Tips for Selling on Amazon During Q4
Posted: October 21st, 2020
Amazon Q4 Tips
Let’s talk about Q4 on Amazon! Q4 has officially started. If you're not familiar Q4 is fourth quarter which is the last three months of the year from October to December. Q4 on Amazon is absolute madness because of the drastic increase in commerce and especially ecommerce during this time period. I am going share with you 5 tips and tricks for Q4. Some of them are a little more specific to this year because with the pandemic ecommerce has seen a drastic increase so Q4 is only going to be even more crazy. We're already into Q4 but with Amazon the craziest part of Q4 is from usually around the beginning to mid November till the end of December that's when things just shoot through the roof sales wise. We're already in Q4 but the crazy part of Q4 is still yet to come. Here are 5 tips and tricks to help you navigate Q4 on Amazon:
Tip 1: Everything Sells More in Q4… EVERYTHING
Everything sells more in Q4. Everything! it does not make any sense. I don't get it but everything sells more. You know that inventory that you forgot you had? That's going to sell in Q4. You know that inventory that you've had for way too long and probably shouldn't have purchased? That's going to sell in Q4. You know that toy that you thought you bought way too much of? It is going to sell out and you're going to wish you would have bought more.
In Q4 literally everything sells. With this in mind i think one of the most important things you can do in Q4 if you don't already is get a re-pricer. if you aren't familiar with a repricer it's basically software that automatically reprices your listings and keeps them competitive with other sellers. We use be BQool for our repricing and highly recommend it. A repricer just going to keep you competitive and keep you with the trends because there's just so much movement in Q4 that you need to keep your pricing as competitive as possible so you can be part of this everything sales trend.
Tip 2: Seasonal Items
The second tip i have regarding Q4 is to check out seasonal items. There are so many different holidays in Q4 and there's the whole seasonality of fall and winter type items. With the major holidays you have Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanza and New Year Eve. These last couple of months of the year are just loaded with holidays and you can sell terms in regards to those holidays so I’ll go through each of them briefly:
Fall and Winter:
First we just have fall and winter in general they're not holidays but there
are items that are specific to fall and winter that you can sell. For fall, pumpkin flavored or scented anything. These items are really in demand. For example pumpkin flavored coffee or pumpkin scented air freshener. Any type of pumpkin flavored food or a grocery item. Then when you get into
winter a lot of places do special like winter blends of things as well. For example teas and coffees may have specific winter or holidays flavors such as how Starbucks does. anything in regards to that Additionally you can sell items related to fall or winter décor.
Halloween:
There's a lot of different things you can sell regarding Halloween. Decorations is a huge one, we usually sell a lot of different Halloween decorations as people love decorating their homes for Halloween. Halloween candy is another big one especially as you get closer to October 31st. You can also sell adult and kid Halloween costumes and accessories. A lot of people go out big for Halloween so it’s a great holiday to see items for. This year as well with the pandemic even more peopleare shopping for these things online and on Amazon. next holiday you get into is thanksgiving and this comes quickly
Thanksgiving
First with Thanksgiving you have grocery items a lot of people do baking and cooking and will look for these items on Amazon. Also with Thanksgiving you have a lot of different décor so think of fall type decorations you have around your house or even simple things like how would someone decorate their table for thanksgiving decorate or around their house. Another type of item is kitchenware that people would use to bake and ook with for Thanksgiving. Don’t forget, anything with a turkey on it is great for Thanksgiving!
Christmas, Kwanza & Hannukah
Then you get into December which is just insane with all of the different holidays and all the gift giving. With gift giving it can literally be anything but the thing that is typically thought of especially with Amazon is toys. There's a lot you can do selling a wide variety of toys on Amazon during Q4 but keep in mind as well that gifts are not just exclusive to toys. Another huge one is topical type items so makeup and beauty type items. There's just a wide variety of items that are gifts and that's when it goes into literally everything it sells in Q4 because almost anything can be a gift.
There's decor as well so with Christmas think of Christmas lights, Christmas trees anything you could put on a Christmas tree like ornaments. Also all the decor people do around their house. All the stuff people put up in their yard and on their home. There's a lot of different things that you can sell in regards to all of the holidays in December.
BONUS TIP
With seasonal items it is a great idea to look at the historical Keepa data. If you look at the Keepa chart of Christmas lights in July it's going to look like that item really sucks. What you need to do is go look at the historical Keepa data and go back to October, November and December and look at how popular that item was in the past. Look at the pricing and go back and look to when that item was seasonal to be
seasonally popular if you can get ahead of these things as well. If you can start stocking up on Christmas items in October for example you're really going to be ahead of the curb and selling those things as soon as they become popular.
