To make the most of Q4, Amazon Sellers are often keen to participate in the plethora of deal events that run during peak. As a Seller, with so many discounting options available on Amazon, we thought we’d give our two pence to help you reach a final decision.
Deal Types
To help you make an informed decision on the deal types to use for your brand, here is a breakdown of all the deal and promotional levers, their eligibility criteria, and our recommendations:
| Name |
Placement |
Duration |
Eligibility |
Criteria |
Summary |
Recommendation |
Top Deal
|
Pinned at the top of the deals grid on Today’s Deals pages. |
1-7 Days |
Invite only generally. Selected Lightning Deals and 7 DDs may be upgraded to Top Deals. |
Minimum discount: 20%
Cost to run: Free
Minimum ASIN rating: 4* |
Amazon’s flagship deal type. The potential GMS (gross merchandise sales) * available units bar is high, so only top performing ASINs will be invited. |
Due to their placement (at the top of the second most viewed page behind the homepage). Top Deals get a lot of visibility so Top Deals can perform really well! |
Lightning Deal
|
In grid on Today’s Deals page. |
6-12 hours |
Eligible ASINs will appear in deals dashboard here. |
Minimum discount: 15%
Cost to run: £25-£50 (2x during deal events)
Minimum ASIN rating: 3.5* |
Noticeable from their stock availability countdown bar. Lightning Deals are pitched as the ‘flash sale’ deal type. |
Possibly due to the shorter length that they run for (and therefore time on the deals pages), we don’t tend to see particularly strong performances from Lightning Deals. |
| 7 Day Deal |
In grid on Today’s Deals page. |
7 Days |
Eligible ASINs will appear in deals dashboard here. |
Minimum discount: 10%
Cost to run: £50 (2x during deal events)
Minimum ASIN rating: 3* |
Standard deal appearance on deals pages. |
With their longer duration and therefore longer visibility on deals pages and time to climb up the grid (the deals pages refresh every two hours – those performing well will appear higher up the grid each time) we tend to see better performance of 7DDs than Lightning Deals when comparing self-service deal types, despite the higher cost to run. |
Prime Exclusive Discount
|
No landing page for Prime Exclusive Discounts. |
Any duration. |
Any ASIN which is Prime Eligible (via FBA only) and meets the standard criteria. Submit via PED submissions page here. |
Minimum discount: 10% (20% on deal events)
Cost to run: Free
Minimum ASIN rating: 3.5* or no rating. |
Very flexible discounting tool for FBA selection which doesn’t require the deal algorithm to display eligible ASINs. |
Free to run promotion type which also displays deal event messaging (e.g. Black Friday Deal) on Search Engine Results Page (SERP) and on Product Detail Page (PDP), helping to drive sessions and conversion during deal events when traffic is high, but not having to pay the 2x deal fee for LDs and 7DDs. Can be especially effective when combined with off-site marketing. |
| Vouchers (aka Coupons) |
Vouchers page which is linked to from banner on Deals pages. |
Any duration. |
Any ASIN. |
Minimum discount: 5%
Cost to run: Free but there is a £0.45 per unit redemption cost.
Minimum ASIN rating: N/A |
Another very flexible discounting too that, unlike any of the above, is eligible for merchant fulfilled selection. |
With the lowest minimum required discount (5%), Vouchers are a great way to display discounting messaging (i.e. the Voucher flag) on the SERP and PDP. The displayed price is not reduced so Customers with alerts for price reductions will not be notified. |
Strike-through price
|
Strike-through price displays in SERP and on PDP. |
Any duration. |
Any ASIN. Can be added by going to Manage Inventory and clicking Edit on the SKU you wish to update, or in bulk by updating Category Listings Report. |
Available on all ASINs with a validated reference price (more info here). |
The most flexible discounting option of all. |
Very easy to run and has prominent ‘Limited Time Deal’ flag on SERP and ‘Deal price’ on PDP. During testing, we found that strike-through pricing performed 20-25% better compared to Vouchers at the same discount level on the same selection. |
Which Amazon Deal Should I Run?
Now you have all the necessary information on deal types, let’s get to that critical question we mentioned at the start. Getting to it, here are summaries of our advice on the main deal types you may want to take in consideration:
Top deals: As this is Amazon’s highly sought-after deal type, in the event of being invited to run a selection on a Top deal, we strongly recommend you do so!
Lightning & 7-Day Deals: It is important to note that these deal types will cost a minimum of £25 per parent ASIN to run, so worth considering that before running them across large numbers of ASINs, especially since the fee is double on deal events. While they are the only self-service deal options that enable your ASINs to appear on the deals pages, the number of deals pages at any given time is in the hundreds, so discoverability from the third page onwards will be very low!
Prime Exclusive Discounts (PEDs): Since extra sessions from the Search Engine Results Page flags will generate most of your traction, and higher conversions are likely to be generated from lower prices and messaging on the Product Detail Page, we recommend running Prime Exclusive Discounts due to their wide eligibility and free cost of running. For PEDs to be effective and worthwhile, we advise that you run PEDs alongside off-Amazon marketing, including social media and email lists, to notify your engaged Customers that there is a discount running on your selection.
Now you have become acquainted with all the deal types Amazon has to offer, what it takes to run them, and our recommendations, we hope you feel more sure than before you read this article on the deal type you would like to make the most of this Q4.
If you have any questions about anything deals-related, our team, including two ex-Amazonian deals champions, would love to speak to you. Feel free to schedule a call via the 'Let's talk' link at the top of the page!
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