Amazon is encouraging sellers to offer discounts for its upcoming Prime Big Deal Days in October, telling them their participation would help them build awareness and boost sales. The sale, offered exclusively to Prime members, is also another enticement for shoppers to join Prime, benefiting Amazon.
Last year, Amazon held the Prime Big Deal Days sale on October 10-11. Last month, it officially announced it would hold the sale again this October, but did not specify the exact dates of the sale. Separately Amazon told FBA sellers they had until September 13 to get inventory to fulfillment centers in order to participate in Big Deal Days.
Amazon noted the following information about Prime Exclusive Discount submissions:
- Amazon retains the right to reschedule or cancel the promotion at any time.
- If your promotion is not approved within seven days, it will be canceled by Amazon.
- Amazon doesn’t guarantee that orders will be placed for the promotion.
- Amazon doesn’t guarantee the deal will be published on the chosen day or time.
Amazon published FAQs about next month’s sale, which it described as a “holiday kickoff event that offers Prime members exclusive access to early holiday deals across popular categories, including deep discounts on products from top brands.”
On September 12, the company held a webinar for sellers called “Unlocking the Power of Amazon Shopping Events: Listing Optimization, FBA, and Promotions (All levels)” where it explained how sellers could take advantage of the increased traffic that shopping events bring; “We’ll cover listing optimization, Fulfillment by Amazon and how it can help you prep for busy periods, and how promotions can help you take advantage of increased traffic,” it said of the webinar.
Amazon also recently said it had hit its fastest Prime delivery speeds ever this year, “with more than 5 billion items arriving the same or next day globally.” Amazon attributed the improvement in speed to its regionalization of its network that places products closer to customers.
