Would you like to know why YOU should celebrate Amazon Prime™ Days and turn them into Your Store Days?

Wait, what?! Why am I asking you, an independent retailer, to cheer for Amazon Prime™ Days?

Because this is a huge opportunity to take advantage of the cultural fanfare this event gets and put a local twist on it to make it your own successful annual event: Your Store Days!

In fact, we have taught this for years now and we’ve seen store owners increasing sales 176%!!! Our clients have gotten featured on the front page of their local newspaper, because of this idea.

Before I tell you how to accomplish these kinds of results, first, let’s get some background on Amazon Prime™ Days. It was started in 2015 as a way to celebrate Amazon Prime™ members on Amazon’s 20th birthday. That very first event lasted 24 hours and promised “Better than Black Friday deals”. 

In 2017 it grew to 30 hours, in 2018 to 36 hours and in 2019 Prime Day™ became days as deals were advertised for 48 hours. It has continued to be the biggest sales day(s) for Amazon™ of the entire year, and sales have grown each consecutive year. The last couple of years they sold more on Prime Days™ then on the Black Friday weekend.

This is NOT a reason to give up and wave the white flag though! Quite the contrary…

Your customers who love sales – your pinkies! – love this day.  Let’s give them what they want! Let’s give them great customer service 🙂

Recently Amazon™ is promoting their commitment to their small business selling partners, which might make customers think that shopping Amazon™ = shopping local, which of course, you and I both know is not true.

So it is really imperative that you educate your tribe, and bring their focus back to supporting the small, local businesses which in turn support their community.

How do we do that? By putting our own, local twist to Amazon Prime™ days!

Maximize your event and schedule it for the same dates as Amazon Prime™. Plan on offering great deals, we have a few suggestions below (this is a great opportunity to move stale inventory!). 

Just follow these step-by-step instructions to have your own amazingly successful event:

1. First: Name it! Your event should be called {Your Store Name} Day(s)!
2. Share the name of your event in the RETAILMavens Revolutionaries Facebook group!
3. Next, send out an email to your customers declaring your event and what you will be doing (see our email template below)! Send this email three days before the event, as well as the day before, the first day of the event (at 4 AM), and the second day of the event reminding them that it’s the last day. These are all the same emails, you are just changing the note on the top to remind them of when it’s on!
4. You have a few options for what kind of deals you’ll feature. You can do a new flash sale every hour in-store or every two hours online, or do a BOGO 65% off, or you can also choose to do a sale all day. Whichever option you choose, your deal should be at least 60% off – it needs to be juicy enough to stand out!
5. If you are doing hourly deals, advertise every second deal with an email and on all your social media accounts (Facebook Lives are great for this). For example 10AM – Advertised deal, 11AM – In store only deal, 12PM – Advertised deal… and so on
6. For your advertised deals – be sure to include PICTURES!
7. Bundle gift cards – Include a gift card (we suggest a minimum of $10 towards their next purchase) with some of your deals to be used by the end of the month to encourage repeat traffic
8. Specify in your emails and social media posts that quantities are limited! You can always offer your customers a substitute if you run out
9. Use a countdown timer – Countdown timers are soooo effective in giving your customers a sense of urgency. Add them to your emails, pin it to the top of your social media pages and add it to your website
10. Offer Free Shipping for orders placed in your online store OR Free Delivery for phone orders (you could set a minimum order for this offer)
11. Offer Free Gift Wrapping (you could set a minimum order for this offer)
12. Give VIP customers early access – Reward your best customers with early access on specific deals you choose for them
13. Write a Press Release and send it to your local newspapers (they will LOVE a local angle on this international event), radio stations, local groups and add it to your Facebook page so your team and your tribe can share it. See tips on writing a PR below!

Schedule extra team members for these two days so that you have enough help answering phones and serving in-store customers

Writing a Press Release

Now don’t overthink it, just do it! Set your timer for 15 minutes to write out a rough draft of your press release use our guide to get the right format.

Then walk away.

When you come back, set your timer for another 15 minutes to smooth it out. Then send it to every local paper, news station, radio station, mom’s groups, community organization, and anything else you can think of. Ask all your team and all your friends to share this with everyone they know.

Schedule Your Emails

Use these done for you email templates to schedule your announcement and deal emails! Just customize to fit your store and schedule them in!

This promotion WORKS – our clients often see more than double the sales and lots of great publicity from this event:

Nothing is more exciting for us than to help you all succeed – and giving you tools to make your dreams come true. I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

It is precisely this kind of creative idea and thinking that we share in our RETAILMavens Coaching.

You deserve more success and more profit. You make such a big difference in your community!