When it comes to shopping on Amazon, buyers are always on the hunt for the best deals. Amazon is one such platform that allows the customers to compare prices from dozens of sellers. Sellers, on the other hand, try to stand out from the competition through smart and effective use coupons, promo codes, and special promotions. Coupons are a great way to retain old customers and attract new ones. Amazon sellers have had access to coupons on the Seller Central for a while now. The most significant advantage the sellers on Seller Central have is that their coupons offer powerful targeting and greater visibility options that could set the marketplace sellers apart from the competition.

It is essential to understand that Amazon coupons are different from Amazon promotions. What Amazon sellers need to understand is that selling on Amazon is always about making things easy for the consumers. As an Amazon seller, you might not realize that choosing between “%” or “$” could have a massive impact on your sales. A ‘50% off’ sign is enough to drag anyone into any store. But there’s a catch; a percentage discount requires a lot of mental math. And when you think about it, your buyers don’t have time to calculate the discount when they are making an impulse buying decision.

This is we why recommend you offer a dollar amount discount on your Amazon coupon. We know that the things we have mentioned require a lot of processing. Don’t worry; we will help you understand the basics of Amazon coupon strategies and how your Amazon FBA business can reap incredible benefits out of it.

Read our Ultimate Guide to Amazon FBA coupon strategies.

What are Amazon coupons?

Amazon coupons are simply discounted prices on the search results page with an orange tag on the product. If the buyer sees a bright orange coupon tag by their ratings and price in the search results, he/she can redeem it by clicking on the listing and then on the coupon. The primary advantage of utilizing coupons on Amazon includes improving the visibility of your brand, driving more traffic to your product page, and securing more sales. However, there are a few potential disadvantages of coupons as well. For starters, coupons cost sellers $0.60 on Amazon, and if your campaigns are a bust, you may lose a significant amount of money by discounting your products. But this should not discourage you from pursuing this strategy. If properly implemented, Amazon coupons can make you huge profits.

How to use Amazon Coupons

Over the years, Amazon has offered coupon service through its Promotional Code and Gift Card application. In addition, they have also provided services like Amazon Prime and have given the general users the ability to clip and use standard coupons for branded products.

Today, the Seller Central users can add and launch their own campaigns targeting specific metrics with percentage or dollar-based one-time-use coupons. The Seller Central coupons show up on an orange tag on the search results page under the reviews, making promotions more visible.

This is an excellent aspect for sellers looking to boost their click-through rate, as the buyers now don’t have to click through the product page to see the coupon.

In the United States, you will have to pay $0.60 for per coupon used. However, there are potential benefits to it. For starters, $0.60 is incredibly cheaper than your standard PCP, and you will only have to charge when the buyers make a purchase instead of when he/she clicked. Another significant aspect of Amazon coupons is that they are a great deal if you are looking to boost sales velocity, improve reviews, or improve product visibility.

For your buyers to see the orange tag, they have to be eligible for coupons. The buyers eligible for coupons fall into one of six types. You can choose all six types, more than one, or any one.

  • Every single Amazon shopper
  • Members who have bought certain ASINs
  • Members who have searched specific ASINs
  • Amazon Mom members
  • Amazon Student members
  • Amazon Prime members

Lastly, you need to keep your coupons from getting too popular; hence, you need to set a budget for them. It works in a way that once the budget is reached; the coupons will automatically turn off. Upon the termination of the coupons, your buyers will no longer see the orange tag. When setting the budget, you need to keep the following things in mind:

  1. Part of your budget must incorporate the recovery fees
  2. The rest of your budget will be comprised of the US dollar equivalent to the discount amount

Adding Amazon Coupons to Products

There are a few simple steps that you need to follow for setting and adding coupons. However, before getting started, you need to determine whether you want to add one coupon to one product or one coupon to a combo of products. If you devise to go with the latter, you will need to choose products within the group or category as it will make things easier for the buyer as well as you.

Next, you need to set up the budget. Decide your budget in such a way that it is part of the discount amount and a part of the redemption fees. If you are good at math, we recommend you go with the percentage. And if it is the opposite, a straight dollar amount will be easier. Deciding between dollar and percentage is critical. We will discuss this later in our article.

#1 Budget

When you are deciding to discount your amount, Amazon would want you to look at your product’s lowest price in the last one month (30 days). It has to be somewhere between 5-80% off. The budget you pick will necessarily depend on the product. So pick your budget based on the following criteria:

 

  • Are you trying to get rid of the extra stock?
  • Is your product a slow or fast mover?

On the other hand, the time of the year is also critical when deciding the budget.

  • Does your product sell all the season?
  • Is it seasonal?
  • Are you gearing up for a shopping event?

