603. The #1 Lesson You Can Learn from Amazon Prime Day to Increase Your Sales in July

If Jeff Bezos and the Amazon team is doing it, then you're not alone. And it's this time to think about when do I need to create promotions to move product? Hi, I'm Jacqueline Snyder and this is the Product Boss podcast. I've helped launch and grow thousands of product based businesses, even one of my own. And over the last 20 years, I've seen behind the scenes of businesses just like yours. Whether they are makers, manufacturers, artists, or food and beverage businesses. I have spent so many hours studying it all. I've discovered what makes them successful, what mistakes they could have avoided, how did they turn their ideas into successful business, and what are the strategies that they have used to make more sales and be discovered by more customers. And this is what this show is all about. Whether you're just starting out or you're looking to become a million dollar product boss, I'm here to give you the permission to chase your dreams no matter how big or small. All you need is the right mindset, a little courage, strategy and support, and you too can be the next million dollar product boss. Let's do this. It's that time of year again, product bosses. It is officially Christmas in July, Amazon Prime Day. All the things, this is what happens this time of year. So welcome. All right, today's episode, I really want to actually dig into why Amazon hosts Amazon Prime Day in July and why people talk about Christmas in July. All right, so let's get into it. Okay, so there's been a saying for a long time in products when you're selling things that the J months are slow months. So that would be January, June and July. Okay, so the G months of the year are slow months. So if you're like, why is June so slow or why is July so slow? You're not alone. And that's exactly why Amazon created Prime Day in July. That's exactly why people started saying Christmas in July and they've started offering sales. Because typically sales and promotions that are discount based are offers that people make when sales are slow or when inventory has to be moved. So what happens? And I see a lot of people think that I have to offer discounts to actually sell and move my product. Right. I remember when Michelle of Ali J said that and she talks about this as a student in Multi Stream Machine the that you know, when she first started selling her little girl twirl dresses that the only way she could make sales was that she had like influencers and ambassadors, like people who loved her brand that she gave, I think it was 20 or 30% discount codes to, so that they could use it to, to pitch their audience. But they weren't really doing that and they were just using the discount codes and buying for themselves like in their kids. And she's like, everything I'm selling is 30% off and it's just not sustainable. But I'm not making sales outside of that. Right. So when she started working with us inside of Multi Stream Machine, she really had to make this decision to make a. And one thing that I teach or teach this in our challenges, I teach this inside of the program, is that we're not going to build a business based on discounts alone. Right. And I also hear a lot of people say to me like, well, if I offer a sale, am I going to train my customers to only buy in sales? You're only going to train your customers to only buy in sales if that's the only way you're making sales by offering sales. Like it's always on discount and you're not selling stuff full price. When we start to shift our mindset into realizing that these discounts and sales are made to move product, that's why Black Friday is called Black Friday. Because people were in the red, they were in the negative before the holiday season and they needed to incentivize customers to start shop. They needed to get back into the black. And so that's why Black Friday was created. Because getting into the Black Mint, you became cash positive instead of cash negative. And they would put things on sale to start to move product sooner. Okay, so what we've been seeing through the summer months and you'll see this also with like Labor Day sales here in the states and fourth of July sales, I mean all of the outdoor furniture and outdoor stuff went on sale before July 4th. Because what happens just as soon as like 4th of July or Canada Day or whatever, like that summer holiday is right after there's back to school stuff. Right? We've moved on past the summer when the summer doesn't even feel like it's started yet because people have to sell stuff. You need a longer lead time to sell stuff. So what's crazy is I think even for graduation this year, my son was graduating elementary school and it was like graduation days. And I went to the store to buy graduation stuff and it had already moved into 4th of July and I was like, what about graduate? I wasn't buying graduation back in May. The kids were getting outta school in June in our area. Right. So it didn't make any sense from a marketing perspective. Cause I couldn't get the stuff I needed when I needed it. And I would've had to think about it a month before. But by thinking about it a month before and the product being sold out, people are marketing and selling stuff. So what wasn't on sale was 4th of July stuff, right? When will 4th of July stuff go on sale? After 4th of July sale. So I talk about this because, like, I'm getting a little bit like into the weeds here. But Prime Day was created to incentivize customers in a month. They don't typically shop. Their consumerism is down. They're not buying stuff yet. That's like they're not back into the buying habit. They're out, they're living their lives in the sun. They're traveling, they're vacationing, they're doing all the things they did that because they wanted to get people to come in and buy again. With that sort of same like frenzy and promotional offers that are offered with Black Friday, I can get deals. And the deals are scarcity. And the deal like it's time scarcity or product availability