Episode 297

Unboxing Amazon's Fall Prime Day: Insights and Strategies for Holiday eCommerce Success

Christine Shiloni & Jonathan Finkes - OMG Commerce
October 23, 2024
SUBSCRIBE: iTunes | YouTube

In this episode of the eCommerce Evolution Podcast, we dive deep into the results of Amazon's Fall Prime Day 2024. Amazon experts Christine Shiloni and Jonathan Finkes unpack valuable insights, compare performance to previous events, and provide a strategic outlook for the upcoming holiday shopping season. Whether you're an established Amazon seller or just getting started, this episode is packed with actionable advice to help you maximize your Q4 sales.

Key topics discussed:

  • Fall Prime Day performance: A 57% average increase in sales compared to last year, with some brands seeing up to 300% growth.
  • The impact of inflation on consumer behavior and pricing strategies
  • How to leverage different types of Amazon deals (Lightning Deals, Prime Exclusives and coupons) for maximum visibility and sales.
  • Strategies for navigating the condensed holiday shopping season, with five fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year.
  • Critical dates and preparation tips for inventory management, including considerations for Chinese New Year's impact on supply chains.

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Chapters:

(00:00) Introduction 

(03:03) Performance Analysis: Year-over-Year Comparisons

(06:20) July Prime Day vs. October Prime Day

(17:04) Deals and Promotions: What Worked and What Didn't

(20:44) Impact of Inflation on Shopping Behavior

(22:30) Post-Prime Day Trends and Future Predictions

(24:43) Preparing for the Holiday Shopping Window

(30:16) Impact of Fewer Shopping Days on Sales

(35:15) Predictions for Holiday Sales Performance

(37:32) Final Tips for Holiday Preparation

(42:38) Conclusion

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Connect with Brett:

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Past guests on eCommerce Evolution include Ezra Firestone, Steve Chou, Drew Sanocki, Jacques Spitzer, Jeremy Horowitz, Ryan Moran, Sean Frank, Andrew Youderian, Ryan McKenzie, Joseph Wilkins, Cody Wittick, Miki Agrawal, Justin Brooke, Nish Samantray, Kurt Elster, John Parkes, Chris Mercer, Rabah Rahil, Bear Handlon, Trevor Crump, Frederick Vallaeys, Preston Rutherford, Anthony Mink, Bill D’Allessandro, Bryan Porter and more.

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Transcript:

Jonathan :

There could be something that you see you are being hyper aggressive on and you're just getting blown out of the water and you're spending hundreds, thousands of dollars and not getting any sales from it, and there could be a good reason for that.

Brett:

Well, hello and welcome to another edition of the e-Commerce Evolution podcast. I'm your host, Brett Curry, CEO of OMG Commerce, and today we are unpacking Fall Prime Day, also known as Prime Big Deal Days in 2024. Also going to give a little bit of a preview for the rest of holiday, the cyber five, the Cyber 12, whatever cyber number you want to attach to it. A little bit of a preview there as well. And so I've got back again, returning guests. Christine Shiloni our Amazon director here at OMG Commerce, and Jonathan Finkes, one of our top Amazon ad strategists and specialists. And so we're going to unpack all things Prime Day talk holiday, and it's going to be a ton of fun with that. Christine. Jonathan, how's it going? And welcome back to the show.

Christine:

You. Thank you. It's going really well. It's going very well. We had a good fall, big deal days. We did see a nice lift for our brands that leaned in on some deals, things like that. But overall, there was definitely a lot more traffic on the site and it was a lift for almost everybody.

Brett:

Yeah, going to be great to unpack it. How do you guys feel coming back to the pod? Are you getting more comfortable, more relaxed, more excited to be on the pod? Let's just be candid here for the folks listening.

Christine:

I'm super psyched. Yeah,

Jonathan :

I'm ready to find out how many followers I have. I feel like I've been on, I think it's my third time. I should probably have a brand following by now.

Brett:

You should have some kind of following. It's probably not like paparazzi level there in New Jersey, people hiding in the bushes and things like that, but there's got to be people out there requesting more. Jonathan Fincas on the po. So we'll keep you posted on that.

