Down to the Wire: 7 Must-Do Black Friday Tips For Amazon Sellers

Is your Amazon store prepped for November holiday sales? If not, this post is for all you procrastinators out there looking for last-minute Black Friday selling tips to boost Amazon sales this season.

And this holiday season is definitely an important time to work on sprucing up your store on Amazon. For one thing, big online sales are expected this year. According to Digital Commerce 360 website, online holiday sales are expected to grow 12% in 2021, compared to the $192.19 billion of revenue in 2020. This year, sales are expected to go over the 200 billion mark. 

So, with even more clickers and buyers inevitably shopping online for November holiday deals, you’ll want to give your Amazon store the opportunity it deserves – this is a chance to find more loyal customers! To maximize your potential for more sales to close out 2021, you’ll need to optimize your Amazon shop as well as plan and promote different sales throughout the season.

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Does Amazon do Black Friday?‍

Black Friday is on November 26 this year, followed by Cyber Monday on November 29. Along with online and in-person retailers across North America, Amazon is also a big part of providing shoppers with a variety of November holiday deals every year.

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How long does Black Friday last on Amazon?

Amazon sellers will have holiday sales going on throughout the month of November and into December. Shoppers can even find deals and promos that start on Amazon as early as October.

Now, let’s get to these Black Friday tips so you can start prepping for big sales. Here are some simple things you can do to spruce up your Amazon store this Black Friday.

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Tip 1: Optimize your store with relevant holiday search terms

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Get your Amazon store ready for Black Friday and Cyber Monday by updating your product titles and descriptions with some appropriate keywords for the holidays. This is one tip you can apply sooner than later because Black Friday sales on Amazon begin in early November.

To start off your Black Friday prep, do some research and optimize your store with the right search terms for the holiday period.

Don’t forget that Amazon sellers can’t use subjective terms or temporary statements like “on sale now,” “best,” “cheapest,” “deals,” in their online stores, as this violates the company’s rules and can result in an ASIN being suppressed or your account being suspended. You can review Amazon’s search term rules here.

Black Friday shopping is the lead up to the winter holiday season, so this is an opportunity to put online shoppers in a festive mood. One way to do this is to be specific and paint a picture in your product listings. We love how this Amazon store sets the mood in this product listing:

Tip 2: Submit your Black Friday deals for approval on time

Your Black Friday sales can be spaced out throughout the month of November and into December, but you’ll have to get them approved first.

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To see if your Amazon store is eligible to join in on Black Friday shopping deals, check this criteria:

- For an item to be approved for a Black Friday deal, it needs to be a nationally (US) Prime shipping eligible FBA product.

- The Prime Exclusive Discount must meet all regular eligibility criteria.

- The product you want to put on sale must have at least 3.5-star rating, or no rating.

- Discount must be at least 20% off the non-prime member non-promotional price.

- Meaning that the discount must be at most 80% off the non-prime member non-promotional price.

- The Prime Exclusive Discounted price must beat the lowest price for the specific ASIN in the last 30 days.

- The lowest price in the last 30 days is the lowest order price for the ASIN in that period including all deal, promotional, and sale prices across all merchants.

- You must be a seller with at least 4 Seller Feedback Rating when a seller rating is available. Amazon looks at your last 365 day rating average and if there are 10 or more ratings in that period. If there are less than 10 ratings in the last 365 days, your lifetime average rating is considered.

The deadline to submit your Black Friday deals on Amazon this year is November 24 and will take a few days to process. So once you check to see if you’re eligible to offer deals, submit them by November 20 at the latest.

Tip 3: Sprinkle Black Friday deals throughout the month of November

If you’re a big shopper, you know that the best Black Friday deals don’t necessarily fall on the actual day of Black Friday. They come before, after, and everywhere in between.

Keep people coming back for more by customizing your November holiday deals for the optimal days to buy. If a shopper stumbles upon your store and there isn’t a promo going on, even if it’s something as little as free shipping, they will likely click away.

You don’t always have to have the best Black Friday deals live on your Amazon store throughout the holiday period, but offering something for those early bird shoppers in November will give them a reason to check out your store once again when Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend comes along. It’s a great selling strategy to offer early Black Friday deals and promote upcoming deals, and you don’t have to focus solely on the Black Friday weekend to offer shoppers a promo and increase your sales.

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

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Throughout the month of November, post on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and your business website (if you have one) on the days leading up to your best Black Friday promos. Don’t overload people with content, but posting once a day a few days before and on the actual sales day will help drive traffic to your Amazon store.

Don’t be shy to promote your sales, and make sure to use the right hashtags where appropriate. Go beyond using the simple hashtags of BlackFriday and CyberMonday which have over 10 million posts, because using those won’t help your post stand out at all. Be strategic and use some more unique ones with 10,000 or less.

Here are some trending hashtags for Black Friday and Cyber Monday that you can copy and paste for your posts: BlackFridayGiveaway, BlackFridaySpecials, BlackFridayAmazon, BlackFridayOffers, BlackFridayDiscount, BlackFridayMadness. Use these, and whatever tag is relevant to your brand and Amazon store.

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Tip 5: Add some holiday images to your Amazon storefront

Get festive! There’s no need to revamp all of the images in your Amazon store (that would be time consuming and wayyyy too much work) but one or two tweaks where appropriate can make a world of difference.

And whether you’re offering Black Friday discounts or not, it’s still a good idea to refresh your Amazon store with a few holiday-themed images to get your customers in the spirit for some Black Friday shopping.

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

Another Amazon Black Friday tip we have for you is to look back on your sales from this time last year and analyze the trends to pick the best days for your deals.

Go into your seller account and check your daily sales from this same period in 2020 and even 2019 (not sure if this is possible…have team confirm) so that you know when people bought and how much. You can even use this data to get fresh ideas on new products to sell for the November holiday, so your customers can have the opportunity to bundle a few of your store’s items.

And if you need help on the data front, our team at Mayanalytics can guide you.

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Tip 7: Offer free returns and same day delivery for your November holiday deals

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Holiday shoppers are overwhelmed with options, deals, and choices on what to buy their loved ones (or splurge on themselves) from retailers everywhere. It’s also a time when shoppers will be more quick to buy, so they will need some backup for any potentially spontaneous purchases.

Offering incentives to your customers like free returns and same day delivery for Prime members will give Black Friday shoppers peace of mind when making their purchases. Remember that this shopping season is a highly competitive time, so you’ll have to up your game to reap those rewards!

From remembering the deadlines to submit your deals and optimizing your Amazon store, we hope our Black Friday tips will help you drive even more sales this holiday season.

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