scarcity. And the time scarcity is like two days to shop these awesome deals and then they're gone. So a lot of our students when they join my program, Multi Stream Machine, for example, and they decide that they want to get onto Amazon because it's one of the sales channels that we talk about how to sell on. And it's like start to finish, how to get on, what inventory to sell on, like how to get it up there. Even teach you about pay per click ads for Amazon. And it's all taught by an Amazon expert in there is if Jeff Bezos and the Amazon team is doing it, then you're not alone. And it's this time to think about when do I need to create promotions to move product, what do I need to put on sale or on discount, right? So typically what we do is we put things that are on sale are after season, after Christmas, after Valentine's Day, right? We start to move seasonal product out and we do discounts on that. And then there's sometimes you want to incentivize people to buy early. So I remember when I go back to outdoor furniture is I remember back in like, I think it was like April outdoor furniture was on sale because it was like the first launch, right? It was like people weren't buying outdoor furniture yet. It was still snowing in parts of the country. But they were like here by. And there was a sale to kind of start to incentivize people to buy, but it wasn't anything significant to where it is a few months later, where the season is coming to an end. I'm recording this at the end of June and fall collections are being dropped right now. It's not even fourth of July yet. It's not even Canada Day yet. Okay. And so what's happening though is a need to. They have all this excess inventory. They bought all these outdoor pieces or summer type stuff and they need to move that product out of the store so that they can put in the new product transition or fall. So I'm recording this episode so that we can air it right around Amazon Prime Day. Because what I want you to know is that you can create seasonal promotional offers like this. You can do Christmas in July for your audience, for your customers, for your email, you know, your email list, like whatever it is, you can do things where you're offering some sort of sale or promotion to kick back up some sales. Hey, hey, product boss. Okay, I've got a really exciting announcement now. I'm doing something I have never done before and I am hosting one of our most popular challenges this summer. Yep, we are going to do it in the summer, in July. Okay. So before I tell you all the details, I just want to talk to you a little bit about something that has really been coming up a lot in our community. You know, people have been thinking about brands and how they become household names. Like how did Yeti become Yeti or how did the Ugg boot become the Ugg boot or Nespresso coffee machines. Right. And if you think about these brands, we also know that they're known for something. Right? We know core products that they're known for. They are not throwing spaghetti at the walls and trying to make all the different things. Because the truth is, to be successful, to keep more money in your pocket and to make good money, you need to niche down. We have to really focus on what works, what we can actually sell to our customers. So if you don't know how to define this yet, and you're kind of still trying to think like how do I make this work for my business and, and make the kind of money that I want to make by selling more products and becoming a money making machine, that's exactly why I am actually bringing back one of our most popular challenges, which is the best seller Secrets challenge and brand new. You're hearing it here first. We're gonna do it over three days. It's typically a five day challenge, but I know you all have things to do. The sun's out. We wanna go to the beaches and all the things. But we also know that this is such a good time to work on our business and really prep for the holiday season that's coming up soon. Okay. So if you wanna be here with me, okay, we can have our sunnies on. We can sit outside for it. But I'd love for you to join me in the best seller secrets challenge challenge in July. We kick off Monday, July 15. And so all you have to do is head to the productboss.combest and get signed up. That's the park, boss.combest. or head on over to Instagram and just DM me the word best and I will take care of you. We will make sure you are all in. All right. I can't wait to see you inside. When is your busiest time of year with your bestsellers? It probably doesn't go on sale. So we always talk about like Brooke of be happy issues, one of our mentors in our community. She's an amazing student and she sells wool knit hats that do or toques for my friends in Canada. Right. And she does really well in the winter months. So she doesn't need to put her stuff on sale in the fall and the winter. Maybe if she wants to participate in Black Friday. Cause it's the end of the season technically. But she also doesn't have to participate in it if she doesn't want to. We talk about and we have a challenge called Rock your holiday promotions challenge that we'll be doing again in September. We get you prepped for the holidays pretty early and you know, she can do an offer of like a bundle, a promotional offer, but she doesn't have to do some sort of like 50% off the whole site when she's selling stuff that people need in that season. But when does she put it on sale? Well, she could put it on right when spring is turning into summer. She can do discounts through the summer if she wants. Right. In July she could do like a get ready for the winter early sort of thing. Right. To kickstart people who are like, there's people who are planned that are not me buying graduation decorations on the day of graduation, people who are thinking a month ahead. Right. She can sell to those people and she can kind of start to kickstart the season and then take stuff into normal times. So I wanted to share this all with you because one, I have a freebie download that I'm going to drop