Jonathan :

Just got to figure out how to capitalize on it. That's it. Yeah,

Brett:

Exactly. Exactly. So Christine alluded to it, we did see some big wins this prime day, this fall, prime day versus last fall, prime day. So we're going to talk about how did this year stack up to last year. We're also going to talk about how did fall Prime day or October Prime day compare to July Prime day of this year, and is that consistent with what we're seeing in previous years? And if not, or if so, then what does that mean? And then all of this could, should be at least a bit of a bellwether for the rest of holiday. So we'll pontificate and maybe make some predictions there. And then we'll get very tactical and give you good advice for what to do for the rest of holiday and then how you can get ready. So let's do this. I'm going to highlight a couple of the bigger numbers, just kind of the broad numbers overall, looking at all OMG clients and we've got a number of seven figure sellers, a number of eight figure sellers, a few nine figure sellers.

And so this was all blended together, but I think it's helpful across a wide variety of categories from medical devices to supplements to food and beverage to home decor, automotive. It's a pretty broad spectrum if you look at the OMG client base. And so if we look at this fall prime day, so the October 8th and ninth, those were the dates. This year compared to last fall, prime day, our average client was up about 57%. So up 57% year over year for fall prime day, which is pretty great. Christine, I know you've got a couple of specific callouts and we can't mention client names, but what were a few of the notable callouts and what do you think drove that?

Christine:

So we have a supplement brand. They were up 70% year over year. They did lean in pretty heavy on a lightning deal that did over 120,000. So that certainly fed into their success.

Brett:

So just the lightning deal did that much.

Christine:

Yeah, the lightning deal.

Brett:

Yeah. So they're above the average up 70%. Our average was 57, so nice lift over the average,

Christine:

But they leaned in on a lightning deal. They also ran prime exclusives when they couldn't get the lightning deal. They ran a lot of coupons, so they went all in and it paid off for them for sure. And because they're a supplement brand, we're basically taking a loss leader because now they're hopefully going to go into subscribe and save. So it's Did they actually

Brett:

Discount to the point where they were losing money on each sale or using that term loss leader loosely?

Christine:

I'm using it loosely.

Brett:

Okay.

Christine:

I'm using it loosely, but to get them into the subscribe and save funnel for their products.

Brett:

Right, right. Yeah. And that is the advantage within Consumable. You get that first purchase, you're likely to get more. And we didn't see that. We saw that when we were at Amazon Accelerate. The three of us were there hanging out, that there's a direct correlation. People that use a coupon are likely to come back and subscribe and save. So pretty good data surrounding that.

Christine:

We have another, it's a newer brand that just launched last year. It's also, it's a coffee supplement. They were up almost 300%, 277% year over year. They did also lean in on some prime exclusives. Again, getting more people into the subscribe and save funnel, which is great for them. A beauty brand, they were close to 60% and they just went straight coupon. So you can see anybody that was running something.

Brett:

So when you say straight coupon, you mean it's not attached to a lightning deal? No Prime Day discounts, per se, just

Christine:

Coupon. They did a 20% off coupon, their entire catalog.

Brett:

Nice.

Christine:

And they're not expensive items, so it was more of a multi purchase, three, four items per sale. So they came in with some pretty good numbers.

Brett:

Nice. On the ad side, Jonathan, what did you see or anything worth noting this fall Prime day versus last or this fall prime Day versus July, purely from an Amazon ads perspective?

Jonathan :

Yeah, so most performances were on par in terms of ad spend. The average account doubled its daily ad spend. The accounts that leaned more heavily and saw into promotions and saw really big surge in traffic, those were closer to a three or four X in daily ad spend. But the biggest unique call out that I saw was that on a lot of our consumable brands, whether that's in health and beauty supplements, protein powders and those kinds of things, they saw a really big surge in PPC impressions for the 10 days in the lead up to the event, which usually in the lead up to these events with Prime Day or last year's big deal event in October, usually we'll see a little bit of a slump, especially in the first couple of days right before the event, because shoppers are like, oh, I'm not going to go on Amazon. I know the events come in in a day or two. So that was a very unique to see that traffic surge.

Brett:

So seeing the lift in impressions those 10 days prior just means there were more people searching during that timeframe and maybe scouting, doing a little research before prime day deals. Do you have any thoughts there? Have you seen any other data that would support a theory there, Jonathan?

