Giving a discount on Amazon products may not be the first tactic Amazon Sellers think of when they want to grow their sales. But discounting products might help increase the amount of sales, while also increasing traffic and brand awareness. The discount doesn’t have to be overwhelming large and cut dramatically into a seller’s profit margin. There is a strategy to follow and knowing the best time to offer discounts on Amazon products will help ensure success.
There are a few options on Amazon for offering discounts. You could run an Amazon Lightning Deal, which is only good for a limited amount of time and can get your product in front of a lot of customers looking for good deals. Amazon also has a section of their site called ‘Today’s Deals” which is where customers usually look for the “Deal of the Day”. Right now it is the end of 2019, so Amazon is running “Year-End Deals” likely to try and clear out their warehouses a bit in order to make room for fresh products at the beginning of 2020.
But how do sellers know when the best time to offer discounts on Amazon products is? This is not a question with a cut and dry answer. Annoying, I know. But it all comes down to what you hope to accomplish by running a promotion or offering a discount. There are several scenarios when it might be beneficial to offer a discount or run a promotion on Amazon and we’re going to talk about the top three scenarios to give you an idea.
The Best Times to Offer Discounts on Amazon Products:
When you are launching a new product
When you are trying to build sales velocity
When you are trying to clear out aging inventory
Launching a New Product
When you are launching a new product on Amazon, it can be tough to get momentum going and get your product to the top of search results, making it one of the best times to offer discounts on Amazon. Offering a discount can help increase customer traffic to your listing. When customers see a discounted product, they are likely to be more interested than a full-price product because they feel like they are getting a better deal. In a survey, RetailMeNot found that 80% of consumers felt “encouraged to make a first-time purchase with a brand that is new to them if they found an offer or discount.” The same survey found that two-thirds of consumers have purchased something they weren’t planning to because they find a coupon/discount. Clearly, offering a discount on a newly launched product is a great way to draw in customers and help make it easier for them to make the decision to buy it.
Building Sales Velocity
Sales velocity might seem like a murky concept, even if you are a seasoned Amazon Seller. Sales velocity is “the number and dollar amount of a seller’s transactions during any given month” as defined by Amazon. Basically, the more sales you receive, the higher your products will rank because Amazon is going to reward those products that are selling well with the top spots in search results. It wouldn’t be wise for Amazon to put low-performing products in front of customers looking to purchase something. But why is this one of the best times to offer discounts on Amazon products? Simply put: customers are more likely to buy products that are “on sale” so to speak. Like we talked about earlier, customers are more attracted to products that they feel like they are getting a good deal on. So when you are trying to build you sales velocity, and boost your rankings in search results on Amazon, offering a discount can get you more sales. Some sellers might think just lowering their product prices is a better idea for boosting sales velocity and ranking, but the problem with that is then it can be extremely detrimental if prices need to be increased later. Running a promotion/discount is a better way to get the desired boost without causing issues down the road.
Clearing Out Inventory
So you’re needing to get rid of the last bits of your inventory but it is taking longer than you want, or maybe you’ve decided to exit selling on Amazon all together. This is definitely one of the best times to offer discounts on Amazon products because your main goal is to get as many sales as possible, as quickly as possible. Discounts don’t have to eat too much into profits either, so they can be useful in helping clear out remaining inventory quickly while maintaining some profitability. This could be a great time to use Amazon Lightning Deals or Amazon Coupons.
Another big plus to all of these best times to offer discounts on Amazon products is that getting more sales means more opportunities to get more reviews from customers. And we all know reviews are extremely important for being successful on Amazon!
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