Amazon Prime Day is quickly approaching, and I usually get a lot of questions about this day and how to take advantage of it as either a buyer or a seller.
If you are new to this and interested in learning about selling on Amazon, I recommend reading this page that covers my Stairway to Seven Figures philosophy for building a successful business first.
If you are just looking for the highlights on Prime Day, here is what you need to know:
- It starts July 15 @ 12 AM PT.
- It will last for 48 hours (making it the longest Prime Day ever).
- There will be special offers at Whole Foods.
- My business usually sees 2x sales on Prime Day. Expect more this year thanks to the extra length.
- Look for deals on almost all Amazon products.
- Deals are only available to Prime members. (if you aren’t a member yet, get your free trial here)
- More countries are involved this year.
- Back-to-school type products MAY feature heavily in the deals
The rest of the post will be a more in-depth look at Prime Day. Here’s what we’ll cover:
- What is Prime Day?
- What Deals Are There?
- How to Get a Good Deal
- What I Purchased in 2018
- What I Purchased in 2019
- How to Take Advantage of Prime Day as a Seller
What Is Prime Day?
Prime Day is a shopping event that Amazon launched in 2015. They call it “an epic day (and a half) of our best deals.”
While not as big as Black Friday or Cyber Monday, it’s definitely one of the biggest online shopping days of the year in terms of money spent, and it’s a big opportunity for both buyers and sellers.
You have to be a Prime member to get access to the deals, which causes a huge influx of Prime members on Prime Day each year. Last year they said that the number of new subscribers was in the tens of millions.
If you want to shop Prime Day deals and aren’t a current Prime member, remember that you can get a free 30-day trial on memberships.
After the free trial, a monthly membership costs $12.99 a month, while a yearly one will cost you $119.
What Deals Are There?
The biggest deals are typically on Amazon’s own products.
With the race to dominate the ‘voice’ market well underway, I expect some big deals on Amazon branded devices. They’ve actually already started offering discounts on some big early discounts on some items. For example, the Amazon Fire Recast (Amazon’s own DVR device) is $100 off. Also the Ring Doorbell with an Amazon Echo included is over $110 off it’s normal price.
With that being said, there will be deals across many categories and from many different brands. Electronics typically feature heavily in the mix, but with the continued growth of Prime Day, the variety should be better than ever this year.
There will even be special deals and promotions at Whole Foods this year.
It seems like Amazon is trying to capture more of the back-to-school shopping crowd, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see great deals in that category as well.
Amazon also published a guide on making the most out of Prime Day, which is worth looking through. One thing that caught my eye is that you get $10 credit if you download their app and sign in for the first time.
How To Make Sure You Get A Good Deal
If you are shopping Prime Day deals and aren’t sure if a deal is good, there are two things you need to do.
First, use a price history tool to see if the item is actually on sale. camelcamelcamel.com is a great one. Keepa.com is another option. These tools will show you the prices of the items in the past, and will help you make sure you are really getting a good deal.
Second, check for the product on other sites like eBay or Walmart to make sure there isn’t someone else selling it for less.
What I Purchased on Prime Day 2018
I pulled the trigger on couple of Prime Day deals last year. There were some very good savings and I enjoyed shopping the deals. Here’s a few things that I ended up buying:
A stand up desk with built in exercise bike combo – I had been looking for a stand up desk for awhile and wanted to see if there were any prime day deals for one. This looked like a good hybrid option. A lot of my work is done at a desk in front of a computer, so this seemed like a good option to get some movement while working. I’ve had this for about a year now and have been very happy with the purchase. It’s pretty easy to go 5+ miles on the bike all while answering emails. This was $349.99, and the normal price is $499.99. I did make sure to verify that the normal selling price appear to be $499.99 via the price history chart tool mentioned above.
The Instant Pot – This is a something that I’d heard quite a few good things about from friends and family. Last year it was running on a Prime Day deal for $58.99, which is about $40 off the normal price. This can replace a few of the kitchen tools, and I’ve been very happy with it.
RX Bars – Amazon was running a Prime Day special for 30% off RX Bars. I like to keep these around as a snack so this was something I purchased a few extra boxes of while they are on sale.
