Prime Day 2017 is here. Our offices are slightly less productive and we never knew we needed a device that makes vegetables into twirly noodles but here we are and it should be here on Thursday. I imagine this is the same for you and some of your friends. Quite a bit goes on a sale and every media outlet is talking about it. All in all, it’s a win-win for customers and Amazon.
But Prime Day has a lot to teach independent retailers. Let’s face it, the game is changing and you need to play the new game. Small businesses can take the same ideas and grow their businesses too.
Generate a Buzz
The biggest thing for Amazon through Prime Day is the buzz it creates. People will join Prime and that will create a customer through the year. For you, this means you need to find a way to create a buzz around your business and use those new customers to create repeat customers. Try this: Offer MAJOR discounts on some sought-after items, add a more steep discount when they share your sale on Instagram. This will bring awareness to social circles that you couldn’t otherwise reach and you now have some customer info to retarget for future items they could be interested in. You may not be on New York Times but you can be all over Instagram in your city.
Drive Both In-Store and Online Traffic
You may not notice this but have you seen how much the discounts vary from product to product? For the most part, the sales are actually pretty small with a few major discounts spread throughout the day in limited quantities. Those steep discounts keep people on the site and checking back often. For you, offer steep discounts on several items and a small discount on others; you still have the appearance of a major sale but your bottom line takes less of a hit. Want to increase revenue a little more? Offer an in-store discount that goes in conjunction, especially if it’s only for online shoppers.
Think Big Picture
Not every transaction is about making money. I know this sounds absurd because the point of business is to generate a profit. The problem is that we can be so focused on immediate profits that we can fail to see a sale as a great marketing opportunity for more profitable future sales. As you know, the most expensive marketing is focused marketing. The more you know a person would be interested, the more you will pay for that marketing. By offering steep discounts, you draw people into your store or onto your site that are interested in your products. You can take that information and draw them back into the business throughout the year to create a loyal customer.
About Streamline: Streamline is a technology and retail consultancy that provides retail consulting services by refining workflow and implementing new technology to make running a retail business more efficient and profitable. We aren’t tied to any particular solution, just the one that’s right for you.
