Most retailers know that the year is going to go like this: nothing happening in January, Valentine’s in February, not much up to the summer, then from Thanksgiving to Christmas run off their feet. All the year’s sales happen in the last month and a half.

If you’re an FBA seller, sales can be even more volatile. You have a massive Prime Day, then nothing for the whole of August. You might sell well in January as customers spend their gift coupons, then nothing in February.

Of course, your bank likes business plans to show each month pretty much the same. And your household bills need paying each month. But alas, Amazon works to its own calendar and you’re going to have to get used to it.

Depending on your product, you may have some natural seasonality; for instance, garden products usually sell best in spring and early summer, while stationery has a ‘back to school’ season. Your product may be affected by other holidays; Shave Club probably doesn’t do well out of Mother’s Day, but if you sell aromatherapy products they make great Mother’s Day gifts.

So make sure you know all the special days that might affect your products. There’s an International Fountain Pen Day, International Cat Day, International Day of Women and Girls in Science, and many more. So if, for instance, you sell a chemistry set on Amazon, why not do some directed marketing for girls in the runup to that last event?

Make sure you have your inventory in place ahead of time. First, make absolutely sure if you order from overseas that your inventory will be in the country and either with you or with Amazon at the right time. It’s best to allow a few weeks extra for things to go wrong. Secondly, make sure you feed stock into Amazon at the right time. A lot of sellers use a buffer stock, as Amazon penalizes ‘excess’ stock and it’s not entirely clear how its algorithm works.

Don’t forget there’s another set of holidays that matter to you, and that’s when your suppliers take time off. So if you’re ordering from China, make sure you don’t expect new product launches or new stock during Chinese New Year, for instance.

Make sure that you advertise! Don’t wait for the season to kick off first; increase your bids for seasonal keywords before you start seeing sales moving up. This is a slight risk, admittedly, but it gets you ahead of everyone else and should mean you’ll be ramping up your advertising just as sales take off. Advertising too late, you’ll miss the rush.

You also ought to divide your keywords into specific seasonal keywords, and generic keywords. For instance, you might have a keyword that works well seasonally, and only seasonally, like “mother’s day gift”, and others that work all year round, like “gifts for mom,” “gifts for every type of mom,” or “best gifts for mom”. Run the specific seasonal keywords only when they’re relevant, and label that campaign separately so you know what performance you’re getting from the regular ads.

And don’t forget to offer some coupons to make your products even more attractive to buyers. Vipon can always help you there, whatever the time of year!