Tip 3: Amazon Goes out of Stock
Our dear friend Amazon goes out of stock on so many listings just because the demand is so high and they can't keep things in stock. This year especially this is only going to be worse or should I say better for us as sellers because Amazon when they were talking about the inventory restrictions they were saying that even Amazon themselves is going to be stocking products less this year. There's even more room for all of us when Amazon goes out of stock and this happens a lot when items get super popular Amazon just can't keep up with the demand. So then they'll go out of stock and then the price will skyrocket and the demand is still there that is a huge opportunity for third-party sellers.
You do have to keep in mind that this is not guaranteed. Amazon could always come back into stock so there is some risk that goes along with it but there's also a huge reward and opportunity. My best advice is to look at the Keepa from the previous year if it is available and see did Amazon go out of stock. That makes it a little more likely that they will go out of stock again. You can check that to see how popular an item is based on how low the rank is because the lower the rank the more popular the item and then the more likely it is that Amazon’s not going to be able to keep it in stock. If it is going to go out of stock so there's a lot of opportunity there but just keep in mind that Amazon could stay in stock and they can always restock so there is some risk but with research it's a risk that personally we are willing to take and I think other people should too with the proper research.
Tip 4: FBA Stocks Runs Low
This tips piggybacks off of the previous one. During Q4 FBA stock tends to run really low and this year especially this year 2020. Amazon shipments have been taking so long to check in I’m sure we all feel that therefore FBA stock is even harder as a seller to keep your items in stock. In Q4 it's difficult already to keep FBA in stock so I’m anticipating that this year there's going to be a lot of issues with FBA stocks staying as high as it normally does and just in general in Q4 FBA stock tends to run low.
Amazon has provided the cutoff dates for when shipments need to arrive at Amazon for the key datesL
Inventory for Black Friday and Cyber Monday should arrive at Amazon fulfillment centers before November 6, 2020.
Inventory for Christmas shopping should arrive at Amazon fulfillment centers before December 1, 2020
These cutoff dates presents huge FBM opportunities. Keep in mind, not every item is ideal for FBM as well. You have to make sure your profit margins are there but we have done this in the past where there's items where the FBA stock is low. We know it's not going to be replenished in time for the holidays and will FBM items. Also the price can increase as well if you see the stock going low and the demand is still there so there's a lot of FBM opportunities during Q4. One thing to keep in mind with this though
is stock up on those shipping supplies because everything really slows down in Q4. Tere's just so much being delivered. For example if you use USPS free priority mail shipping supplies which I recommend if you use if you are shipping USPS priority. USPS can get really backed up on delivering those shipping supplies so order them now. Even little things like tape bubble mailers, poly mailers, shipping labels and everything. Just stock up it now because you never want to be in a situation where you have items you can sell but you don't have the supplies to ship them. Prepare for FBM to be absolutely crazy in Q4.
Tip 5: 2020 has been Crazy!
The final tip i want to talk about in regards to Q4 is in regards to 2020 and how crazy this year has been. So first off i'm expecting this Q4 to be unlike anything we've ever seen. I just saw an article today saying that they expect toy sales to be even higher than they normally are due to the pandemic. I just think it's going to be crazy with the growth we've seen in ecommerce this year. I feel as prepared as i can be but I just think things are going to sell very quickly. I have a bad feeling I’m going to run out of stock on everything and wish I bought more but just be prepared for this Q4 tobe even crazier than a normal.
The other thing I wanted to mention in regards to this year is Amazon has done a couple things a little different this year because their fulfillment centers are just overwhelmed and they're full. The first thing Amazon has done is if your IPI is below 500 you received a notification that you have storage limits and you can see how much your limit is and how much more you can send in. So keep in mind if you do have storage limits those will run for the end of the year so you just need to keep in mind that you're not overdoing that and if you do end up with too much inventory you can switch and pivot to FBM as well.
The other thing is that Amazon is putting quantity limits on how many units you can send in for a single ASIN. It is currently 200 units per ASIN that you can restock as that ASIN sells so keep that in mind too when you're sourcing if you find a really great item if you buy more than 200 you're not going to be able to send it in all at the same time. You'll have to send it in gradually as it starts selling so just keep those two things in mind because they are a little different than the previous Q4s
These are my 5 tips and tricks for Q4. I hope everyone makes a lot of money. We are prepared to make a lot of money. we're already seeing the increase in sales as we just have started barely getting into Q4. If you are looking for an easy way to source profitable products for Amazon check out our Amazon Online Arbitrage Leads list which contain 20 profitable leads daily Monday through Friday.