Why ‘Prime Day’ should be in every retailer’s e-commerce calendar

Amazon Prime Day (July 12-13) is approaching, and customers have already marked their calendars for the upcoming annual event. Customers consider Prime Day as the ideal time to buy heavily discounted items from electronics to apparel. During this period Amazon marks down deals across all product categories and markets these discounts exclusively to its Prime members. Global consumers spent 10.40 billion on 2020 Prime Day, showcasing the spending potential of this day.

Utilize Prime Day, even if you don’t sell on Amazon

Prime Day started in 2015 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Amazon. The intention is to drive Amazon Prime customers during this two-day period with heavily discounted sales coined as “Prime Deals”. The event is extremely popular among consumers and is often considered one of the key holiday shopping dates, similar to Black Friday. Whilst your brand may not sell products on Amazon, you shouldn’t exclude yourself from participating during this important shopping period. There are other ways to leverage this opportune time when customers are focused and motivated to shop.

Five tips on how retailers can make the most out of Prime Day:

1. Research previous Prime Day lists and create discounts on similar items on your website

Consumers often comparison shop Prime Day deals. Large retailers like Walmart and Target capitalize on web traffic by competing sales during this period and you can too! Once you know which items are on the list- some deals are listed as early as a month prior- do a quick check of your inventory to see if you have the same or similar items in-stock. If you have large quantities of the same item, it may be to your advantage to clear your inventory by discounting the product. You could potentially clear out older stock and create room for newer products while boosting your bottom line.

2. Advertise and promote your Prime Day sale items

Once you have determined which items are going to be marked down, spend time creating and optimizing your advertising strategy. Determine which are the best ways to let your target audience know of your sale promotion and invest in those channels beforehand. You can also advertise to your current customers reminding them of this promotion in their shipping and delivery notifications when they are very invested. According to our research, delivery and shipping confirmations have a higher open rate (upwards of 80%). In today’s competitive marketplace, advertising your discounted items is a sure-fire way to drive price-conscious customers to your online site instead.

3. Offer your customers shorter shipping times on sale items

A key attraction of the Amazon Prime experience is the consistent promise of the 1-2 days delivery time. Today’s consumers expect short delivery times from retailers and assign even greater value to expedited shipping.  This can be a way to keep them coming back to you and not your competitors. In fact, consumers prioritize free shipping and will abandon their carts if they must pay for shipping costs on items purchased online. While you may not be able to provide an expedited shipping timeframe on all items, reducing your shipping times or offering free shipping on sale items may encourage customers to purchase from you instead.

4. Better late than never

While it’s always a good idea to plan your Prime Day strategy in advance, there’s still time to participate even if you start late. A good strategy is to target consumers who missed the sales during the two-day period but are still hunting for deals to buy. Often a highly sought-after product featured as a Prime Day Deal sells out very quickly and becomes backordered on the platform. This creates an opportunity for you to sell your in-stock discounted inventory to eager buyers and further capitalize on the high customer demand.

5. Prioritize a seamless end-to-end customer journey

In a highly competitive retail landscape, creating a positive customer experience is essential to the success of any e-commerce business. This is especially important for customers accustomed to the Prime buying experience. The sale is not the final touchpoint for the customer- far from it. There are other touchpoints after checkout to engage and delight those customers. First analyze your fulfillment, shipping, and delivery processes to find gaps that could potentially frustrate customers. Anticipate WISMO (where is my order) customer inquiries and offer a branded tracking page with proactive notifications. This keeps the customer informed at every stage of the process.

Conclusion

Shopping days such as Prime Day are key events in the e-commerce calendar, with consumers often waiting to spend money until these days.

The above tips are not exhaustive but are a great starting point for retailers to harness the power of viral shopping days and create additional sales for themselves. You should also host order tracking, shipping, and delivery pages on your website to create personalized and branded communications that are relevant to your customers. This not only allows you to harness and leverage consumer data in your own ecosystem instead of sending customers to lack-luster carrier websites but also supplies more opportunities to engage and keep new customers hard-won from your Prime Days sales.

parcelLab is a fully customized post-purchase experience solution that drives your customer acquisition and retention goals. We collaborate with leading retailers to build branded and personalized customer communications that embody their unique brand voice and experience. To learn how parcelLab can help you win and keep customers (with or without Prime Day), book a demo.