-standing shopping extravaganzas some serious competition.

What Is Prime Day?

In celebration of its 20th anniversary, Amazon held its first Prime Day in 2015. For Prime members only, it was a one-day event that saw prices on many items slashed to historic lows. Now in its fifth year, Prime Day is a two-day retail sensation that sees prices drop to levels that often beat out the legendary Black Friday doorbusters.

Is Prime Day really that big? Yes, it is. Global sales hit an estimated $7.16 billion during the 48-hour period in 2019, up a whopping 71% from the previous year. And with more people than ever shopping at home because of COVID-19, that number could exceed all expectations in 2020.

Tips for Sellers

What can online retailers do to capitalize on the popularity and online shopping frenzy surrounding Prime Day? Here are a few tips:

  • Don’t try to compete with Amazon. The best-selling products on Prime Day — and the ones that are promoted most heavily on its website — are Amazon’s own, such as Kindle and the Alexa system. And make no mistake, Amazon has enough inventory to last the entire holiday season. Any business that promotes similar devices is going head-to-head against this juggernaut, and that’s just not a good strategy. Instead of competing, it’s better to focus on ancillary products like covers, chargers, stands, screen protectors, and other accessories.
  • Price it right. According to Marketplace Plus, the most successful Prime Day discounts are in the 10%–50% range. This is important for retailers to know, as they don’t have to lose all their margin by cutting prices by more than half. A 30%–50% discount is enough to attract customers, while a 5% or 10% discount will hardly raise an eyebrow.
  • Know what to promote. The most popular Prime Day items in 2019, comprising more than 50% of sales, were in the $25 and under category. Items in the $26–$50 range grabbed a respectable 21%, but the numbers significantly dropped from there. In fact, items over $200 made up only 5% of total sales. The lesson? Prime Day promotions should focus heavily on items in the optimum price range.
  • Don’t promise what can’t be delivered. Carriers are already experiencing delays in shipping times due to COVID-19, and that will certainly get worse as the holidays draw closer. A retailer’s website should clearly inform customers of this and prepare them for delays and longer shipping times. It’s also a good idea to monitor COVID-19 stats in various parts of the country. Local restrictions and lockdowns can be put in place without warning, and that could affect a retailer’s ability to deliver on time. Finally, there should be plenty of inventory on hand, especially for highlighted items.
  • Diversify. This will be the first Prime Day of its kind, and there’s no telling what will happen. But it’s a safe guess that online shopping numbers will hit an all-time high this year in terms of both shoppers and dollars spent. So be ready. No one knows what the best sellers will be, but a broad product line is more likely to tap into this year’s hot items — whatever they may be.
  • Be creative. What sold well last year may not be much more than a blip on the screen in 2020. COVID-19 has changed people’s behaviors and habits, and products that can be marketed as addressing problems stemming from staying at home and lockdowns are likely to be big sellers this year.
  • Optimize listings. Prime Day is a good time to sharpen the proverbial pencil and rewrite old, dull product descriptions. Titles and descriptions can be freshened up with snappy writing that will grab the attention of potential customers. And there’s nothing wrong with checking competitors’ websites to see what keywords and terminology they’re using.
  • Use Amazon’s promotions and deals. When a retailer offers a discount by using an Amazon coupon, a highlighted label draws attention to this. It’s a great way to ride the coattails of Prime Day without having to pay for additional promotions. And it’s a good idea to check Amazon’s terms for coupons several days before Prime Day, since they don’t become active immediately.

Last year, Amazon raked in more sales on Prime Day than on Black Friday or Cyber Monday. Yes, it’s that big. With some forethought and planning, sellers can capitalize on what very well could be the biggest shopping event of the holiday season.

Categories: Marketing for Ecommerce Tags:

What Is the 10/10 Retail Holiday?

May 4th, 2023 Comments off
Holiday shopping season starts on 10/10

In recent years the start of the Holiday season for retailers has unofficially begun the day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday. This year more than two dozen national retailers are ready to make October 10th—full six weeks before Black Friday—the unofficial start of the Holiday retail season.

What is the 10/10 Retail Holiday?

In what could be a win-win for shoppers and retailers alike, participating retailers have agreed to hold large sales on the weekend of October 10th. Shoppers will be able to get a head start on their holiday shopping, retailers will be better able to manage shipping delays, product inventory. Retailers face Holiday challenges every any year, but this year these are amplified due to the logistical complications of COVID-19. With more people than ever expected to do their shopping online this year, spreading out Holiday sales may be helpful for many retailers.

