Roughly a month ago on July 12, Amazon launched its second annual Amazon Prime Day. In case you’ve been living under a rock, Prime Day was Amazon’s excuse to leverage a random summer Tuesday and turn it into the shopping equivalent of Woodstock… only for ecommerce instead of rock and roll.
And based on the numbers, it worked. After drawing in 180 million visitors and selling 34.4 million items last year, this year’s Prime Day was even bigger.
According to Amazon itself, Prime Day 2016 was the biggest sales day in its history, with orders up a whopping 60% over last year! Estimates have the sales numbers at somewhere between $500-550 million. That’s more than a 25% increase from last year as well.
Ok. So clearly Amazon did very well for itself. But what about third-party merchants? Was there cause for celebration among them?
The short answer is a resounding yes.
According to Bloomberg.com, sales from third-party vendors increased over 30% from last year’s Prime Day. With roughly 63 million active Prime subscribers, it’s easy to see how this was an absolute gold mine for retailers selling on Amazon.
But hey, don’t just take our word for it. Let’s hear a success story from one of ROI Revolution’s clients.
PajamaGram is an ecommerce retailer that features over 200 premium styles of pajamas made for men, women, children, toddlers, and even pajamas for pets!
They’ve been an Amazon Marketplace client with ROI Revolution since May of 2015 and a paid search client far longer. This year, they wanted to be more proactive in taking advantage of Amazon Prime Day and get a bigger piece of the ecommerce marketplace pie.
So what did they do and how were they successful?
Their success was due in large part to utilizing Prime Day to piggy back off all the marketing that Amazon themselves were doing to promote the event. They leveraged traditional in-network Amazon opportunities such as Sponsored Products, Promotions, and Lightning Deals to showcase their products, get them in solid selling position, and create successful brand awareness.
PajamaGram also created an Amazon Storefront and identified a target audience that was outside of strictly just Amazon customers. This audience had an interest in both PajamaGram and Amazon and drove traffic to their newly created storefront.
The results? They speak for themselves.
Based on their increased efforts in line with Prime Day, PajamaGram saw an 1800% increase in sales volume and 20 times more units sold year over year. In one day, they eclipsed more than 50% of their monthly total of sales!
PajamaGram is proof positive that Amazon Prime Day is an event that can and should be leveraged by ecommerce businesses looking to further their reach in the Amazon Marketplace. With just a minimal shift in their marketing efforts and snowballing off of what Amazon already had in place, they were able to massively multiply their sales.
Yes, there are still situations where a business might not be able to utilize Prime Day as effectively as PajamaGram. For instance, if many of your products have a low margin/net profit, you might have a harder time justifying the investment.
But for the vast majority of businesses already selling on Amazon, there is opportunity for an immediate boost in revenue and marketplace success from taking advantage of this once-a-year event. Simply doing the “status quo” won’t get it done, but the additional effort is clearly worth the reward.
With less than 11 months left until next year’s Amazon Prime Day, you might think that it’s too early to start thinking of a strategy, but it’s never too early to start planning ahead. And ROI Revolution can help!
Marketplace selling is one of our specialties, and our expert analysts can guide you in determining a strategy for improving your success and maximizing your profits. We were all in to help PajamaGram achieve the results they were looking for, and we can do the same for your business.
Sign up for a complimentary 20-minute consultation and we can help you gain clarity and peace of mind in finally understanding your problem areas and areas of opportunity. You’ll also discover opportunities to grow your business and be given a plan of action to make these goals a reality.