Jonathan :

Yeah, no, it's that I think that people were scouting a bit more, but then I'm also questioning if there was some adjustments to Amazon's algorithms on the backend and that they were potentially serving ads to more shoppers than they normally do. Maybe spreading out, getting a little bit more broad on their categorical targeting. But that's stuff that's just my digging into conspiracy theories of Amazon. Yeah, interesting. So

Brett:

Yeah, could be that there are more people searching, but we don't exactly have that data. It could just be that it was an increase in impression, so meaning more people saw the ads, it could just be that Amazon's kind trying to expand the reach of those ads, showing them more places trying to drive performance on their end by showing ads more so super interesting. Now let's do this. Let's compare fall Prime day to July Prime day. The og, the original Prime day, if we remember July Prime Day, July is the slowest month in retail historically. And so Amazon decided, Hey, let's just create a holiday in July and see if we can get a ton of people to shop. And Bezos Magic worked. Now every other retailer has copied it, right? Walmart does a big, I don't remember what they call it, but they do prime day discounts and so does everybody else.

And so now it is a thing. It's an event. People look forward to it, people plan on it. And so how did the two compare? I'll give you the bigger dollar figures here, how they compare, and then we'll talk about some insights. But were, this October Prime day was off by about 38% from the July prime day this year. So 38%, call it 40% fewer sales or sales totals this October versus July last year, it was similar. It was a little closer. It was in the high twenties. That was driven by a couple of large clients though too. Some of this is deal based and whatnot, but we can safely say October or fall Prime Day, not as big as July Prime day. What are your theories there? And I know Jonathan, you were sharing a couple of theories earlier, but why do you think those two days are different and how are they different?

Jonathan :

Yeah, so it's something we've been thinking about internally is that the prime day in July is really, that's the first really big event of the year. It's also been Amazon's kind of keystone cornerstone event for, I don't know, since they came out with it. I forget how many years it's been now, like 10, 12 years ago, maybe more. I don't know. I'm not someone who's a little bit wiser or more gray haired than me. We'll have an intern look that up right now. And so yeah, so that's an event that really has a ton of brand

Brett:

Recognition. 20 15, 20 15, July 15th, 2015,

Jonathan :

Not as long as I was thinking, only nine years. So that's got a lot more brand recognition that mostly anyone who knows of Amazon, definitely any prime member knows about the prime day. And I think that there's probably some murkiness and confusion to the fall event, though we definitely saw more promotion of it from Amazon. I think they announced the date slightly earlier than they do for some of those events. Really trying to get the word out there that hey, these two days in October, there's going to be another big deal event. And so they're really trying to drum up more awareness of that event. But I still think that there is some murkiness that not all shoppers are aware that event's happening. And that might point to that impression surge that we saw 10 days out where people are like, Hey, I know there's an event happening in October, when is it happening?

And so they were just going into Amazon a little bit towards the end of September and then into the first week of October to be figuring out when that event was. And then because the Prime event in July is the first really big deal event of the year, and then this one in October is pretty close to Black Friday, cyber Monday. That kind of leaves it in this weird spot of the procrastinators among us, which I am definitely one are not going to be buying Christmas gifts in October. I'm not buying Christmas gifts usually until December, and then I'm like, I should have bought it on Black Friday. So that's why it's in this weird spot. And that's why I think also we kind of see which product verticals did the best in October, were more of the household goods, everyday purchases, consumables. So that lends to me that it's not really gift buying.

There is gift buying. About 25% of people said they were buying gifts, but I think the majority there is just seeking out the deal. Whereas back in July, it's like that's kind of a cornerstone event of the year where you're like, oh, I'm going to buy an electronic I've been holding off on, or some other big ticket item that one or two times a year between July Prime Day and Black Friday, those are the two. Or Cyber Monday. Those are the two events where I'm going to do a big purchase item, buy a lot for a bunch of discounts where it's a little bit murkier for October.

Brett:

It's interesting, the October dates are kind of in this weird space where it's almost a little, it's too early for the procrastinators. Maybe it's just right or almost too late for people that are really ahead of the game. But there's going to be a lot of people I think that see the Fall Prime day deals and say, yeah, maybe I'll wait. I'll take my chances. I think the discounts are going to be bigger around Black Friday, cyber Monday, but that July prime day, there's nothing, you're not going to say, I'm just going to wait for Black Friday Cyber Monday, unless it's truly a gift and it's only going to be a gift for the holidays. But yeah, kind of two different buying modes there. I think from your perspective, Christine, what did you see or what you see in the data about what was purchased in fall Prime day versus big purchasing categories in July?

Christine:

So as Jonathan said that the fall prime day was really more household items. I'm going to restock on something for the house. I use this cleansers. I'm going to buy more of this July prime day. I've seen more larger purchases like furniture or more clothes. It's more personal items because you haven't had a sale since last December, really. So it's more personal items, more. I'm a big fan of searching the week before adding everything to my cart that I would like,

Brett:

And

Christine:

Then I go in on Prime Day. I'm like, oh, it has a badge. I think I'll buy it. So the badges really, they get people to convert. That could be what the impressions were for.

