Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the busiest selling days of the year and the perfect opportunity to find new customers and boost sales. Amazon’s data from last year showed that third-party sellers sold an average of 1,500 products per minute between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and more than 130,000 third-party sellers exceeded $100,000 in sales.
If you want a piece of the holiday shopping pie and to make the most of the world’s biggest online offers, you need to plan ahead of time! But, before we reveal some of the things you can do now to prepare for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, let’s quickly review Amazon’s eligibility criteria you must comply with in order to apply for these selling events.
Amazon Black Friday & Cyber Monday Eligibility Criteria
These are the eligibility criteria you must meet to join in on Black Friday selling deals:
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The products must be eligible for Prime Shipping.
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The Prime Exclusive Discount must meet all regular eligibility criteria.
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You must offer deals with discounts of at least 20% less than non-promotional products.
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The product must have at least a 3-5 star rating or not at all.
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The sale price must be the lowest for the specific ASIN in the past 30 days.
- You must be a seller with at least 4 Seller Feedback Ratings.
Now, let’s get to the exciting part and discuss our best tips to prepare your Amazon business for Black Friday and Cyber Monday!
Tip 1: Optimize your listings with relevant search terms
Finding the right search terms is one of the fastest ways to get your listings to the top of Amazon’s Search Engine Results Page (SERPs). Update your product titles and descriptions with keywords shoppers might use to find the product they’re looking for on Amazon.
However, never use terms like “best”, “cheapest” or “on sale now” as it violates Amazon’s policies, and you risk your listings being suppressed or, even worse, getting your account suspended!
Tip 2: Submit your Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals for approval on time
Before offering your products during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, keep in mind that you will need Amazon’s approval, and it usually takes a few days to process your request.
*You have until November 24 to submit your Black Friday deals on Amazon.
Tip 3: Ensure you have enough Inventory
Make sure you have enough inventory to cover the upcoming demand and keep up with your current momentum. Otherwise, your listing ranking will drop along with your sales velocity and BSR. But don’t stock too much inventory. You’ll just end up racking up storage fees!
Tip 4: Analyze your past sales to target the best days to offer Black Friday deals
Check your last year’s sales trends and identify when people bought, how much, and what products. It will give you valuable insights to pick the best days to offer your deals, get ideas on which new products to sell, and analyze stocking decisions.
Tip 5: Offer incentives like free returns, same-day delivery, and free shipping
As the competition gets harder on these dates, offering free returns and same-day delivery for Prime members gives your businesses a sharp competitive advantage. Shoppers are overwhelmed with thousands of deals, and incentives like those mentioned above have the power to influence their buying decisions.
Tip 6: Capitalize on Advertising
Shoppers won’t do their research just on the big days. Buyers want to make sure they purchase what’s best for them, so they will start comparing different product providers, and brands and gather as much information as possible days before Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Thus, you should start running your Paid Per Click Campaigns (PPC) before the event to stay on top of their minds and increase your bid per click to make people visit your product’s detail page.
Tip 7: Bundle your products
Bundles add more value to a customer’s shopping experience and increase your average order value. It is as simple as customers prefer getting more than paying less!
Did we mention it is a strategic move to liquidate slow-selling inventory? You can bundle these low-demand products with the ones that are more popular while saving shipping costs at the same time.