Having a coupon offer can really help your rankings on Amazon. Let’s explain how it works, both short-term and in the longer term.
In the short term, because Amazon has a dedicated ‘coupons’ tab, you get better discoverability – customers who are looking out for special deals in Amazon will click on the ‘coupons’ tab. You’ll also get a ‘coupons’ badge in the results. (This is a particular advantage of coupons against promotional offers, which only show up once a customer has already arrived at your product listing.) That will help you capture more shoppers from the search results, even if you’re not at the top of the list.
So that’s great news if you’re launching a new product, which Amazon will automatically rank quite low to start with.
You can also target who gets your coupons on Amazon. For instance, you can target Prime members only, or student members, or moms. If you sell study aids, diapers, or kids’ toys, you know where to target. You can also target customers who have bought particular products – yours or another seller’s – identifying them through the ASIN. So for instance, you could stimulate repeat business by offering a coupon to people who already bought your product once, or you can target customers who usually buy a rival product to try yours.
A nice thing about using the Amazon coupon route is that you get to set your budget. Don’t forget to include the redemption fee, which you’ll pay to Amazon, as well as the coupon amount. As soon as you hit your budget, Amazon will stop redeeming the coupons and your product goes back to full price.
If you add Vipon offers instead of just using Amazon coupons, you get more. You get, for instance, a 3 million-plus audience of coupon vultures and eager buyers through the Vipon website. You get to use Vipon’s emailing service to make targeted potential buyers aware of the offer. You will need to offer a good discount to qualify, though – 5% off won’t do.
In the longer term, a coupon offer should enable you to build up both sales and reviews, both of which will help push you up the Amazon search rankings (at least, if the reviews are good ones). Remember to include a request for review in a flier inside your product packaging, or to send a reminder email once the buyers have received their product – it can really boost the number of reviews you get.
The other great thing about coupon offers is that they are a way you can increase sales in the short term while keeping your price stable. That’s so much better than dropping your price – once buyers see your price has reduced they will expect it to stay there, and you’ve lost your profit margin for good.
