Remember ye good olde days where you could exchange a coupon code to a customer in exchange for an unbiased product review? Well, Amazon discontinued that in October of last year, so merchants have had to get a bit more creative to keep sales up. Because RepricerExpress is a big fan of all things price-related, we know that one of the top things you can do is run Amazon product promotions so let’s take a look at some of the ones you can run on Amazon marketplaces.
Lightning Deal
You might have heard ‘lightning’ applied in different contexts — lightning talk, lightning date, etc. It means that things happen very quickly, and for a short period of time.
This Amazon product promotion is the same. Their page outlines this promotion in greater detail, but it essentially looks like this:
- An item is put up for sale and the promotion is time-sensitive
- Buyers are allowed one item each
- The deal expires once the time’s up, or all the products have been sold
- Amazon will give you a status bar that tells buyers how many (as a percent) of items are either in shoppers’ carts or have been purchased
- Buyers will also see a timer that tells them how much time is left to add the item to their cart and purchase it
- If all the items in the lightning deal have been placed in shoppers’ carts and new buyers are interested, they can join a waitlist
Rebates
There are two kinds of rebates when it comes to using them as an Amazon product promotion.
- Mail-In Rebate: If you’re a manufacturer, wireless service provider, merchant or another similar type of merchant, Amazon might allow you to use mail-in rebates as a way of running a product promotion. When it comes to the rebate form, buyers will see two dates: a purchase deadline and a postmark deadline. The former says when they have to buy the product by, and the latter says when they have to send the rebate form in by. Also, no returns are allowed once the rebate form has been sent in.
- Online Rebates: This one is much simpler to follow. Buyers simply have to click on a link, follow the steps, and wait for their online rebate to come through.
Promotional Codes
The most important thing to remember when it comes to promotional codes (and it’s so important we’re going to quote what’s on Amazon’s page directly) is:
- Promotional codes can be redeemed only at the time you place an order.
While buyers will get an email from Amazon about it, you’ll probably want to remind shoppers with a little blurb about it as well so they can take advantage of it. It’s also a way of practising strong customer support.
It’s also a good idea to remind your buyers that they can’t apply promotional codes they’d want to use for gift cards, sales tax, gift wrap or extra shipping costs.
Product Offers
How this one works is you pick an item to put up as a product offer, and Amazon will put up a claim code for buyers to enter in the order form. This promotion could be good if you want to draw attention to your page and get rid of slow-moving items as a way of doing so, as the promotion ends once all the items are gone and rain checks are not offered. Plus, buyers have to purchase certain items to get the free one, so you’re still gaining a sale and not giving stuff away entirely for free.
Today’s Deals
This one is a bit of an all-in-one type of product promotion on Amazon. It can take the form of a Lightning Deal, Savings and Sales, or Deals of the Day. Think of Today’s Deals as an umbrella term for several other types of product promotions, and you’ll get a good idea of what’s involved on Amazon.
Unlike conditions in other deals, like being able to apply one rebate per item, buyers can take advantage of deals for different items under different Today’s Deals sections and save on multiple products. As the merchant, it might get a little confusing to run several promotions at the same time, so think carefully about which ones you want to run.
Final Thoughts
This isn’t really a type of Amazon product promotion you can run, but rather a practice you should employ all the time: smart and competitive repricing. Prices (should) never stay the same, and you could be losing out on valuable sales if you don’t reprice according to market demands. To help you take care of that, RepricerExpress does all the heavy lifting for you. And to make it even better, when you sign up now you start the first 15 days absolutely free.