Brett:

So it could be the people. Yeah, the impression could also be those people going in to add to the cart ahead of time to see what's going to go on sale.

Christine:

It was potentially me and I was asking my family to do the same thing.

Brett:

It's mostly Christine and her friends,

Christine:

It's mostly me. Another thought process on this October Prime from a seller's standpoint, how much of your inventory can you replenish

Brett:

Before

Christine:

Cyber five? How much are you willing to go through in October not knowing can I get any more back in for the really big traffic and when I really need it to be there? So I think that does put a little bit of hesitation in a seller's mind where, okay, I can go through it in July because I still have four months to get it back, but if I go through it in October, am I going to get any more in? So I think that's

Brett:

That's really good. And I think there's this perception for them, this totally ties into it. There's a perception with the shoppers that the biggest sales of the year, black Friday, cyber Monday and July Prime Day, those are probably the deepest discount days for me as a shopper. And so I think that's that perception, but it totally ties into the seller's mindset as well, right? Do I want to burn through all my inventory now I need to save some for those prime shopping days?

Christine:

Exactly. And October Prime day, it was started during 2020. I don't think there was one in July because there nobody could have inventory. So this was kind

Brett:

Of, well, I think it was also kind of one of those things where I wonder, and I heard theories where Amazon was trying to get ahead of the game a little bit. They were concerned maybe about can we deliver everything now? Everything is online during peak covid, and so let's start things early to ease as a relief valve for our delivery infrastructure and specifically last mile and things like that. And then it just sort of stuck, right? The fall primates

Christine:

Stuck. Yeah, why not? It worked. It worked.

Brett:

Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. For sure. Interesting. What did we see in terms of the deals that worked versus the deals that didn't work? Any specific callouts or interesting callouts this prime day? Or is it kind just the usual takeaway is what worked this time is what works? Every time

Christine:

We did have more brands leaning into prime exclusives and even coupons. The window for the Lightning deals to sign up for any deals usually closes six weeks or so or more before the event even happens. So I think a lot of sellers are even missing that. I think the window closed in August for October, the window closed last Friday for your cyber deals, and you don't know, can I pull the trigger on that? Am I going to have the inventory, et cetera. So if you don't,

Brett:

And why is it there's such a lead time? Do we know why does Amazon require that? Is it for inventory and planning purposes or what drives that?

Christine:

I think they're trying, honestly, I think it's a demand issue on their part. Let's try to get as many people into this set a level of urgency. I better sign up now, I'm never going to get it. Whereas before you'd be like, oh, I think I'll sign up two days before the deal. So this way you can get your deals in there, but you have to be on top of it and get in early. You're not sure how much inventory you can allocate to it at that point, so much in advance. And one of the issues with Lightning Deals is it's going to populate on the last 30 days, and the same with prime exclusive discounts. So you had to be very mindful that I run any deals earlier. Is my sale price now going to be lower than I need my contribution margins? So that all kind of goes into how you plan your deals. And they're also costly deals on these tent pole days can be upwards of a thousand dollars and when you have to give at least a 20% discount that that's eating into your numbers pretty good.

Brett:

For sure.

Christine:

And that's potentially why items like supplements and things that are on a reorder basis are like, okay, we can do that one time

Brett:

More likely seller is more willing to give those discounts for those consumables.

Christine:

Exactly. So prime exclusive, I think people are catching onto that. It has a red badge, so it looks good in search, looks a little bit better than a coupon, not as good as a lightning deal, but you're still in the game.

Brett:

And why do you say that? How does the Lightning deal stand out versus the prime exclusive?

Christine:

Sometimes it's even a little bit bigger deal, prime deal or the terminology that they use on those are more eye-catching than they will on just a coupon, which might just be yellow or green, not as big either. So they're a best deal. They're really trying to push people to those deals, which increases your traffic, so it makes it worthwhile.

Brett:

So lightning deals are called out the most and usually the biggest discount than Prime exclusive than just a standard coupon kind in that order in terms of how much it's emphasized or called out on a page?

Christine:

Yes, exactly.

Brett:

Got it, got it. So I know one topic that's been a hot topic for years, it's settled down a little bit now, driving potential rate cuts, that inflation is under control a little bit, but I still think it's important to look at how do you think inflation, even though it is kind of now in that normal sub 3% range, how do we think that's, or do we think that's impacting shopping at all? Or is that impacting strategy, pricing, strategy with our clients and with sellers on Amazon?

