Running Promotions On Amazon: Seller Central and Vendor Central Promo Guide
Promotions: effect and side-effect
The first step in selling on Amazon is optimizing the listings. But what happens when you have gone through the optimization process and your pages are better than your competitors, but you’re still not getting traffic or conversions? New products or those with low sales are not showing at the top of the search results. Making a breakthrough on Amazon with new products is not an easy task with a saturated marketplace like Amazon. A better product ranking is where Amazon promotions come into play: the idea is that the product’s sales velocity will get a quick boost, which will lead to a better BSR, and therefore, appear higher in the search results and start getting organic sales. It’s not a secret that the sales velocity, that is, how quickly your product is selling and its popularity, greatly impacts the BSR. (best seller’s rank).
Additionally, running promotions and getting more sales leads to earning more reviews that are a great necessity for Amazon’s success. We mentioned already the importance of reviews, how they build customers’ trust, and directly impacting Amazon’s Search Algorithm.
Visibility
What is crucial to mention is that if you plan on running a promotion, you must ensure the Buy Box ownership. Otherwise, the promotional messaging cannot appear on the product page, and therefore customers won’t know about it. Read everything you need to know about Amazon’s Buy Box and what are the most common reasons for losing it.
It may sound silly or obvious, but successful promotions are those when customers know about it. If you’re not getting traffic to your Amazon pages, consider running social media campaigns. Adding the time restriction and limit also helps: customers respond to limited time offers when they face the possibility of missing the offer, so make sure your potential customers are aware that the promotional offer is valid for a limited time only.
The sequence of events for a successful promotion
A brief recap of the sequence should look like this:
- Optimizing the listings
- Ensuring the Buy Box Ownership
- Creating promotions
- Spreading the word
- Requesting reviews
- Analyzing the sales to determine what promotions were the best performing for your products and category and the best-performing products.
Promotion Types: Comparison Guide
The best promotions motivate both existing and new customers to buy your (new) products. There are several promotional options to choose from, both on Seller Central and Vendor Central. Check out our comparison guide for each promotion type to find the right one for your business, product, category, and target audience.
{VC infographic here} Stay Tuned. Will be added soon!
Some Words of Wisdom
If you’re not sure whether you want to run promotions or not, keep in mind that your (existing and new) customers are already shopping on Amazon anyhow. Consider providing exclusive discounts or benefits because they will increase customer loyalty and repeat purchases because everyone likes to feel unique and valued. Use your social media to target this audience and drive traffic to Amazon pages.
And lastly, whatever you do: do not offer promotional offers as an incentive for customer reviews, either explicitly or implicitly. Amazon will consider this a violation of their Customer Review Policy and you risk your account being suspended, which is simply not worth it at the end of the day.
If you need a reliable partner for your growth on Amazon on your Amazon journey to success, get in touch with the Bellavix Team
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