AMAZON PROMOTIONS User Guide July 2015
Overview of Amazon Promotions A Price Discount promotion lets you lower your price for customers clearly on the detail page. They are a great way to move through overstocked units, win back the buy box, and fuel demand. Price discount promotions are optionally merchandised by site merchandisers, the Amazon email team, and the Amazon deals team. Price Discount promotions can last up to five weeks. A Best Deal promotion is a price discount promotion that is featured on the Amazon.com deals page. Best deals must provide a product discount of at least 10% to customers and meet deal requirements. Best deal promotions are guaranteed to be featured on the Amazon.com deals page in the "Savings and Sales from Across Amazon" widget, which gets millions of views each day. After a customer clicks on your best deal in the widget, they go to a page that displays all the products included in your best deal promotion. Best Deal promotions can last up to two weeks. Why run a promotion? Guaranteed marketing placement for best deals Promotions display as lower prices on Amazon detail pages. We feature best deals on the Amazon.com deals page in the "Savings and Sales from Across Amazon" widget (one of the most visited pages on Amazon.com). Price discounts and best deal promotions are also often merchandised across Amazon and featured in customer emails. Help get more product orders Amazon often places orders to prepare for your promotions. Amazon also often buys more units after a promotion than before the promotion. Use promotions to increase product sales run rate. Use promotions to sell overstocked products. Help avoid product returns. Proactively provide great deals to customers to motivate Amazon to start ordering again and to lower the chance of an Amazon-initiated return. Help increase product conversion Promotions are the best way to compel more visiting customers to purchase your product. Promotions often lead to higher product conversion. See the halo effect Many products sell better after a promotion than they did before the promotion. Promotions often make products show up higher in search results. Use promotions to boost your baseline product demand. Win back the buy box Are you losing the buy box by a few dollars? Setup a price discount promotion to lower the Amazon.com price and help win back the buy box and capture the majority of that product s sales. Help fix uneven price points with compelling low prices. Keep track of your promotions See all your promotion requests in one page in Vendor Central. Check your promotion s status at any time. Use our search functionality to easily find specific promotions. Automated promotion review
Amazon automatically approves most promotions within minutes of submission. Amazon strives to review all promotions within seven days of submission. Frequently Asked Questions Does this program cost anything or do I just need to fund the product discount? There is no program cost; you just need to fund the product discount. Best deals, for example, need to be at least 10% off the current Amazon.com retail price. So if your current product sells on Amazon.com for $30, you could provide a Per Unit Discount of $6.01 (20%) and Amazon would likely set a promotional price of $23.99 (although Amazon has the discretion to set prices as we choose, we expect to pass 100% of funding to customers in the form of a price drop). Remember, best deals are featured on the Amazon.com deals page, one of the most visited pages on Amazon. How does the billing work? For each unit that sells during promotion, we will bill you $6.01. So if 100 units sell during the promotion we ll bill you $601. If you sell 0 units we ll bill you $0. How do I know if my promotion was successful? Many vendors consider promotions extremely successful when they sell more products after a promotion than they did before. If you sell 10 products per week before, 20 products on promotion, and then 12 products the week after the promotion, this likely means your product is now being shown to more customers and featured more highly in some search results. Many vendors treat promotions as marketing expenses. Some vendors are willing to lose money on promotions in hopes of better search relevancy and more weekly sales after the promotion. Does Amazon place orders to support promotions? Often times, yes. Amazon asks you to submit promotions 4+ weeks before the promotion start date so Amazon has time to order product. When there is a promotion on a product, our automated ordering systems know to expect more sales than usual. How can I see how my promotion performed? Once the promotion has gone live on Amazon, go to the Promotion detail page. You can then click Download Sales Report to see an aggregated promotion performance report. This report may not be available until one to two days after the promotion start date. I do not see the Promotions dropdown under Merchandising in my account. Why? We are still in the process of rolling the Amazon Promotions application out for all product groups. Some product groups do not participate and vendor codes in these product groups will not see the application. Let your buyer know that you want to use the Amazon Promotions program or file a Contact Us. What about lightning deals? Self-service lightning deals are planned to roll out to you in September 2015, assuming we see a strong response for best deals and price discounts promotions. What if I have additional questions? Contact Us. You can click Contact Us in Vendor Central. Select your Business group, select Promotions and Merchandising for your Support Topic, and select Price discount / Best deal promotions. Ask away!
