Seven steps to prepare your Store for key shopping events
Driving traffic to your Store during key shopping events, like holidays or back-to-school season, presents a major sales opportunity. Since your Store may see increased traffic during these events, you’ll want to provide a Store experience that leaves a lasting impression. Take a look at our best practices for preparing your Store for key shopping events.
Sections: 1. Create a deals page 2. Make your Store seasonally relevant 3. Optimize the mobile experience 4. Experience the customer journey 5. Review Store policies around key sales events and deals pages 6. Schedule a new version of your Store 7. Engage your shoppers for your major shopping event
1. Create a deals page
During high-traffic events, many customers browse for deals. You can compile all product deals on a dedicated deals page in your Store. Depending on the size of your product inventory, you may choose between having a single deals page or one main deals page with sub-pages related to your product collections.
Single deals page
The layout for this option should be simple and straightforward, making it easy for customers to browse all active deals. The layout can be as simple as using your logo and having the word “Deals” appear below it, or a header with a Featured Deals widget below the navigation bar. We also recommend adding some interesting copy in the header – one line of text should be enough.
Example of a single deals page layout.
Deals page with deals sub-pages
The main deals page should serve as the home base for customers to access different deals by category. Approach the layout similarly to a single deals page. Below the navigation bar, you should have category tiles linking to each of the sub-pages that are part of the main deals page and include a Featured Deals widget containing all active deals. You can also highlight a selection of deals by putting the Featured Deals widget before the category tiles. We recommend including no more than eight ASINs here to avoid a long scroll.
The sub-pages of the deals page should also include a header and Featured Deals widget.
Example of a deals page with sub-pages.
How to help bring more attention to your deals page
Whichever deals page option you choose, we recommend having a category tile on your home page linking to the deals page right below the navigation bar for increased visibility. This serves as yet another entry point for customers to browse your active deals. In the navigation bar, we recommend that the deals page is placed right next to the homepage.
Highlight your best sellers in case you don’t have an active promotion
You can also highlight your best sellers during key sales events. Creating a best sellers page on your Store lets you conveniently place all your key revenue-generating products in one place. You can also take advantage of this space and highlight relevant product information about your best sellers with the use of video content for a more visually dynamic page.
2. Make your Store seasonally relevant
You can add a visual spark to your Store by adopting a seasonal theme. The header is a great place to start, but feel free to adapt your entire Store for visual consistency and appeal. Add high-quality, seasonally relevant and engaging content – video, images and text – to showcase brand differentiators and bring your brand to life.
However, don’t over-saturate your Store with seasonal design elements that might overwhelm a customer. This is especially true for the header image since there’s less space to work with. Be prepared to remove outdated seasonal content once the key sales event passes.
Example of a seasonally themed header image.
Example of an over-saturated seasonally themed header image.
3. Optimize the mobile experience
It’s important to create a consistent customer experience, regardless of how a customer is viewing your Store. Step away from your computer and access your Store preview on a phone or tablet to see if your Store provides a great mobile experience.
- Make sure there’s a consistent experience between desktop and mobile and the same content is shown on both.
- Ensure all text is legible on mobile without the need to zoom in.
- Create a layout that makes sense on mobile and is just as easy to navigate as it is on desktop.
For a more in-depth resource, including recommended font sizes for mobile, read our article on optimizing for mobile.
4. Experience the customer journey
A seamless shopping journey can help your customers find what they’re looking for easily. This means they can intuitively navigate through your Store. The best way to test your customer journey is to navigate through your Store as if you were a first-time visitor. Better yet, ask someone who hasn’t seen the Store to try it.
Here are some features you should check:
- Avoid linking tiles to the same page they are on to ensure a smooth customer journey.
- If a tile looks clickable, then it should have a click-through link. However, not all tiles need a click-through, especially if they don’t offer a call to action (CTA).
- Use consistent CTA language.
Example of CTA consistency that allows the customer to differentiate between clickable and non-clickable tiles.
5. Review Store policies around key sales events and deals pages
Below is a list of some common policy errors to avoid during key sales events:
- Don’t call out Amazon’s high-traffic events, such as “Prime Day Store”.
- Don’t use elements that are too similar or the same as Amazon-owned elements, such as star ratings, colour palettes or Amazon major event branding.
- Don’t call out numerical discounts or any percentages, such as “save 25% on razors”.
- Only use product shots in the header (or in the category tiles leading to the deals page and its sub-pages) that correspond to ASINs with an active promotion during the key sales event.
6. Schedule a new version of your Store
There will likely be content relevant to a key sales event that you don’t want on your Store permanently. For example, you may want the deals page to be live during the major event since it’s unlikely the ASINs displayed there have deals year-round. The scheduling and versioning tool of the Store Builder allows you to plan in advance the version of your Store that you want live during a key sales event.
7. Engage your shoppers for your major shopping event
Customers browsing on Amazon during major shopping events might not have a specific brand or product in mind. In fact, they may be there to discover new brands. So finding effective ways to build your brand’s presence is key to connecting with your shoppers. Continue to enhance your Store experience by creating engaging Posts (beta). Your Store will automatically showcase your Posts, giving shoppers the opportunity to move between browsing inspirational content and shopping your full product selection.
Customers can now follow a brand and tailor their shopping experience on Amazon by hitting the Follow button from any Store or Post. Your followers may see more of your content on Amazon, giving you an opportunity to help increase engagement. We encourage you to grow your followers before the major event by:
- Using interactive shoppable images and inspiring videos on your Store.
- Regularly posting engaging content with Posts.
- Encouraging your social media network to follow your brand on Amazon.
Note: Follow and Posts are available to US vendors and to US sellers enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry. You must have a live US Store.