What Is the Real Deal on Amazon Lightning Deals?

Last updated on June 5th, 2023

Written by Himanshi Raj

Have you received an invitation or taken part in Amazon's lightning deals?

Whether the promo lives up to the hype of allowing participating sellers to outperform their competition or hiring for an Amazon launch service remains a moot point. Find out if accepting an invitation or taking part in it is a privilege you cannot afford to miss or otherwise. Dive into the details explained below.

About Amazon Prime Lightning Deals

If you want to find lightning deals on Amazon, you only have to look for them on the following pages: Today's Deals and Prime. Because this is a promo, you might think that you can run as many deals as your heart desires.

Well, unfortunately, Amazon has long established the rule that only one deal is allowed per seller. The platform considers the deal eligible until the promo expires. Either that or someone has already declared ownership of the available inventory.

Being aware of an Amazon lightning deals' schedule is essential. The promo is time-bound. Therefore, interested parties cannot afford to dilly-dally. You need to complete your order immediately. Once a lightning deal is on, expect to see:

• The featured product
• The final price and amount for the promotional discount (excluding tax)
• A status bar showing the percentage of claimed deals
• A timer indicating the time left before the deal expires
• A button for "Add to Cart" if there are promotional discounts on hand

Not everyone can take part in this promo, though. To begin with, an Amazon lightning deals seller must have a professional account. That aside, Prime Day is exclusively available to Prime members only.

If you see a Join Waitlist button, it means that other customers are holding all the promo discounts for a lightning deal. The same situation applies when you spot a status bar. The latter shows that the entire promo discounts are either presently held in other customers' carts or were used to buy a deal.

Do Amazon Lightning Deals Boost Sales?

Deals are music to every shopper's ears. And because Amazon is a customer-centric company, they offer them from time to time to delight potential buyers. For sellers, the benefit comes from having an influx of customers visit their stores often. It increases the flow of traffic, as shoppers will be enticed to frequent the stores to grab deals.

However, the percentage of shoppers tends to diminish on the days following the deal's start. In general, a product's average daily sales can get a boost of up to 200%. Aside from directly increasing sales, this type of Amazon deals provides other benefits. Although indirect, these advantages promote sales increase in the long run.

• Improved online presence

Amazon lightning deals alert browsers when it shows up on the Deals page. As one of the most frequented pages on the platform, it automatically makes your products more visible to your target market. This advantage equates to strengthening your brand's overall online presence.

• Strengthens brand awareness while helping boost sales

Lightning Deals create a halo effect. Their ability to help customers learn about your brand while improving sales does not only work while the deal is running. Its advantages go beyond, generating positive results on the days following the deal's scheduled onset.

• Clears overstocked inventory

Offering deals is an excellent way of disposing of and profiting from overstocks or unsold seasonal products.

Other additional advantages include:

• Improves organic ranking of your product pages through sales velocity
• With more buyers coming in, taking the opportunity to provide stellar customer service automatically encourages them to leave positive reviews.
• Higher conversions after the duration of the deal have lapsed
• Improved position for your product in Amazon's algorithm

The Downsides of Amazon Lightning Deals

Like all other programs, the benefits sellers get from running lightning deals comes with its own set of challenges. They are as follows:

• Amazon alone gets to determine the exact time and date for running the deal.

Sellers are free to propose a specific week for staging the deal. But it is Amazon that decides on the exact date and time it will run. And this might fall any given time, even during the dead hours of the early morning, which is not what many marketers would consider ideal.

• Do not expect to reap the benefits of the halo effect for long periods.

The halo effect of sales going past the deal's expiration turns out to be short-lived. In some cases, it does not even take effect at all. But the sales boost is undeniable. The bump occurs on the first day and may persist until the last day, albeit at a declining rate as the expiration date draws near.

• Amazon may cancel the proposed deal if the inventory is less than the established minimum level.

All deals that sellers submit to Amazon must be backed up by a sufficient inventory. If the latter falls below the platform's desired level within 25 hours of the deal, Amazon will cancel it. To keep this from happening, sellers would logically resort to sending more inventories. This move is advantageous if sales meet expectations. If not, then you will end having too much inventory stocked in the warehouse.

Do's and Don'ts

Imagine if several sellers will be running Lightning Deals at the same time. Matters and details are bound to get complicated. Inevitably, some sellers may end up overstepping boundaries, or worse, inadvertently violating policies. To steer away from unfavorable consequences, Amazon has established rules broken down into the following Do's and Don'ts, which determine a seller's or product's eligibility for Lightning Deals:

Do's

• Set discounts higher or equivalent to 20% of the retail cost, Reducing the product's price and setting a cut that is not 20% or higher may lead to the deal's cancellation.
• Before the deal commences, you have the minimum required deal inventory stocked in a Fulfillment Center.
• The Lightning Deal complies with customer reviews and the policies on deal frequencies.
• You sell brand new products.

Don'ts

• You do not have a Professional Seller account.
• The products you plan to offer are not eligible for Prime, which applies to all states, provinces, or territories that Amazon covers.
• The product has an Amazon retail offer.
• Your product review rating and seller feedback rating on Seller Central is lower than three stars.

Turning the Tables to Your Brand's Advantage

Every goal and strategy you implement on Amazon should gear towards boosting sales velocity and conversion rates. Hence, Hiring an Amazon SEO consultant to help you with complete high-quality product shots is imperative. Besides these practices, however, you can also take advantage of Lightning Deal promotions that boost metrics beyond the capacity of content.

Amazon Lightning Deals are effective because they are designed to complement the functions of Amazon's A9 algorithm. The system was designed to consider a variety of integral factors. Among the essential elements are conversion rate, sales velocity, and pricing.

Besides, these targeted deals also boost the relevancy of particular search terms. Amazon monitors each search term browsers use. By and large, increasing the conversions of a specific search term may result in a higher ranking in search results.

Succeed as an Amazon seller through the expert assistance of our account managers. Feel free to inquire about our account management services via our FREE CONSULTATION. Email Jayce at [email protected] now.