Christine:

I think it's impacting all the way around really. I mean, sellers can only charge so much. The market can only bear so much. So they can't really increase their prices that much. They just price themselves out of the market For individuals, for shoppers, their buying power is less than it once was in some cases. So shoppers I think are a little pickier, not so quick, oh, I'll just add it to my cart and buy it. I think they're thinking two or three times. They're comparing prices, what's on sale, what's not on sale, probably impacting bigger ticket items a little bit more than household items necessarily. We might, it's stable from last year, so I don't see that we would see a big difference, kind of a new normal,

Brett:

All those things are normal or all those things are true you just said, but it's almost like a new normal for people.

Christine:

It kind of is a new normal. So that's why I don't think we're going to see a big differential in the sales from last holiday season to this holiday season. But just understanding that buyers have less buying power, they have less in their pocket than they did a few years ago.

Brett:

Yeah, prime Day July was up quite a bit, year over year, fall prime quite a bit year over year. So hopefully we'll see something similar in holiday, but we shall see. Jonathan, from the ads point of view, what did you see immediately after the fall prime day? Was it the typical lull where hey, people's wallets are kind of empty, so they're going to wait a little bit? What did you see there?

Jonathan :

Yeah, I would say we actually saw a bit more significant of a lull in the days immediately following the event than what we usually see. And for a few accounts that kind of extended out to a four to five day lull. I think that's a

Brett:

Big, were those the brands that had the biggest discounts or did that seem to not correlate?

Jonathan :

No, that didn't really have a correlation. The only correlation that I could really pull out from that was more of the cyclical purchase trends per account. Because some accounts, if they have a ton of subscriptions, then that's really more evenly, your sales are a lot more evenly distributed throughout the week. But then we have a lot of clients that are weekend heavy. And so the people who typically buy on the weekdays really focused in on the deal event. And then of course the weekend did as well. And so then all the weekend shoppers, which there aren't as much already or all the weekday shoppers, which there were fewer already really focused in on those two days. And so then the rest of that week, finishing out the week for the Thursday, Friday and into the Saturday, those were just kind of obliterated. It wasn't like 10% of sales, but it was significantly down from the normal average. But then after about the fourth or fifth day, they were back up to the pre-event levels in terms of sales,

Brett:

Normal daily averages kind of kicked in at that point. Got it, got it. Interesting. Okay, so let's talk a little, let's shift our focus. Well, any final call outs for Prime Day before we shift to holiday?

Jonathan :

Good? No, I don't think so. We're

Brett:

Good. Cool. So as we look at the holiday shopping window for a lot of people, holiday shopping kicks in earnest during the cyber five, that Thanksgiving through Black Friday, that's when it happens. Now I've heard this is like the Cyber 12 and the cyber whatever number you want to throw at it, kind of the week, extending past Cyber Monday and going a little bit before Thanksgiving. It's all kind of thrown in there, but a lot of people, that's when holiday shopping kicks off for them, interestingly enough, and this is just the way the calendar falls sometimes. Thanksgiving is five days later in the year this year than it was last year. I believe it's November 28th this year. And so there'll be five fewer holiday shopping days this year kind of measuring that beginning of the cyber five through final through Christmas or whatever. And so fewer shopping days, how do we think that will impact things and what do we need to consider there? And I'll ask you that first, Christine.

Christine:

I think the first thing to consider now that Amazon has extended their cyber event from basically Sunday through Tuesday, the Sunday before Thanksgiving, basically through the Tuesday after Cyber Monday, Thanksgiving. But if you end up, for instance, with a Best Deal, which is a seven day deal that starts on Monday or Sunday, you run the entire week after Prime Day. So one of the key things that you have to keep in mind when you have set up these deals in the past, because you set them up already two months ago, what deal placement do you get? Am I running on Monday? Am I running on Tuesday? Am I running on Wednesday? Am I running on Thursday, Friday, whatever? And how does that compare to my sales from last year and what did I run last year and what days did I run it? So what days are going to perform best for me for my sales volume? It's number one. So for instance, if you, you have no control over the timing, they usually come out about a week before the event. So it's incumbent upon, we have to check it.

Brett:

And these are prime exclusive or what deals are talking about right now

Christine:

Where you have no, these are deals and best

Brett:

Deals. Oh, lightning deals. Okay.

