Congratulations, Amazon warriors! You’ve just conquered the battleground that is Prime Day, hopefully outshining your competitors and boosting your sales to new heights. This monumental day is a testament to your hard work and resilience as an Amazon seller, and it’s a feat worth celebrating. But don’t hang up your armor just yet—Prime Day’s end is just the beginning of your next strategic move.
In the aftermath of this retail frenzy, it’s crucial to dive deep into the wealth of consumer and sales data generated. Analyzing this information right away can solidify your cash flow and keep your sales momentum going strong in the months to come. Armed with the freshest data, you’ll be equipped to fine-tune your business, ensuring it remains sharp and competitive for the rest of the fiscal year.
In this blog, we’ll guide you through the key metrics to scrutinize post-Prime Day and outline the upcoming events you should prepare for to keep winning on Amazon.
Next steps after Prime Day
Shopping events, especially Amazon Prime Day, offer a valuable opportunity to understand and refine your shop’s strategies. From inventory levels and pricing strategies to ad spend and marketing campaigns, large shopping events help to highlight where your brand is succeeding and what could be better optimized. In particular, after Prime Day, it’s important for Amazon sellers to keep a close eye on inventory levels, customer reviews, sales analytics, and cash flow. By monitoring these channels consistently you’ll ensure that your business can not only maintain a healthy financial position in the lulls that often follow shopping events, but improve profit margins in future events.
Check in on inventory levels
It’s very common for Amazon sellers to face low inventory after Prime Day, many even see stock outs for popular items. This means that not only should you check in on inventory levels to ensure that you were able to meet customer demand during the holiday, you should also verify that you won’t get hit with any extra fees by Amazon FBA for low inventory. Depending on how well your products performed, it’s likely that some products will need to be replenished immediately.
On the off chance that you have a product that didn’t perform as well as expected on Prime Day, it’s important that you have a strategy in place to manage that. Consider marking down products, negotiating a buyback with your suppliers, or creating an outlet deal to remove bulk inventory. Above all, it’s important to keep this data in mind when completing inventory forecasting for shopping events in the future.
Keep an eye on customer reviews
With the significant increase in sales volume that comes with Prime Day, there’s also likely to be a healthy increase in reviews after Prime Day. It’s important to keep an eye on the quality of these incoming reviews after Prime Day, although not necessarily the quantity. As usual, not every customer will feel compelled to leave a review, but those who do may have strong feelings or something they think is important to highlight. This means that it’s essential to take these reviews into consideration to have a clear picture of your product’s strong points and its challenges. By paying close attention to this information you’ll be able to improve and adapt accordingly to generate more 5-star reviews.
If you want to be even more proactive, it’s wise to keep an eye on your competitor’s reviews in the days after Prime Day as well. By paying attention to customer reviews for your competitors you can snag an extra advantage for the coming months, helping you to outperform them in areas where they fall short. In the long run this will help you corner the market for your product and gain a better brand reputation, driving sales and customer loyalty.
Stay in Touch with Customers
Beyond sending out requests for reviews to customers, you should also respond when feedback comes in after Prime Day. Sellers should respond to both positive and negative feedback to ensure that customers feel heard. When responding to negative feedback it’s important to do your best to resolve any issues that the customer may have and improve their experience. This will not only help to mitigate negative impact from a bad review, but also build trust with customers that you care about their experience.
On the other hand, Amazon sellers should thank customers for the positive feedback and make sure to stay engaged. This helps customers to see that your business is devoted to ensuring their continued positive experience. Positive reviews can also be reshared on social media. This “earned media” is similar to user-generated content (UGC) and is vitally important when new customers are looking for brands to trust. It shows that a customer was so excited about the product that they went out of their way to leave a positive review or share on social media.
Track sales and customer analytics
While it might seem obvious, it’s absolutely critical that Amazon sellers complete a thorough analysis of all relevant Prime Day statistics after the event. Take a serious look at your sales data and customer demographics from the shopping event and look for noticeable increases or decreases. If you’ve participated in previous Prime Days this is the perfect time to compare metrics year over year. Pay special attention to new customers, new search items, revenue, and profit margins.