Lastly, when you have considered the mentioned factors, you need to look at what your competitors are doing. Remember, any discount is better than no discount, but you would not want to out-price or turn off customers.

#2 Schedule

Once you have got your budget set, you will need to select a timeframe in which your coupon will exist. There are two options when it comes to ending the coupon services. They are:

  1. It will automatically terminate once the budget has been reached
  2. It will stop after a defined period has ended

Amazon provides you with the option of running your coupons for up to 90 days. When you are choosing a start date, the earliest it can be is 3 days from the time you are making the coupon.

On the other hand, upon scheduling your coupons, you will require picking which group of Amazon shoppers you need to target – all shoppers, multiple types, or one type. As we have discussed earlier, you need to pick your target customers in the form of:

  • All customers
  • Amazon Prime members
  • Amazon Student members
  • Amazon Mom members
  • Buyers who have viewed certain ASINs
  • Buyers who have purchased certain ASINs

Although picking a customer group is optional, it will help you focus on one section, making your campaigns more effective.
Before submitting, you need to make sure everything is placed how you have wanted it to be.

#3 Submit Coupon

Once you have set the budget and scheduled a date, you are ready to submit your Amazon coupon. When Amazon receives your coupon submission, it will send you a notification stating that you can edit your coupon up to two days before the start date. After that, you cannot make any changes to the coupon until it expires. However, you can make a few changes. They include:

  1. Increase the budget
  2. Extend the coupon duration by setting a later end date (but it can be only up to 90 days)

Upon submission, you will want to observe your coupon’s activity in the Seller Central under the ‘Running’ tab. Monitoring your coupon is crucial, especially when you are just getting started with Amazon coupons. If you experience that your budget is used up faster than anticipated, this means you have set your coupon too high.

Tracking the metrics of your coupon and perfecting the art of making them is something that you will develop over time. You will need to keep tweaking until you find the right balance. It is somewhat similar to setting up price strategies on Amazon.
There you go; your coupon is ready and active. Now, you would want to monitor its performance. You will receive the data in real time, so it will be easy to analyze your coupon’s performance. However, there is something that you need to know. Although we do advice you to take advantage of the coupon service in the Seller Central, you should be aware of the cautions.

  1. The extensive use of Amazon coupons can cause price wars forcing the sellers to plummet below their margins. Hence, it is crucial to plan the coupons intelligently for ensuring that competitive balance is preserved
  2. Coupons are not exclusive like the Best Seller badge. Although they might be a novelty for a while, with everyone able to use them, they can lose their allure

With that said, it doesn’t mean that coupons will not make you any profits in the long run. If used the service carefully, Seller Central coupons can provide you with several keen benefits.

  1. If you are able to use Seller Central coupons before your competitors, you can reap benefits out of it while they are still new and interesting
  2. Except for heavy competition, Seller Central coupons are likely to bring you:
    • A boost in clicks and conversions
    • Broader brand awareness
    • New customers
  3. Sellers with wide margins reap benefits out of coupons the most
  4. For high-value customers, the targeting feature will allow you to manage discounts, giving an additional boost to your brand

Tips for selling on Amazon using coupons

The following are some straightforward methods to make the most out of your Amazon coupons

#1 Promoting your Amazon coupons just like you promote your Amazon product listing:

If you were a beginner or a seller selling in a tough niche, you would want to promote your coupons instead of just listing them. This will help you get eyes on your product. The more you promote your coupons, the more it will reach out to your potential target audience.

#2 Creating a bigger coupon that your competition:

Amazon is all about giving its customers the most excellent deals possible. Therefore, as an Amazon seller, you will need to offer a better coupon than your competitors do in order to enhance your odds of getting showcased on the Coupons page.

#3 Promoting coupons on third-party sites:

This is one of the best ways to get the most out of your Amazon coupons. This way you not only drive higher traffic to your listing but also expose it to a broader audience. There are millions of third-party deals sites on the web that are willing to showcase your deals. You can start by submitting the coupons to at least 10 sites per day before increasing the numbers. However, high traffic will depend on how eye-catchy your deal is.

Conclusion

That’s it. This is our ultimate guide to Amazon coupons. An important thing to remember is that you are not allowed to offer coupons to the buyers if you don’t have a 4 or 5-star rating established on Amazon. You are required to be a reputable seller in order to start offering coupons to your customers. Hence, you are advised to start working on your services and customer relationship in order to get some good reviews.

Use ProductSpyPro to find killer products to sell in amazon. We save time and deliver product research reports to your inbox so that you can spend time in improving your business and less time in spending time in using variety of tools available in the internet.

Take Product Spy Pro for a test drive right now by signing up for a free 7-day trial.