Christine:

So a best deal, you could potentially get the Sunday before Thanksgiving and then it's going to run seven days to the Sunday after. Or a Best Deal would start on the Sunday after Thanksgiving and run the following week. I actually had huge success with that, a seven day deal post Thanksgiving. So you need to determine out of those days, are those going to be good for me? Is that worth me spending a thousand dollars on this deal to run on Wednesday when everybody's traveling? What if I get a Thursday deal, it's Thanksgiving, is that going to work? Everyone should take the deals that come on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Brett:

But you're saying you don't get to pick

Christine:

Say, but it's incumbent upon agency seller to look at your placement that you've been offered and make sure it's worth running it if it's not worth

Brett:

Running it because you get selected and once you know your date, then you can choose whether you want to do it or whether you want to

Christine:

Reject it. Exactly, exactly. And you can say, oh, that's fabulous, love it, keeping it or That's not good. I think I'm going to cancel it. And your pricing for your deal will be affected by your fall big deal days for both your prime day, prime exclusive and your Lightning deals. So you're going to have to wait at least 30 days after that to see where your pricing is going to be and what price Amazon is going to tell you you have to sell your product for and your lightning deal. So it's a continuous checking, but it's post 30 days.

Brett:

So basically is what Amazon's trying to do is they're trying to make sure that the deal you offer for cyber is at least as good as what you did for fall prime day or something. Is that kind of what they're looking at or how

Christine:

Does that work? It's based on your lowest price in the last 30 days. So then they take the discount off of that. So if you went in now and you're like, oh, let me upload all my prime exclusive discounts for cyber week, the referral price is going to be your, if you had it on sale, that price from the October Prime day. So you just want to wait until that cycles through. You've had your regular price for 30 days, and then you can upload it with your 20% discount for Prime exclusive, a lightning deal or a Best Deal, let it cycle through for 30 days. Amazon will reset and whatever percentage off they say you should have on that deal will be based on your current price, not your sale price. So these deals are not set it and forget it because you also can assign inventory. It assigns inventory. So you decide how many units can I even sell through at that price.

Brett:

So are you saying you need to wait 30 days after fall prime day before you submit some of this? Is that cutting it close? So as far as deadlines go,

Christine:

No, because October Prime, you've already set it up, so you're fine with that because you already have the deals in the console. It's just adjusting the prices that you're going to charge for it. So it's not too late. I would say you can upload your prime exclusives October, November 15th around that date. That still gives you over 10 days to clear any errors for your light.

Brett:

So that 30 day window between

Christine:

Prime day and that 30 day window closed, the system is reset now on your current price, not your sale price, your current price. So you should be able to apply your 20% or whatever you want to do. And the lightning deals or best deals should also reset, but keep an eye on the inventory levels and you can adjust those. Also determine how many units do you want to go through at this price.

Brett:

Got it. Got it. Jonathan, what is your perspective here? So five fewer shopping days this year versus last year. How will that impact total sales? How will that impact ads? What's your perspective?

Jonathan :

Yeah, so what we typically see is that the accounts that really benefit from the gift buying, they just continue to keep increasing in sales through December until, and I guess I haven't looked at when Christmas falls in the week, but pretty much right up until the 21st, 22nd, as long as those products are still getting next day or two day or one day shipping. And so

Brett:

Christmas is on a Wednesday this year. There you go. Oh, Wednesday, yeah, midweek, midweek Christmas. Yeah.

Jonathan :

Yeah. So probably Sunday, the Sunday before will be the last day when, and again, it depends on your inventory, quantities on how great your shipping's going to be in that narrow region Saturday, Sunday. So really condenses having those five less days between Black Friday, cyber Monday and Christmas really condenses that shopping period for shoppers and gift buyers. So usually people who are going to buy are still going to buy, they have a little bit less time to buy. So the only people that are really slipping through the cracks are those really extreme procrastinators who are probably going to have to run to a retail store anyways because they're going out on Christmas Eve to buy the gift. But for Amazon traffic, that just makes those days that more valuable because there's five days that are just gone. So you really got to be on your game making sure that you're showing up, especially when you're running promos, that you're broadcasting that promotion with your advertising as prominently as possible to make sure you're really maximizing the impact and reach over that narrower timeframe.