a link in. It's our selling Cycle guide. And so it's going to really help you start to think about what the selling cycles are and what you can be selling at full price, what you market and what you sell in each month, the first half of the second half of the month, and then also what you could put on discount promotion or sale. Okay. And I wanna give that to you totally free. You just. We'll drop the link. You can get it into your inbox so that you can really start to feel like you're aligned with some sort of selling cycles and you don't feel like you're flying by the seat of your pants. And then I want you to pay attention. I want you to pay attention as a marketer. I want you to put your marketing sales hat on and I want you to pay attention through the summer months, through Labor Day, what are people, what are the new offers that are coming out? Introducing new fall collection. Right. End of summer sales after Labor Day, which is a summer sale type time. When are you starting to see back to school stuff come out or long sleeves and jackets come back out even though it's like 110 degrees outside. Right. So I want you to pay attention to what's happening in the bigger box stores, what they're offering, what they're providing, how the mannequins are changing, how the store windows are changing, what the emails are that you're getting and really start to see and anything. Amazon is such a good example of Prime Day and how they also needed to kick up some sales in months that were slower. And he started offering promotions. And that is why around the world people have done a Christmas in July type promotion. It gets people into spending and buying early on. And to give you like another example of this, if you've gone into Target, for example, and there's a couple of things when you walk into a Target pretty fast when you walk in, and especially in newer Targets, there's a Starbucks right there. Why? Because what do people do when they get coffee? They slow down. They want to enjoy it. They're not necessarily. They don't have tables and chairs necessarily for us to sit around like, like a coffee shop. They have cup holders and the Target shopping cart so that we can walk around with our coffees and buy our kids cake pops and walk around Target like it's an experience. Okay? It keeps us there longer. The other thing that they do that's kind of genius and amazing is those one to $5 bins that are in the very front of the store. You might be coming to Target to buy some eggs or detergent or like there's something that you need and you're running there quickly to the store. Some days were there to explore, but a lot of times you're like, I got to go pick up this. Well, guess what they have in the front. Seasonal products, cool products, like cheaper type stuff. $1, $3, $5 stuff in the front that you're like, how is this $5? You want to know how it's $5. Because it's the thing they start to get you to look at, to start to get in that buying mood, to be like, I didn't come for this random wood birdhouse that they have in spring, but it's only $5. I'm gonna put it in my cart, right? It's an add to cart kind of day. And when you start to get into that mode now, you're like, all right, I'll go walk around. You know, you've done this. You go, I'm gonna walk around. All right, I'll go see what else Target has. Right now I'm gonna go to the betting section. You end up walking out of there with a lot more than just your detergent, right? Unless you purposely are like, I will not stop at your bins, Target. Like, I know your plan, right? I'm going straight to the, the solution, like whatever, whatever I said, like the dishwasher and solution or the cleaner, whatever that you were going in for. But they do that because they mood and the mode of buying. And so that's the same thing when you have a Christmas in July, a prime day, an offer like that, something that you're pushing out in a time that people aren't typically buying. Those discounts and those promotional offers are happening to get consumers into the buying mood, to get them back into spending. And we all do it as consumers. And I want you to know about this, this, this way of doing business so that you can also be competitive in this landscape, so that you know how people are playing the game, so that you can do the same thing business. And I want to support you and offering you the freebie selling cycle guide that we're going to give you. You know, we've got you in so many other ways in the challenges, the courses, all the things. But right now, the selling cycle guide for you to wrap your head around it. And then there's some challenges coming up that when you're on our email list, you're going to hear all about it. I've got some invites coming out for some different challenges and the Rock your holiday promotions challenge, which is going to get you prepped for the promotions you're going to offer during the holiday season so you can absolutely crush it. So we're starting to talk about it now so that you can really see this play out during a time when it's playing out in real life, in real time. So that can start to think about this in a different way as a marketer, as a business owner, and feel empowered by the fact that, one, you're not alone if things feel slow, and two, oh, that's how the big guys do it. We can learn from them, right? We can learn from their million dollar marketing budgets by just paying attention. All right, I hope this was helpful. If it was, let me know. Shoot me a DM on Instagram @ the product boss. Make sure you're following us over there. We have a lot of fun on Instagram. And as always, if you, if you feel called, I would be so appreciative if you left a review for the podcast. I read every single one of them. It helps us reach other people around the world and it, it helps me make sure that we're on track. Right. And we're providing all of the goodness that we can provide in these episodes to you. So I'm just so appreciative when I see those reviews come in. So thank you, thank you, thank you. All right, until the next.