Retarget Customers
After completing a healthy analysis of all this new data, Amazon sellers can leverage their findings for retargeting tactics. By taking advantage of sponsored ads, sellers can target or retarget potential buyers based on category, interest, or abandoned cart on and off Amazon. It’s not uncommon for customers who visited Amazon during Prime Day to come back and revisit products they were on the fence about.
Forecast and boost cash flow
Just because Prime Day is over doesn’t mean that your Amazon business can afford to see a dip in your cash flow, even temporarily. And, although Prime Day can be incredibly lucrative in the long run, the days and weeks afterward can be challenging as money is tied up in Amazon reserves waiting to be paid out. On top of this, many sellers experience a lull in sales after shopping holidays that can slow their cash flow down to a trickle.
To avoid cash flow hiccups during this period make sure that you complete a cash flow forecast to receive a comprehensive picture of what your financial health will look like in the coming weeks. The smartest Amazon sellers often also embrace external funding during this period. Working capital solutions can give your cash flow the boost that it needs to continue moving steadily throughout the weeks after Prime Day, and support you through the coming seasonal events.
Looking ahead after Prime Day
Although there tends to be a lull in sales after Prime Day, that doesn’t mean there aren’t seasonal events within sight. Extended timelines for securing inventory, ramping up marketing efforts, and ensuring optimization means that the sooner you can start planning for a season or holiday, the better off your Amazon business will be. So, while you should enjoy the success of Prime Day and give yourself a rest, it’s also important to keep looking ahead.
Back to School Season
Late summer into early fall marks the back-to-school season for consumers with school or college-aged children, with spending continuously increasing over the past few years. In 2023 consumers spent a combined $135 billion between back-to-school and college purchases, meaning that there is massive profit potential for eCommerce sellers interested in participating. With the back-to-school season starting earlier and earlier each year, Amazon sellers who hope to reap the benefits will need to get ready rapidly after Prime Day.
Prime Big Deals Days
After two years in a row, we now fully expect Prime Big Deals Days in August to become a permanent fixture for Amazon sellers. Although it’s not quite as big compared to the original Prime Day in July, Prime Big Deal’s Days has still become a successful kickoff to the fourth fiscal quarter in October. The event was designed to start holiday shopping earlier and boost sales for sellers throughout the entire quarter. In 2022 it managed to generate nearly $8 billion in sales, and that number is only expected to increase. If you’re hoping to take advantage of Prime Big Deals Days following this summer’s Prime Day, you’ll need to start planning as soon as possible. Similarly to Prime Day, Prime Big Deals Days boasts incredible deals for consumers on high ticket items–items that are likely sold out of the summer shopping event.
Holiday Shopping Season (BFCM)
Many eCommerce businesses participate in Black Friday and Cyber Monday alongside traditional retailers, running competitive holiday sales. Since 2020 more holiday shopping has gone online than ever before, meaning that Amazon sellers are seeing immense opportunity to capitalize on traditional holiday season sales profits. In 2023 alone, Amazon customers ordered more than 500 million items from independent Amazon sellers. While the holiday season may feel far away right now in the midst of July’s heat, you can never get started too early. By planning ahead for BFCM you’ll ensure that you can outcompete competitors and snag every sale.
Funding to get you through every event
While it might seem like time to get a little R&R and take a vacation after Prime Day, make sure that you continue thinking about what comes next. Don’t let one shopping event wipe out your inventory and create cash flow hiccups for the next month, especially with Q4 on the horizon. As we’ve mentioned previously, healthy cash flow is critical for maximizing sales and profit during Prime Day, as well as keeping your business optimized aftwards. Do your best to avoid falling into a cash crunch in the days following Prime Day so that you can continue to maintain a healthy amount of inventory, retarget customers with ad campaigns, and start optimizing for your next big season.
eCommerce funding solutions typically have lower rates than traditional banking loans, making them a great option to supplement your cash flow during these periods. And, these solutions are typically fast, meaning that you can take advantage of opportunities as they arise. You can get an offer from Viably within 24 hours after submitting your application. Funding will help to alleviate pressure and create a cash flow buffer that will help set you up to sleep well in even the busiest seasons.