Brett:

Yeah, it's really interesting. So I think for most brands, most products, most categories, sales should be fairly consistent. And so just the loss of those five days mean it's just going to be more concentrated and sales are going to be higher during some of those days because if you think about it, you're still going to buy gifts for your kids, you're still going to buy gifts for your spouse, none of that can change. You can't just say, Hey, fewer shopping days couldn't get you anything this year. That's going to happen. But what could shift is where you buy gifts. To your point, Jonathan, if you are a procrastinator, maybe now you're forced to buy in store versus online. And I've also seen, because this cycles through, so we have these windows where holiday shopping period is condensed. We have periods where it's extended and these periods where it's condensed, sometimes people don't buy some of the extra gifts.

So like someone buying for their great niece or something like, okay, well I didn't see a special deal and so it just didn't happen. Or, oh, I saw this deal. I'm buying this for a friend. Maybe I wouldn't normally buy them a gift, but it just was there. So some of the more spontaneous things might not happen as much this year. So again, it doesn't impact big gift buying and I don't think it impacts your primary categories. But yeah, it does condense things. And it may kind of have some fringe edge case impacts, which is super interesting.

Christine:

It may make some other days bigger even than they once were. So maybe that Saturday, the two Saturdays after Thanksgiving or whatever, there'll be some days where you'll be, wow, I'm really up

Brett:

The Saturday.

Christine:

I think we're really down before. So I think in the end it'll probably be, it'll average out about the same, but I think it could make a few days bigger than what people anticipated from last year.

Jonathan :

Totally. Yeah,

Christine:

The panic you were

Jonathan :

About to say something, Jonathan? Yeah, just another aspect of that is usually we'll see that November on whole is a little bit softer than we thought it was going to be or year over year numbers wise compared to like 2023 November year over year for 2022. And then December should be proportionately stronger year over year than the trailing one just because the shopping is more condensed into those December weeks and a little bit less into the November

Christine:

Number

Brett:

Because now cyber cyber Monday is the 2nd of December and Sunday, which is part of cyber, cyber five is also December, December one. So it's going to shift some of those November sales. The November comp will be different. What's that?

Christine:

November numbers will look a little off because you're missing eight days of prime selling in November, so it's going to probably negatively impact your November numbers. But then hopefully you make that up on the December side,

Brett:

You have to do a little bit of calendar work to, because that five day shift you'll have to, your comps will be a little bit different, but that just kind of happens. So as we prep for the holiday, any big predictions you think this is going to be? Do you think we should see similar lifts for all of holiday that we've kind of seen say for Prime day, year over year? Do you think this holiday is going to be kind of flat year over year? What are your predictions from a big picture perspective?

Christine:

I think we're probably going to end up pretty similar to last year. A couple points here or a couple points there. I think one point that you had mentioned earlier, Brett, in regards to inflation, it's still here. So that part of the equation hasn't changed. I think people will buy about the same amount of stuff that they were going to buy, even with a few less days. So I think it'll probably going to be pretty stable with last year.

Jonathan :

Last year, yeah, same. I'm expecting to have a really solid Black Friday, cyber Monday in December, election year's, a little bit uncertainty of what's going to happen there, but I don't think that that is ultimately going to play too much into Christmas shopping trends. And if there's one thing that is wholly undefeated, it is the American consumer.

Brett:

It's so true. Yeah, the election, it's such an interesting story. That election also, it's a major, major hotly contested, all polls show it's a tight race, so the election is a big deal. The nice thing though, on the Amazon side, it doesn't really impact. There's no political ads on Amazon. Thank God that's a place we can go and hide from political ads. It does impact us on the YouTube and meta side and stuff like that. But yeah, I think the election, depending on which way it goes, maybe your gathering with your family is going to be more or less depressing depending on how your family views the outcome of the election. But I think there's going to be enough window there between the election and cyber kicking off and earnest and there's going to be people shopping for therapy, there's going to be people shopping for celebration, people are going to shop. And so 100% agree with that. On the ad strategy side. Jonathan, anything, are you thinking about this holiday any differently than other holidays because of the condensed window or any just special callouts on holiday prep from an ad perspective?

Jonathan :

Yeah, so the main special callout for holiday prep is just to really know, obviously I'm working on the agency side, but if you're a seller listening to this, you just got to know your strategy going into it. You obviously need to know your margins. You need to know what promos you've got. We're already past the deadline for being able to submit lightning deals and best deals, but you can still run prime exclusives if you don't have that eligible. You can run coupons at the bare minimum. And so knowing when those are going to be running, and like I said earlier, capitalizing on when they're active, obviously, like Christine mentioned, you don't get to choose the timing for Lightning deals and best deals, but if the best deal is running over Black Friday or it's running over Cyber Monday, those are the moments to really capitalize if you're, everybody's tight on budget. But if you're really tight and you're really trying to say, I can really only really hammer in on a day or two. Obviously back Friday, cyber Monday are the best. Cyber Monday usually edges out for Amazon, especially if you are a little bit more textile product. And then also the data, it's

Brett:

Interesting because on the D two C side, it's usually the opposite on the D two C side. What we see on the Google side is that the Black Friday's a little bit bigger, but Amazon really wins on Cyber Monday. Interesting.

