I’d been thinking of trying a lightning deal for a while, as was curious to see what impact it would have on my sales and ranking. If you haven’t seen one before, this means you set up a deal whereby you offer a set number of units, at a set discount, for a set period of time. (And pay Amazon a fee to do it.
You can check out the current deals here.
You’re not always eligible for them. Amazon states that to be eligible products must:
- Be new.
- Have at least a 3-star rating.
- Be Prime eligble.
There must be some other criteria though, as there have been plenty of weeks where I thought I’d have a go at setting one up and went into the Lightning Deals tab to see I wasn’t eligible to run one.
Eventually I was and I chose to run mine during Prime Day week 2017. (There was no guarantee of having a deal on the actual day – unless, I imagine, you’re a massive seller making huge amounts of money).
Usually, deals run for a set time and you can choose this when you set it up.
My deal ran on the afternoon of 12 July (right at the end of the Prime Day window). I offered 25 units at 15% discount.
So, was it worth it? I’d say yes, if you’ve got some stock you want to shift and you can give a discount without affecting your margins too much. Just be aware of a few things. Firstly, you do pay a fee to Amazon for this. They say it’s £25, but actually charged me £30. When I challenged them about this overpayment they said it’s because it was during the Prime Day window – but I didn’t see this advertised anywhere upfront.
Secondly, pick your timing well. In hindsight, considering my stock was low, it was a pretty silly time to start doing things to make it sell quicker. I’d have been better holding off and running a deal when new stock arrives to hopefully sell a few and get back up the best sellers lists (as being out of stock brings you down). In fact, I will probably still do that.
Overall, it’s definitely worth a shot if you can afford to give the discount and you pick your timing well.
Have you ran a Lightning Deal? How did it work for you?