Why 10/10?

Deborah Weinswig, retail consultant and CEO of Coresight Research, along wit Shopkick reward app and Fashwire, conceptualized the 10/10 retail holiday as a sibling to one of the largest shopping day in the world, 11/11. Never heard of 11/11? That’s because it’s held in China. Also called Singles’ Day, 11/11 started in the early 1990s as a day to recognize singles — the four 1s are said to represent four single people. Ironically, it soon evolved into popular day to celebrate relationships. Today, tens of billions of retail dollars are spent on 11/11 each year. It’s the single largest day of offline and online shopping on the planet.

While 10/10 may never reach the level of its 11/11 counterpart, it is hoped that a new tradition can be started this year. And with more and more retailers seeing the advantage of kicking off the holiday shopping season earlier, 10/10 may very well become part of the national shopping vocabulary in the not-too-distant future.

Categories: Marketing for Ecommerce Tags:

Local SEO Tips for Small Businesses

May 5th, 2023 Comments off

Local SEO tips

If your small business does not have a strong SEO strategy, you are almost certainly missing out on customers. According to a recent survey, the vast majority of consumers search online to find businesses in their area. Local search is becoming increasingly important for small businesses who want to use the Internet to find new customers. The following local SEO tips can help you improve your online marketing strategy.

  1. Select Local Keywords

Keywords are the words or phrases that consumers type into search engines when they are looking for information online. As a small business, it is important to target select keywords to differentiate yourself from other brands online.

Local keywords are the perfect choice for a small business, even if you are mostly an online presence customers often prefer to purchase products from their own region. By including the town, city or region that you want to target in your keywords, you can attract consumers in that area while avoiding your site being lost in the huge number of results search engines return for more general keywords. For example, try using local keywords like “Bike Shop Orlando” in addition to more general keywords like “Bike Shop” to attract new customers.

 

  1. Submit Your Business to Listing Sites

Listing sites help people to browse and explore businesses in their local area. By adding your business to listing services such as Google Places, TripAdvisor, Yelp, and any other sites popular in your region, you can help to boost the visibility of your brand online.

It is very important to ensure that your profile on every listing site contains a working link to your website. Google counts links to your website as evidence of its authenticity, which can result in its algorithm ranking your site more highly. Up-to-date contact information also helps interested consumers in your local area to get in touch with your business, which increases the chance that they will become future customers of your brand.

  1. Engage With Customers Online

The Internet provides many opportunities to interact with the customers that support your brand. Encouraging them to leave reviews on your social media and listing site profiles can help to make your brand more visible online. Always reply to customers who take the time to review your brand to show that you care about feedback and are prepared to act on it.

Categories: Marketing for Ecommerce Tags:

3 Tips for Ecommerce Sellers to Grow Sales on Amazon Prime Day

May 8th, 2023 Comments off

Seller Tips for Amaon Prime Day

3 Tips for Growing Your Sales on Amazon Prime Day

Amazon Prime Day – it’s like Black Friday in the middle of summer, minus the turkey leftovers and holiday deadlines. This year as in the past, Amazon will offer its Prime members “a 2-day parade of epic deals” on Monday, July 15 and Tuesday, July 16. And if 2018’s numbers are any indication – more than 100 million Prime Day products sold and an estimated 3.6 billion in sales – this year’s Prime Day Event promises to be another record-setter.

However, nowadays the Prime Day shopping frenzy isn’t limited to Amazon. Large, well-known competitors such was Walmart, Target, eBay and many other retailers have jumped on the Prime bandwagon by figuring out how to reap the benefits of this Amazon-invented buying holiday on their own sites. For example:

  • Starting July 15, Target will hold a major 2-day sale, with deals to include 40% off furniture and 30% off appliances.
  • Walmart has yet to divulge details about its upcoming deals, but its midsummer promotion runs July 14 through 17, so it bookends Prime Day. Walmart also teased a few major online-only deals on Dyson vacuums and HD laptops that will go live on July 14.
  • eBay’s July 15 “Crash Sale” was created in response to a past Amazon.com Prime Day site crash. Like Walmart, eBay extended its sale period with events starting as early as July 1. On July 15, eBay will offer doorbuster savings on top brands, but will also launch new deals every day through July 22.

