Increase Conversions With Amazon Coupons, Deals and Promotions

If you sell products or run ads on Amazon you’ll quickly notice it’s hard to stand out in this busy marketplace. Luckily, there are a few ways to boost sales and conversion rates while decreasing inventory. The best and most popular options are Coupons, Deals, Promotions, and Prime Exclusive Discounts.

Coupons

Coupons are the most common promotion we see on Amazon. These are green “clippable” coupons that are similar to what you would see in a magazine, newspaper, or discount book. The shopper must physically apply the coupon in order to receive the discount at checkout. The discount applied can be a money-off discount or a percentage-off discount and will cost you $0.60 per redemption from Amazon.

You are able to set a schedule and budget limits between $100 and $10,000,000 to ensure you don’t allow more coupon redemptions than you want, which is calculated by adding the $.60 fee and USD discount you are offering. Other additional features we like are the optional one-per-customer redemption limit and that you can target coupons to all customers, Prime Members, Amazon Student Members, and Amazon Family Members.

Amazon states on Seller Central, “To be eligible for coupons, you must be a Professional seller with at least a 3.5 Seller Feedback Rating. Sellers that have not received any feedback ratings from buyers will also be eligible for Coupons. Additionally, products must meet the following criteria:

• Products with 0 reviews are eligible without any average rating taken into consideration. However, if a product has reviews, then the product must meet the average criteria.
  • Products with 1 – 4 reviews must have an average of at least a 2.5-star rating on Amazon.
  • Products with 5+ reviews must have an average of at least a 3-star rating on Amazon.
• Can be Seller-Fulfilled, Fulfilled by Amazon, or Seller-Fulfilled Prime
• Must be in new condition

The following products are not eligible for coupons:

• Products in used condition, collectibles, or certified refurbished
• Adult products
• The following product types are not allowed:
  • Sexual Wellness
  • Hunting and Fishing
  • Guns and gun accessories
  • Books, Music, Video, and DVD
• Cannot have content on the product detail page that may be offensive, embarrassing, or inappropriate

Examples of coupons are below:

Deals

This promotion type is great for special marketing events like Black Friday and Prime Day, since your deals will be featured on the Amazon Deals page. You can use this deal to promote your best sellers or reduce overstock. 7-Day Deals, Lightning Deals, and Deal of the Day are the most common promotions.

Amazon states to be eligible for deals on Seller Central, “you must be a professional seller with an overall rating of at least 3.5-stars. Additionally, products must meet these criteria:

• Have a sales history in Amazon stores and at least a 3-star rating.
• Include as many variations as possible.
• Not be a restricted product or offensive, embarrassing or inappropriate product.
• Be Prime eligible in all regions.
• New condition.
• Be compliant with customer product reviews policies. To learn more, go to Customer product reviews policies.
• Compliant with pricing policies and have a valid reference price. For more information, go to Show a reference price on your products and Amazon Policy on Reference Prices.
• Compliant with deal frequency requirement. To learn more, go to Create a Deal.”

7-Day Deals: This is a time-restricted offer where your chosen item is featured for seven days or less on the Amazon Deals page.You can select the week or event, and the base fee is usually $300-$1,000.

Lightning Deals: This is a promotional offer that is only offered for a short period of time, usually four to twelve hours, and is featured on the Amazon Deals page and Prime Day page often in a prominent position on the page. There are a limited amount of deals to claim and a limit of one per customer. It runs until the deal expires or the timer ends. Amazon typically wants at least 15-20% off, and the fee is typically around $150 but can be more during events.

Promotions

The three most common promotions in Seller Central are Percentage Off, Buy One Get One, and Social Media Promo Code.

Amazon states that “promotions are most effective when your offer is the Featured Offer (formerly known as “Buy Box”). Otherwise, the promotional messaging cannot appear on the detail page.”

Percentage Off: This will give money off one or multiple products with the use of a promo code, though it is not necessary and can be auto-applied. It is often used to promote bulk sales and many advanced conditions can be set up such as a tiered discount structure to encourage people to buy more. This has no Buy Box impact.

Note: If you want to simply set up a sale price for one product in Seller Central, you should do this by navigating to Inventory > Manage All Inventory > Edit (product you choose) >  Offer. You can also set quantity discounts here. This has Buy Box impact. Price discounts are also available in the Merchandising section of Vendor Central.

Buy One Get One: Although many advanced features can be adjusted, this one is easy as it sounds: buyer gets a free item (or many items) when purchasing. This helps spotlight new products and encourages different buying behavior.

Social Media Promo Code: This is another easy promotion to grasp. The basics are it allows you to promote your products over social media with a promo code. This creates a temporary marketing page in your Amazon Store where the code will be auto-applied, and all your customer needs to do is add it to their cart and checkout! There is also an option to automatically share this code with Amazon Influencers and Associates.

By opting into Amazon Influencers and Associates, you will “allow Amazon to share your promo code with select social media influencers, websites, and publishers in the Amazon Influencer Program and Amazon Associates, who may post about your promotion and refer traffic. There is no fee for opting in. You cannot edit this option after submitting your promotion. Opting in does not guarantee placement.”

Prime Exclusive Discounts:

Prime Exclusive Discount is a price discount promotion available to only Prime members. The product will show a discounted price with the original regular price crossed out and only displayed on the featured offer detail page for Prime Members. This is a common promotion for Prime Day Events, and you are able to put a discount on a single or sets of products.

Amazon states to be eligible for the Fall Prime Day Deal Event, the

• “Item needs to be nationally Prime shipping eligible product.
• The Prime Exclusive Discount must meet all regular eligibility criteria.
• Product must have at least 3.5-star rating or no rating.
• The discount must be at least 20% off the non-prime member non-promotional price.
• The discount must be at most 80% off the non-prime member non-promotional price.
• The Prime Exclusive Discount price must be 10% lower than reference price (that is, List Price or Was Price). For more information, go to Reference Prices and how to Show a reference price to your products.
• The Prime Exclusive Discounted price must be lower than the lowest price for the ASIN in past 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 seller rating is available. We look at the last 365 day rating average if there are 10 or more ratings in that period. If there are less than 10 ratings in last 365 days, we consider the lifetime average rating.”

I hope you feel better equipped to run promotions on Amazon. There are a lot of random rules, but there should be a promotional option for every brand out there regardless of how new. Products with ratings above 3.5 stars and Sellers with at least a 4 rating will have a much easier time running promotions.