What I Purchased on Prime Day 2019
I’ve browsed some deals on Amazon since Prime Day has been live. There are some good deals out there, but most haven’t been a good enough deal for me to purchase.
The only thing I purchased was a mini portable air compressor. The regular price was $45.99 and I was able to get it on a Prime Day deal for $30.93. You can check it out here.
Other than that, nothing was tempting enough for me to purchase this year. If you purchased any great deals, let me know in the comments section!
How To Take Advantage Of Prime Day As A Seller
Now that it’s early July 2019, there isn’t anything you can do to become one of Amazon’s featured Prime Day deals.
They reach out to sellers earlier in the year to notify them if any of their products are eligible for one of the deal types, and have a list of requirements you have to meet like how much inventory you have stocked and ready to go for the deal.
But that doesn’t mean you are out of luck.
Sales go up across the board on this day, even on items that aren’t fulfilled by Amazon (Prime eligible).
To maximize your FBA sales, you’ll want to have as much inventory as possible ready to go at Amazon warehouses. The length of time it takes Amazon to process shipments varies, so you want to do this as early as possible. I’d recommend having anything you want to be in stock on Prime Day 2019 on the way to FBA warehouses by July 7th at the latest. That’s not a 100% guarantee that it will get there either.
The other thing you can do is price your items better and/or offer special discounts on that day. Your own discounts are a great way to get attention because there will be millions of people on the platform hunting for a bargain. Discounts and BOGOs are always good, but I’ve also been seeing people get great results by creating unique bundles.
You can do this under the advertising tab in seller central to offer coupons and promotions on your products.
At an absolute minimum, I recommend going through and reviewing your pricing in advance. I’d make sure your prices are competitive wherever possible to take advantage of the increased demand.
To give you an idea of the increased demand here’s a look at what happened on Prime Day 2017 for my business:
Prime Day 2017 started a few hours early on 7/10, and then ran all day on 7/11.
Outside of Prime Day my business averaged between $9,000 and $10,000 in sales per day during this date range.
You can see on the 7/11 it was about 2.5X this average, and there was a very nice increase on 7/10 as well.
Prime Day 2018 was a similar trend for my business:
Outside of Prime Day we were averaging about $15,000 in sales, and saw a little over $30,000 both of the days Prime Day was active. And Prime Day was only running for 36 hours in 2018.
This year I anticipate that both the 15th and 16th will be a little over double the average daily sales for my business. In total this will provide a very nice sales boost.
One other tip for taking advantage of Prime Day as a seller: pay attention to other marketplaces too. They’re all trying to get a piece of the action, and that means they’ll be putting a lot of effort into getting people on their platform during that week. The increased attention makes it a great time to sell more, even if it isn’t on Amazon.
A few other tips for Prime Day 2019:
- If you have any profitable Sponsored Products ad campaigns, consider increasing the budgets.
- Consider adding “Prime Exclusive Discounts” to your items. You can do this by logging in to Seller Central > Advertising tab > Prime Exclusive Discounts. This is a new feature released in June of 2019, that has some good potential for Prime Day.
- Add coupons for your listings. This can also be done under the advertising tab in Seller Central.
Those are the main things that I recommend doing on Prime Day at this point. If you’re not yet a seller on Amazon but are interested in learning how to get started, you can learn more here.
If you have any questions, or tips for Prime Day as a buyer or seller, please leave them below!
If you’ve enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it.
Other posts worth checking out:
5 Reasons Selling Online Is Better Than Your Job
Recently, i have been seeing a lot of people complaining of slow sales on amazon forums. Have you experienced anything like that? amazon itself seems to be growing but that doesnt seem to be the case with its marketplace sellers. What are your thoughts on this?
Hi Sam,
That hasn’t been my experience at all. The sales for my business are up over 50% YTD compared to the same time period last year.
Best Regards,
Ryan
Will have to keep this in mind for 2018. Afraid I missed the boat this year but that gives me 365 + days to prepare.
Hi Levitt,
Definitely, this should give plenty of time to prepare for next year.
Best Regards,
Ryan