After Selling on Amazon for some time, you’ll begin to notice that just being competitive on this platform isn’t enough. In that case, you need other ways to attract your customers. That’s where Amazon Lightning Deals come in.
So, what is this lightning deal?
This is a promotional deal that is available for a limited time only. On average, they stay live for 4 to 6 hours on the Amazon Deals webpage. That means that when you offer a lightning deal on products you have accumulated in your inventory, you open a successful door to the possibility of experiencing rapid growth in your product sales.
In this post, you’ll discover everything there is to know about Lightning Deals currently. This is an essential informative post for newbies to learn more about this deal.
What Are Amazon Lightning Deals?
Amazon Lightning Deals are a promotion that allows customers to save money on a specific product for a short period. You can find these deals on the “Today’s Deals” or “Prime Day” pages, and they are offered across Amazon. Consumers can get the best out of these deals until the time stops ticking.
Although lightning discounts are time-sensitive, you must finish your product details as soon as possible. When an Amazon Lightning Deal is available, you’ll notice the following features:
- The product is included in the deal.
- All product variants will appear (different sizes/colors).
- The amount of the promotional discount and the final cost (excluding tax).
- A progress bar shows the proportion of deals that users had claimed before.
- Customers have a limited time to add the product to their Cart and receive the discount.
- If there are any applicable special discounts, an Add to Cart button.
A Join waitlist button will appear when other customers have used up all the promotional discounts for your Lightning Deal. The status indicator indicates that the deal has utilized 100% of the available promotional discounts or other customers have kept it in their baskets.
How Do Amazon’s Lightning Deals Work?
During the promotion period, customers can only use lightning offers once, and these offers have a set start time. They typically run for 4 to 12 hours, or until those deals are claimed.
After putting an item in the shopping cart, customers have a 15-minute window to finish placing their order to qualify for the discount.
However, what if they’re interested in multiple lightning deals?
That’s where foresight pays off. Customers can start seeing a bargain up to 24 hours in advance to ensure they don’t miss out on a good deal.
How to Create A Lightning Deal on Amazon
Clicking the “Create A New Deal” button is the first thing you need to do to create a Lightning Deal. This will display a list of all the available items eligible for the deal. It’s accessible via the Amazon Seller Central dashboard, and you can access the various promotions by clicking. See the following steps to making a lightning deal:
Step 1: Pick a suitable item from your inventory.
Step 2: Choose a date range for your lighting deal based on the selections.
Step 3: Provide a discount or a fixed price per unit and quantity.
Step 4: After reviewing the information, click ‘Submit Deal.’
Step 5: Amazon will establish the contract’s maximum price, minimum markdown, and minimum amount.
Check out the eligibility requirements if you didn’t locate any Lightning Deals products.
Are you Qualified to Create Amazon Lightning Deals?
As we all know, Amazon lightning offers are available to most vendors. Lightning Deals may not be available in specific categories, such as tobacco or alcohol. Used items are also regarded as unacceptable and are not authorized by the deal.
So, to prove yourself as a qualified Amazon seller, you should meet some important requirements. As a vendor, you must:
- Have a minimum seller rating of 3.5 stars.
- Produce at least 5 seller responses every month.
- You should be a commercial seller rather than an individual seller.
- In addition, you need to be sure that the marketing campaigns you develop for a similar product don’t conflict with one another.
You’ll be considered ineligible for the offer if you don’t meet the requirements. Also, if Amazon doesn’t accept your Lightning Deal, your inventory threshold could be a reason behind it. Amazon occasionally raises the minimum amount for a product (small or large). So you need to change your offered amount accordingly.
Is There Any Charge for Amazon’s Lightning Deals?
If Amazon accepts your Lightning Deal, they will charge you a flat price. A common factor influencing your deal charge is named ‘date range.’
- Go directly to Seller Central and then select “Reports”
- From Reports, click on the “Payments option”
- Now click “Transaction View” and select “Service Fees”
This allows you to see your fee and its details. Note that putting products on Lightning Deals doesn’t ensure that the listing will perform successfully. Amazon charges you whether your deal is good or not.
However, if you or Amazon, for any reason, withdraws/cancels the deal before the starting time, Amazon will not charge you.
Amazon Lightning Deals on Amazon Prime Day
There are specific additional requirements for the Prime Day Lightning offers. For instance, the price you offer has to be the lowest that any other buyer has paid for the item since the first of the year.
Usually, Amazon enables Prime Day Deals to be submitted between March and April. You can offer them by going to the Lightning Deals area and looking for the “Prime Day Window” heading.
Purchasing events like “Prime Day” and “Black Friday” are tremendously competitive for merchants. As a result, you’ll want to generate additional discounts to boost product visibility and draw shoppers to Amazon.
Amazon Lightning Deals on Black Friday
Amazon’s Black Friday Lightning Deals offer functions similar to regular ones. On the other hand, Prime Day tends to be more expensive than any other day, and Prime members have first access to certain Lightning offers.
Black Friday has more flash sales than any other day of the year, comparable to Prime Day – there are more discounts, and they appear more frequently. However, Black Friday bargains are available to all Amazon customers– not exclusive to Prime members.
7-Day Deal vs. Lightning Deal: What’s the Difference?
Amazon’s Lightning deals are typically more successful than 7-day deals since they are more prominently displayed on the deals page. In addition, when compared to 7-day deals, lightning deals establish a sense of urgency in the minds of buyers.
You can conduct both promotions at various dates and times to observe how a similar product performs to determine which method works better for your product.
The Benefits & Drawbacks of Amazon Lightning Deals
Amazon’s Lightning Deals page is ranked as one of the most visited pages of retailers. This concept generally provides micro-windows for every customer to uncover available deals they want to buy.