Contact Us if you don t see your product group or vendor code or can t make a promotion for any reason. Price Discount & Best Deal Promotion Submission Guidelines Review the information below to learn which products qualify for price discount promotions. Promotions must start four weeks or more in the future We do this so that we can order more units for your promotions if needed. Promotions cannot start more than twelve weeks in the future We are adding a lot of functionality so we don t want you to schedule your Holiday promotions until our application is fully ramped up. Promotions can last a maximum of 5 weeks (35 days) If you d like to continuously run price discount promotions on a product, please instead submit a lower product cost. To do so, go to Items > Edit Item Costs in Vendor Central. This helps ensure that Amazon can always provide an every-day-low price to customers. No overlapping promotions We only accept products for price discount promotions that do not have any promotions scheduled for overlapping time frames. You cannot submit the same product multiple times on one promotion No financially unhealthy products We do not currently accept products that do meet certain financial thresholds. If your products are not accepted for promotion then please submit a lower product cost or reach out to your Amazon buyer. To submit a lower product cost, go to Items > Edit Item Costs in Vendor Central. This helps ensure that Amazon can always provide an every-day-low price to customers. Promotions can only be run on child products You will not be able to submit parent products for price discount promotions. Additional Best Deal Promotion Submission Guidelines Best deal promotions are also subjected to the below deal checks. We check to make sure that your product meets these checks: 1) At best deal promotion creation 2) 48 hours before the promotion start date 3) 24 hours before the promotion start date 4) While the promotion is running Visit your promotions homepage at each stage to make sure your promotion does not need your attention. These additional checks are: Per unit funding amount must support a promotional price at least 10% off the current selling price on Amazon
Remember, although Amazon has the discretion to set prices as we choose, we expect to pass 100% of the funding to customers in the form of a price drop. For example, if you enter an ASIN and the corresponding per unit funding amount of $20 and this product would otherwise sell for $54.68 (the current Amazon.com price), then we will strive to set a promotional price of $34.68. This is a ~36% discount, so this product would pass the 10% discount check for best deal promotions. Appropriate product check For best deals, we check to make sure all products are appropriate for all of our customers. We search content for controversial and proactive keywords and images and flag products with even slight potential to offend, confuse, or lead to unwanted conversations. Many young children see the deals on our website. Because we are very conservative, our system may flag some products that you think are appropriate. As an alternative, submit these products on price discount promotions. Contact Us to tell us about the products you could not submit so we can refine our algorithm, though we will not be able to make any submission exceptions. Three star average reviews (or new product) Products need to have at least a 3.0 average customer review rating. There is an exception for new products. Valid, appropriate image Products must have valid, appropriate images to qualify for best deal promotions How to Create Promotions on Vendor Central We will walk through an example of a best deal promotion. 1. To register and get started, sign in to Vendor Central and go to Merchandising > Self-Service Promotions. Select Promotions. Please read the terms & conditions and click Create a promotion.
2. Click Price discount or Best deal. We will select Best deal in this example. 3. Describe your promotion Provide the necessary information about the promotion request and click Next.
Name and add a description that describes the promotion s purpose. Choose your product group and the corresponding vendor code. Promotions can only contain products from one product group. If you want to run a promotion on camera products and computer products, for example, you will need to make separate promotions for each product line. If the proper product groups and vendor codes are not populating, please ensure that you have proper permissions or contact us. Choose a start date and end date for your promotion. Remember, promotions must start at least four weeks in advance. 4. Add Products Download the Microsoft Office Excel template to add products. Fill out this template and save this file. Browse to find the template you just saved and click Next. Our system will check for any upload errors. Please correct any errors and resubmit the spreadsheet until no errors are found. Common Add Products questions How do I suggest promotional price? Although Amazon has the discretion to set prices as we choose, we expect to pass 100% of the funding to customers in the form of a price drop. For example, if you enter an ASIN and the corresponding per unit funding amount of $10 and this product would otherwise sell for $54.68, then we will strive to set a promotional price of $44.68. What is Per Unit Funding Amount? Per Unit Funding Amount is the dollar amount that you want to fund for each unit sold during this promotion. For example, if you enter an ASIN and the corresponding per unit funding amount of $10 and Amazon sells 30 units of this product during the promotion, you will be billed $300.00 ($10.00 x 30 products).
5. Review & Submit Promotion You will now be able to review the terms of your promotion. Please ensure all promotion details are correct. Check the box to affirm that you have legal authority to propose and accept the promotion. Click Submit for approval. You can edit the promotion until the promotion is approved. You can cancel the promotion any time before the promotion is live. Access these features from the promotion detail page. 6. Make Necessary Changes & Track Promotion Approvals Your promotion will then have a status of Pending approval and will pass through the approvals process. We will try to auto-approve your promotion; this usually takes under ten minutes but can take longer. To maximize the chance of auto-approval, always submit your promotion at least four weeks in advance and fund 100% of any price drop. If we are able to auto-approve your promotion, the promotion status will update to Approved. Once your promotion is marked as Approved, your promotion has been approved by Amazon to go live on the promotion start date. No further action is required. If we cannot auto-approve your promotion, your status will remain Pending approval and business teams need to review your promotion. Your promotion will be reviewed within seven days. If your promotion s status changes to Needs your attention, you will need to open your promotion detail page and make changes. Remember to check back again 48 hours and 24 hours before your best deal promotion is scheduled to start, as we perform additional deal checks then.
Possible promotion statuses: Status Live Status Meaning The promotion is live and currently running on the Amazon website. You will be billed a fixed amount per each unit sold during the promotional period and Amazon may merchandise your promotion. No further action is required. Approved Needs your attention Pending approval The promotion will go live on the promotion start date. Amazon has reviewed the promotion and no further action is required. If the promotion start date is in the past, your promotion should be live on the Amazon website and you will be billed a fixed amount per each unit sold during the promotional period. The promotion requires your review. Go to the promotion detail page and look for an error message at the top of the promotion detail page and in the Comments field. Amazon usually provides instructions around what action is required. You may need to remove products, change funding amounts, or make some other change. Make the change as soon as possible. Your promotion will then go back to business teams for re-review. This usually takes no more than seven days. The promotion is awaiting Amazon business team review. This usually takes under seven days. No further action is required. Rejected Canceled The promotion will not run or give live on the Amazon website. Amazon has reviewed your promotion but has decided not to run the promotion. Amazon will usually put the reason why they have chosen not to accept the promotion in the comments section on the Promotion detail page. Business teams approve promotions at their discretion. Review the rejection reason and then create a new promotion addressing any identified problems if possible. The promotion will not run or go live on the Amazon website. The promotion has been canceled by the vendor. A user of your Vendor Central business account has canceled the promotion request. You cannot un-cancel a canceled promotion. Create a new promotion if you change your mind.