But how exactly does Amazon’s Prime Day event translate to success for a regular ecommerce seller? Research shows that Amazon’s Prime Day creates a “halo effect” – a phenomenon where shoppers looking for deals on Amazon instinctively seek out great deals on other sites, too. This can absolutely include smaller e-commerce sellers … like you.

Here are 3 tips to help you attract shoppers to your site this Prime Day.

Tip #1: Create an Amazon Coupon for your Amazon listing. Since Prime Day is all about price discounts and great deals, sellers can bring extra attention to their product listings on Amazon.com with a great coupon offer.  Products with coupons include a highlighted “coupon” label showcasing the discount being offered.  This is a great method to ride the coat tails of Prime Day sales without having to participate in the Lightning Deals process, including the $500 Amazon fee to participate.   Important!  Coupons must be submitted at least 48 hours before the offer becomes active, so make sure you submit the coupon by Saturday, July 13 for coupons to be live by Tuesday, July 16.

Tip #2: Create a flash sale promo on your site. Offering a product at a deep discount appeals to shoppers’ competitive streak, because everyone loves catching a good deal! For your own flash sale, consider an item selling quickly on other sites. Or take advantage of your page analytics to see which products in your cart routinely get viewed but not purchased. And be sure to alert your customers via email and social media shortly before the sale starts.

Tip #3: Optimize your Google Shopping campaign on Prime Day. If shoppers cannot find the deals they want on Amazon.com, they’ll turn to Google to find them on other sites.  Make sure your website appears at the top of the listings in Google with an optimized Shopping campaign.  First, using the “view search queries” tool in the Keywords tab, scrub out keywords that have not generated a sale in the last 30 days. This action will allow you to spend more money on keywords that are producing revenue.  Then review your conversion stats: increase bids for those keywords that are producing sales and lower bids on those that aren’t.

The Bottom Line – Amazon Prime Day Can Increase Sales for All Sites

Make the power of Prime Day work for you! Pay attention to what the major retailers are doing to tap into Amazon’s event, then optimize your own online store with sales promotions and discounts on top selling products to take full advantage of Amazon Prime Day fever.

5 Reasons You Need to Add New Content to Your Facebook Business Page

May 8th, 2023 Comments off

Facebook content for Business

Over the past several years, Facebook has emerged as one of the most viable digital tools for marketing your business. The first step, of course, is to start your own Facebook business page. If you’ve already got that, then you’re one step ahead of the thousands of businesses that have yet to realize the marketing potential of social media.

But simply having a Facebook business page isn’t enough—you’ve got to keep it consistently updated with new content in order to remain competitive and continue to grow your customer base. Here are 5 reasons why you should always be striving to add new content to your Facebook business page on a consistent basis.

1. Improve Engagement With Your Target Market

Today’s consumers want much more from the companies they do business with besides good prices—they also want an engaging experience, either online or in a brick and mortar location. Obviously, Facebook is meant for engagement, so not using it to its full potential would be a huge mistake.

Engaging with your target audience through various posts gives you the chance to improve brand recognition, as well as learn more about your target audience, specifically their wants and needs. This is extremely valuable information that costs you next to nothing to acquire.

2. Improve Brand Awareness

As mentioned above, your Facebook page also serves to improve brand awareness—but only if you stay in the forefront of consumer’s minds. Consistent posts will achieve that goal.

3. You Can Grow Your Target Audience

The people who are already following your page are essentially part of your business’ Facebook community. And, they have friends and family members that might also like your page but haven’t visited it yet. But all someone needs to do is share one of your posts or tag their friends in a post, and you’re suddenly reaching more people without any effort. It’s essentially free marketing and advertising—it works, so long as you keep adding new content.

4. Improves Search Engine Visibility

Your posts can be an ideal way to drive traffic to your site or two specific product pages. Use keywords in your posts, and they will be read by major search engines. This will serve to improve your own site’s relevance and improve its rankings in search engine results.

5. You Will Remain Competitive

Today’s digital landscape is an extremely competitive one. You need to consistently add new content to your Facebook business page in order to remain competitive, and possibly gain an edge over your competitors.

On the Internet, as it always was and continues to be, content is king. Keep your content fresh and engaging, and you’ll be better able to achieve your business goals and optimize your ROI.

Categories: Marketing for Ecommerce Tags:

Call us toll-free at 1-888-434-0055

Monday–Friday, 6am–6pm Pacific Time