Benefits
Lightning deals can produce the following benefits:
- Improve your sales.
- Decrease inventory in a hurry.
- Enhance brand awareness.
- Increase the visibility of your listing.
In addition, if you’re launching a new product on the Amazon platform, Amazon Lightning Deals can be leveraged as part of your SEO and launching strategies to maximize organic ranks and sales.
Drawbacks
Lightning offers allow customers to get a great deal on an item. However, they have drawbacks that can make them challenging to produce benefits for your brand. Watch out for these Lightning Deal drawbacks (or we can say errors).
Limited Time Offer
A Lightning Deal is a limited-time offer. It begins at a set time and continues until it reaches the time restriction or the item sells, whichever occurs first.
Fast Checkout
Customers must check out as soon as possible. After adding a Lightning Deal to the cart, they have 15 minutes to finish the purchase.
Otherwise, the item will return to the Lightning Deal pool and be available to another buyer. This means that they might not have time to go shopping or browse through your other selections.
Uncertain Waitlists
If there’s a waiting list for a Lightning Deal product after the maximum amount of Amazon customers has added it to their basket, more potential customers can get on it.
However, there’s no guarantee that they will receive the offer because it’s contingent on other purchasers not purchasing it. Because these deals are timed, if a customer runs out of the clock and goes to the waitlist, by then they may have already found something else.
How Shoppers Can Successfully Claim Lightning Deals
While not all things sell as quickly as others, winning a Lightning Deal typically necessitates the ability to act quickly. However, a few things make the whole process simpler and more effective. The following is what Amazon shoppers need to do:
Join Amazon Prime
While all shoppers can take advantage of Lightning Deals, Prime members of Amazon can get their hands on the things they want half an hour before everyone else.
Moreover, all Amazon bargains are available only to Prime members on Prime Day.
Earlier Shopping
If you want a product that isn’t currently on sale, watch for upcoming Lightning Deals. On the other hand, if the product appears on the list, add it to the cart immediately, but wait until the Lightning Deal begins before purchasing.
The price should automatically adapt to the Lightning Offer price in your cart, ensuring you get the deal.
Sign Up for the Waitlist
Remember that if there is a queue, people may alter their minds. You should be vigilant and add the offer to your cart as soon as it appears. If you act quickly, there’s a strong chance you’ll be able to use your discount.
What is The Lightning Waiting List?
If a customer claims a lightning bargain but doesn’t complete the transaction within 15 minutes, that quota will be released and given to the customer on the waiting list who confirms their order first.
Customers can add their full name to the waiting list they desire for any current hot deals. This is the procedure to follow:
- To enroll on the waitlist, select the Join Lightning Deal Waitlist option.
- A notification will arrive in the top right-hand corner of the Amazon page informing the customer that the promotion is active. Get a message in real time by downloading the most recent version of the Amazon app.
- Customers still have a chance to benefit from this deal by placing it in their shopping basket.
- If the customer is not prepared to claim the Lightning Deal by the deadline, they will be removed from the waiting list anyway.
- Customers must finish the purchase to receive the discount.
Is it Worthwhile to Purchase Lightning Deals?
Increasing the visibility of your promoted goods on Amazon can be accomplished by setting up a Lightning Deal. There are many reasons why lightning offers help enhance visibility, including the following:
- The deals can be found on their dedicated page.
- Increased awareness of the product currently under contract thanks to the Lightning Deal label.
Your sales will benefit from the lightning deals you offer, and doing so will reduce your profit margin. The time of day you create your Lightning Deal affects these bargains. In contrast, the extent you may affect the campaign’s outcome is minimal.
You must select products wisely for such promotions. Some products are ineligible for the Lightning Deals campaign. The 80/20 rule is an excellent strategy for identifying products: pick the 20% of product lines in your inventory that generate 80% of your revenue.
When is it Appropriate to Avoid Lightning Deals?
Amazon Lightning Deals are available to eligible sellers for the reasons stated above. Some merchants, though, dodge these lightning offers at times. Why do they appear to ignore the lightning deal?
The primary two explanations are as follows:
Cost
Sometimes sellers avoid these deals due to the associated costs. Because you must pay an additional price to include your products in the sale, this may or may not be viable for your margins.
You must decide whether Amazon Lightning Deals is worth your investment based on the product’s sales price and the expenditures involved in making the deal.
Inventory
Another possible cause is inventory. You must be prepared to boost the sales volume by offering a lightning discount on your product.
Your Amazon seller ratings and inventory will suffer if you have trouble filling orders. Amazon Lightning Deals might not be ideal if you are not prepared to handle a rise in sales.
FAQs
How frequently do Amazon’s lightning deals occur?
Lightning Deals are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Furthermore, various bargains begin as frequently as every 5 minutes. We can’t possibly post them all, so keep checking back for new ones!
What advantages do Amazon Prime Members Receive?
It’s not necessary to be a member of Amazon Prime to take advantage of Lightning Deals. The fact is that customers who are Amazon Prime members are eligible for some privileges that are not available to customers who are not Prime members.
Is Amazon canceling the upcoming Lightning deal?
No! They relocated. While the Lightning Deals collection will not appear on the Amazon home page, customers may still browse Amazon’s special deals. Click on the “Today’s Deal” icon at the top of the page.
Final Words
Any seller can succeed on Amazon in any way that works for them. However, Amazon Lightning Deals are a fantastic method to increase sales and enhance sales velocity! For some brands, lightning offers can even bring in new clients.
However, for some, it might be an expensive mistake. So plan your deals wisely and take advantage of these promos. Good luck with your lighting deals!
