Selling on Amazon on Black Friday

Selling on Amazon during Black Friday period offers access to a significantly increased level of traffic and transactions as shoppers look for bargains and those last minute Christmas gifts. Amazon break records YoY for sales and visitors during the Black Friday Weekend (Which includes Cyber Monday), with 7.4m transactions in the UK alone.

We may be over a month away from the event, but now is the time to start getting everything ready! With the Lightning Deal submissions deadline due this Friday (13th Oct), things are moving quickly. With this in mind, here’s Expert Edge’s guide to getting you Black Friday ready.

Images

Make sure your lead image is clear and on a white background. Ensure all images are of a high enough resolution that they are suitable for Mobile use. Users should also be able to zoom in on key features. We recommend having at least 5 images when selling on Amazon. A well balanced mix of product detail shots and professional lifestyle imagery is ideal. Adding video content which is both engaging and shows further details of your product / brand

Written Copy

Titles – Ensure titles contain all necessary information about your product and brand, without being a keyword farm. Overworked titles spell spam to users, whereas underutilised titles aren’t likely to gain interest or traffic. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t have keywords in there, just don’t over do it.

Key Features – Your Key Feature bullet points are your sales converters. Make sure you use your full allocation of bullet points. You have 5 available to you and they are a great opportunity to sell the benefits of your products, not just the features. Also taking a keyword driven approach will help to get further traffic to your pages.

Product Descriptions – Product descriptions are one of the most underutilised aspects of content we see on a daily basis. Too many Vendors and Sellers use either one line of copy or one block of unreadable text. The product description is your opportunity to convert potential customers who want a bit more information. They’ve seen your images, read your title and key features, and want a bit more information know they are making the correct purchasing decision. Clear and concise descriptions with information being split across 2-3 paragraphs means you can get all of your information in without being too wordy. It is also a great opportunity to get some long tail keywords in.

A+ / Enhanced Brand Content – Whether you’re a vendor using A+ content or a Seller on Launchpad using Enhanced Brand Content, making the most of this opportunity to “tell your story” is one that shouldn’t be missed. Adding A+/EHB to your listings allows you to tell the user more about you and your products in a visual friendly way. You can customise the available modules with a mixture of images and text. This means you can create content that matches the branding you’d find on other collateral.

Reviews –  There is increased traffic during Black Friday weekend, making your current product reviews even more important. During this period, customers find new products, therefore your current reviews form a large part of their decision making. If you have bad reviews on listings, now is the time to get them fixed. Be sure to work with the customer to resolve any outstanding issues. If you feel the negative review is unfair, don’t be afraid to appeal to Amazon. Likewise, if customers ask questions about your products, make sure you answer them. The FAQ’s provide a good source of content for future visitors.

Promotional Activity

One of the benefits of Selling on Amazon is the range of additional tools that are available to further boost sales. Below are three of the most effective tools that can help you hit new sales records this Black Friday.

Lightning Deals – The deadline for submitting Lightning deals is Friday 13th October. Lightning deals are time allocated deals of limited stock for a set period of time. They provide a great opportunity to get visibility when people are deal hunting, giving you access to new customers. You can submit your lightning deals through your Amazon Console. There are minimum discount and promotion value requirements for enabling lightning deals, which you will be able to see when setting up the deals.

Sponsored Products / Headline Search Ads – Using Amazon’s AMS functionality, Sponsored Products and Headline ads are a great opportunity for you to get extra visibility for your products. This can be key during high selling periods, or on categories you wouldn’t normally appear. Using a cost per click mechanism, it is as simple as setting up various campaigns based on your own criteria, assigning keywords and allocated budget. It is worth noting that cost per click during Q4 tends to increase so under-performing campaigns need to be watched regularly and paused if necessary.

Subscribe and Save – the Amazon Subscribe and Save feature is a great way of gaining continual incremental revenue. This is especially true if you have consumables such as food and drink which need regularly replenishing. Setting up Subscribe and Save on your products and promoting those products with sponsored products is a great way to grab extra sales through this period of increased traffic, which continues to provide revenue for months to come.

Unsure about selling on Amazon? Take a look at our Benefits of Selling on Amazon guide

Expert Edge can help you do all of these things above if you don’t have the time or resources to do it yourself. Our team is made up of former Amazon employees, vendors and sellers who have experience in doing this for multi-million dollar/pound brands as well as smaller startup brands. Find out more about our Amazon Consulting services.