Jonathan :

Yeah, definitely. And then I'm always a big, I like to scrutinize waste and that really drill out as much waste as possible. And that's kind of an evergreen tactic that I have. But that's something to really hone in on for the deal events. And really, you got to be checking in on your campaigns and how they're performing throughout the day. Obviously there's going to be a lot of attribution dust that settles later, but there could be something that you see you are being hyper aggressive on and you're just getting blown out of the water and you're spending hundreds, thousands of dollars and not getting any sales from it. And there could be a good reason for that. Or maybe there's something you need to dig in and adjust. Maybe your promo didn't start running because you had the pricing wrong or something and it wasn't deep enough the discount or some other issue. Maybe you lost the buy box or something. I don't know your issue, you're going to have to see if there's an issue and dig into it yourself. And each of those issues requires kind of a custom tailored, obviously response to that.

Brett:

Totally. And it's such a good call out though, the waste piece, because yes, conversion rates are up. Yes, everybody's shopping. Yes, it's a buying frenzy. Everything is condensed anyway in a normal holiday period. It's condensed more this year, but there's still going to be waste. And you still got to be mindful, Hey, none of us want to just give all of our extra profits back to Jeff Bezos in terms the form of advertising fees. Nobody wants to give more money into Google or to Zuck than we have to, right? So we've got to be mindful of those areas of waste. And so it's one of those things where really every sale day in the holiday can be the equivalent of a week or at least several days that are normal days. And so got to have your ad team on it, whether it's internal or an agency.

And hey, this is just a quick plug, quick shameless plug for OMG commerce. Depending on when you listen to this, it may be a little late, but we would love to get in and see how we can assist you depending on when you reach out. We may be heads down with existing clients, but this is the time certainly to bring in pros. So we're a little bit over our allotted record time. I know you guys both have to go and take care of clients, but Rapid Fire Christine, tips, dates, what do we need to be aware of and what we need to be planning for to make the most of holiday

Christine:

Quick tips? Add a holiday banner to your brand store, update your brand story. Give it a little holiday background. You can quickly add holiday search terms to the back end bulk upload. Doesn't matter how many ASINs you have, just put 'em in the backend. You don't need to update anything else on your listing. Be mindful that Chinese New Year is the 29th of January. Last day to place an order is December 6th. Last day. It's going to get on the water is probably very close to the 29th. And after that, nothing comes out till the 12th. So if you see you're crushing it in the beginning of November, middle of November, cyber week, get your order in, get it on the water so you can still be selling in January, February, and March.

Brett:

Totally, man. Nothing would bring down the high from a great holiday. Like not having inventory

Christine:

Like zero for

Brett:

January to February, especially if you're food and bev or if you're anything health or fitness or supplement related January and February, or very strong, even bigger oftentimes than holiday. So you got to be ready for that. So Christine Shalon, ladies and gentlemen, and Jonathan FCUs, you guys crushed it as always. Thank you for your hard work. It was a great super, super fun prime day. I love how we have internal sheets we keep track of and we're popping messages back and forth on Slack and kind of watching how things go. It just got me real fired up for holiday. It's even bigger and even more fun. So good work to the both of you and to the team. Any final callouts, any final callouts tips, advice that you would share with the audience?

Christine:

Watch your deals.

Jonathan :

Watch your deals. Watch

Christine:

Your deals.

Jonathan :

Organize. Organize your ads with your deals and your inventory. Strategize around that, optimize continually, and just stay focused on all of that. And you'll be good.

Brett:

Now's the time to really be fine tuning that strategy. Really get that dialed in, have your playbook laid out. How are we going to execute this? Because really, you don't want to be figuring things out during holiday. That's when you're just executing, making in-game adjustments and optimizing. But you got to have that overall strategy. Love it. So thank you both. Super, super fun. Excited for our next chat about Amazon Growth here coming up soon. And as always, thank you for tuning in. Please give us some feedback. Let us know what you'd like to hear more of or less of on the show. Leave us a review on iTunes if you've not done that. And with that, until next time, thank you for listening.

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