7 Strategies to Boost Your Amazon Black Friday Sales

Online sales are projected to grow 9.3% by the end of 2023, reaching $1.14 trillion in total volume, according to Insider Intelligence. Your Amazon store can't afford to miss out on the boost that comes with November holiday sales. 

Whether you have been preparing all year or procrastinated until the last minute, we have tips to help you optimize your Amazon shop. These tips for planning and promoting different sales throughout the season can give your Amazon store the opportunity it deserves to close out 2023 with a bang.

Does Amazon do Black Friday?‍

Amazon's official Black Friday promotion is running even longer this year. Normally, the event runs 48 hours, but Amazon announced that 2023's Black Friday deals will start Friday, November 17, and continue through its Cyber Monday promotion on Monday, November 27.

How long does Black Friday last on Amazon?

While the main Black Friday promotion will last over a week and continue through to Cyber Monday, Amazon sellers can run promotional deals throughout the holiday season. You don't want to miss the opportunity to catch shoppers looking for deals during the main event, but these tips can also help you to snag more sales right up through to the end of the year.

Tip 1: Optimize your store with relevant holiday search terms

If you haven't already updated your product titles and descriptions for the holidays, this is where you must start. Amazon provides rules and tips for effective search terms that apply year-round, including prohibitions on temporary terms such as "new" or "on sale now," as well as subjective claims such as "best," "cheapest," or "amazing."

While you need to stick to the rules to avoid an ASIN being suppressed or your account being suspended, you can still optimize for popular keywords this holiday season. Advanced tools are available for researching keywords, but you can start with free tools, such as the Google keyword planner, to see what is trending.

Remember to keep your terms relevant to your actual products and be specific in your product listings. Beyond using keywords, you can further optimize your holiday listings by highlighting ways a product makes sense as a holiday gift. We love how this Amazon store sets the mood in this product listing:

Tip 2: Ensure your Black Friday deals are Prime-eligible

To be listed as a Black Friday deal, your products need to meet the eligibility requirements for Prime Exclusive Discounts. These criteria include:

Product condition, rating, and type:

• The listed product must be in new condition.
• Items cannot be restricted, or anything Amazon considers offensive, embarrassing, or inappropriate.
• Your listing needs to have no rating or be rated at least three stars.
• The product must be eligible for Prime shipping in all regions within the country.

Pricing:

• Prime Exclusive Discount prices must be 5% lower than the reference price.
• The promotional price must be at least 10% off the non-member, non-promotional price.
• The discount has to be lower than any price the ASIN has been sold at to a customer in the previous 30 days.
• The product must comply with Amazon's customer product reviews policies, as well as Amazon's pricing policies.

Seller-fulfilled requirements:

• Free shipping.
• An account late dispatch rate below 4% for the previous month.
• An order defect rate below 1% for the previous month.
• A pre-fulfillment cancelation rate below 0.5% for the previous month.
• A disbursement reserve policy set to seven days or more after delivery.

Tip 3: Sprinkle Black Friday deals throughout November

While Amazon sellers cannot afford to miss out on the added promotional strength of Amazon's Black Friday event, seller-exclusive deals can span the entire holiday season. Start promoting your products to shoppers now, and keep targeting those shoppers through the end of the year with customized holiday deals.

Get the attention of early-bird shoppers with promotional offers such as free shipping and item descriptions that call attention to your products as holiday buys. Getting their attention early can also help to bring them back during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Even after the main promotional events are over, keep refreshing your special offers and descriptions, particularly for items with next-day delivery options or those that make great last-minute gift ideas. By keeping the changing needs of shoppers in mind, you can create promotions and deals that will likely help your products stand out.

Tip 4: Use social media to promote your store's deals

Throughout the holiday season, make relevant posts on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and your business website (if you have one). Use appropriate hashtags to promote your deals. 

Some example hashtags include: BlackFridayGiveaway, BlackFridaySpecials, BlackFridayAmazon, BlackFridayOffers, BlackFridayDiscount, and BlackFridayMadness. However, remember that Black Friday and Cyber Monday hashtags typically have over 10 million posts, so spend time researching unique hashtags with 10,000 or fewer posts that fit your specific products.

Posting once a day a few days before and on the actual sales day will help drive traffic to your Amazon store. Once you have shoppers' attention from these major promotional events, continue posting about any ongoing holiday promotions to keep your brand top-of-mind.

Tip 5: Add some holiday images to your Amazon storefront

Holiday season shopping is all about the mood. You can't set quite the same ambiance online as in a brick-and-mortar store, but even a few small seasonal touches can make a big difference in how attractive your storefront is to shoppers.

While it's not realistic to completely revamp your entire Amazon store appearance, little tweaks here and there will help to set you apart. This is true regardless of the promotions or events you are participating in, and can also help make your non-discounted products more attractive to holiday shoppers.

Tip 6: Use analytics to target the best days to offer Black Friday deals

Don't forget the tools Amazon provides to help your store, such as Amazon seller analytics, that allow you to look at trends for your own products. Even just going back and checking out your sales from the holiday season over the past few years can provide valuable insights.

You can also use this information to help you develop new products and promotions for the 2023 holiday season. If you want to step up your game beyond the basic tools Amazon provides to brands, our team at Mayan can offer even more assistance with optimizing how you use data to grow your sales.

Tip 7: Free returns and same-day delivery for November and December holiday deals

The holidays are a chaotic time for everyone. No one wants to make that late-night purchase hoping they have picked the perfect gift, only to find out the next day that someone else already bought the other person something similar. Free returns and fast delivery options can ease those little doubts and help your customers decide to click the buy button.

That extra peace of mind will continue to be helpful as the final days of holiday shopping close in, and consumers worry more about whether a gift will arrive on time. Remember, the holidays are also a big travel season. Many customers are not just under pressure to meet the holiday deadlines but also to have purchases arrive before they head out to visit relatives.

There is no magic bullet for the perfect holiday sales strategy. As with any other aspect of effectively running your Amazon FBA business, success is built with constant effort and comprehensive strategies.

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