How To Build a Winning Amazon Strategy for the Holidays

Believe it or not, the holidays are (almost!) almost here for brands. A successful holiday shopping season requires early planning — and if you’re not starting now, you’re falling behind.

Santa Claus isn’t the only one keeping a “naughty and nice” list this year — luckily, if you’re marketing products on Amazon this holiday season, there are some easy best practices you can adopt to avoid finding the proverbial coal in your brand’s stocking. 

It’s no secret that Amazon is an essential platform for anyone hoping to drive sales during the busiest shopping time of the year. But how can brands leverage this titanic channel for maximum benefit? 

We’ve compiled eight helpful ways you can prime your brand for success on Amazon this season.

8 Holiday Amazon Strategy Do’s and Don’ts

Here are eight do’s and don’ts to implement in your holiday Amazon strategy this year.

Don’t Get Caught With Low Inventory on Your Top-Selling Item

Staffing shortages, driver shortages, supply chain shortages, and product delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have taken a toll on the shopper experience. 

In Salsify’s “Consumer Research 2022” report, 43% of French shoppers, 52% of British shoppers, 53% of German shoppers, and 66% of U.S. shoppers indicated that they were “impacted by one or more delays or stock shortages in 2021.” 

Beyond the obvious issue — no inventory means no sales — these hiccups can lead to more subtle problems in the future by negatively impacting your discoverability, brand reputation, and more.

In anticipation of this upcoming holiday season, take steps ASAP to ensure your distribution channels can weather demand.

Make Sure Your Amazon Product Pages Are Relevant

Landing on Amazon’s front page is a great feat, but the limelight doesn’t always last. 

Salsify tracked multiple product categories on Amazon to see how fast the top results changed, and the results were staggering.

Video Source: Salsify

If you want to land on the front page this holiday season — and stay there — you need relevant product content. 

Salsify’s “Consumer Research 2022” report found that 48% of German shoppers, 50% of French shoppers, 70% of U.S. shoppers, and 73% of British shoppers are more likely to buy from a product page that includes personally relevant images, videos, text, and reviews.

Don’t overlook the importance of personalized, high-quality product content.

Don’t Rely Solely on Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA)

Relying solely on one fulfillment strategy — particularly if you can’t control it yourself — can leave brands vulnerable. Mitigate your risk by diversifying your fulfillment channels.

Set up the Merchant Fulfilled Network (MFN) option on Amazon. This will give you the flexibility to independently manage customer support, inventory, and shipping.

Diversifying your fulfillment channels will enable you to provide customers with the fast, seamless delivery experience they want.

Offer a Coherent Experience

Think holistically about your customer’s path to purchase, and make sure your messaging is consistent throughout all of your channels.

Providing a coherent brand message to customers across every touch point is a great way to earn their trust.

Don’t Forget About Your Profit Margins

Analyze your profit margins to determine whether you should take a pay-per-click (PPC) approach to marketing each of your products, or if you should utilize a service like Amazon Ads.

Make sure you’re taking the approach that works best for your bottom line.

Add Video to Your Product Content

Providing a well-produced, informative video will help you stand out against competitors who don’t make the effort to do so. It will also improve your return on ad spend (ROAS) and discoverability on the platform.

Don’t Ignore Listing Suspensions

If your listings are suspended, or you’ve been losing the Buy Box on your product pages, dive into your back-end auditing system to discover (and fix) the problem as soon as possible.

For example, Amazon could give the Buy Box to a brand that has cheaper prices than you, or you could be docked for having product description discrepancies.

Brands need to practice proactive catalog management in order to avoid these setbacks and losing sales.

Add Product-Specific A+ Content

“The Content Advantage” report, which analyzed more than 14,000 product detail pages (PDPs) across Amazon in Germany, the U.K., and France, discovered that “71% of products in the top 10 for sales in their product category have A+ content.” 

Providing as much A+ content as possible increases consumer trust and almost always leads to increased sales. 

A+ content — also known as enhanced content — can include 360-degree views of your product, lifestyle images, downloadable manuals, and more.

Why a Holiday Amazon Strategy Is Crucial

The holiday shopping season will be here before we know it, which is why it’s crucial to have an airtight strategy in place now. 

By following these eight big Amazon strategy do’s and don’ts, you’ll set your brand up for success this holiday season and stay on Santa’s “nice” list.

Having a strong holiday Amazon strategy in place can help you win customers over during one of the busiest times of the year. Download “The Naughty and Nice Amazon Ecommerce Checklist” to ensure you’re on the right track for your best holiday season yet.