Pre-sale is an alternative that Amazon offers its sellers so that they can launch a product for sale before a scheduled date. In this way, Amazon users may be able to purchase your items even before their own release date. There has been the case of products that manage to position themselves as the best sellers in their category without being “available” yet. It is interesting to value this option when we do not want to waste time and we want to start working on the positioning of a reference before we have it available for sale.
This is possible only if the product meets a series of requirements, such as that it does not belong to the category of Books, Music, Video and DVD (because these must be sent two business days after the date the order is confirmed), that it does not is fulfilled by Amazon or that can be shipped within a maximum period of 30 days.
What is the pre-sale of items on Amazon?
The pre-sale of items on Amazon is a purchase modality for those items with high demand, so you ensure that you sell that product in advance and deliver the day of the launch or the following days (depending on the shipping option that the buyer chooses). It also allows you to offer discounts if the price drops from the time the order is placed until it goes on sale.
These products operate under a “promised ship date” which is the actual release date of the product and is the date the product is scheduled to ship to the purchaser.
Therefore, Amazon offers the traditional option to sell products (if you don’t know how to do it, check out our blog “How to start selling your products on Amazon”) and this other option of posting items for pre-sale on Amazon or pre-order that allows have a margin of time before the delivery of the product and organize everything so that these items can be shipped on the launch date. On many occasions, these pre-orders have sold out of stock before they went on sale, as was the case with Funko POP!, a collectible toy that was awarded 2018 People’s Choice Toy of the Year.
How to configure these products from Seller Central?
In the case of “pre-sale” it is configured when you want to accept orders for this item from now on, offering users a “promised shipping date” even though it is not yet ready for sale. On the other hand, “restock” should only be set when the product has been sold before and is out of stock, meaning orders can be accepted and will ship to the buyer on a “promised ship date” when they are already in stock.
To configure these “pre-sale” or “pending replenishment” products, it can be done through Inventory Management (if it is one by one) or with the category inventory file template (if it is several products for expedite the process).
Steps to set up pre-selling items on Amazon from inventory:
- Click Inventory > Add a product
- If the item is not in inventory yet, you will need to create a new listing
- Select the category and type of product
- Go to the More details tab and under the calendar icon you will be able to select a Release date that is no more than 30 days in the future
- Once this is configured, you can click Save and Finish
Steps to configure the pre-sale of items on Amazon from via file:
- First of all, you have to download the specific file template of the category with which we are working
- Go to the ReleaseDate column and enter the date the product will be available. You will also need to enter “Update” in the Update/Delete column.
- Once this is done, from Seller Central, select Inventory and then click Add Products with Files.
- From the Add Products with Files page, upload the inventory file
What is the Guaranteed Presale Price?
Pre-sale prices for Items on Amazon can vary from when the “pre-sale” order is placed until the expected shipping date, so when the order is placed, Amazon will charge the lowest price shown since the order was placed. until 11:59 p.m. the day before the release date indicated on Amazon. This can be verified on the order summary page where a message will appear indicating “Guaranteed Presale Price”.
This price only applies to those products sold exclusively on Amazon and for which the “Presale Price Guarantee” message is expressly displayed on the product detail page. Only those in the Books category are excepted. Even if the price drops at some point until the launch date, Amazon will refund the difference.
How to achieve greater visibility and reach of the articles in Amazon Presale?
When we publish an item on Amazon, we are guaranteed to be part of one of the digital storefronts with the most number of visitors. But, if you’ve been selling on Amazon for a while, you know that just listing an item isn’t enough. In the case of Amazon Presale items, we recommend running external traffic campaigns that drive the number of visits to our new item. We recommend you visit our blog to drive external traffic to Amazon and maximize your results. Here you will find very interesting campaign ideas to gain greater visibility, such as campaigns through Social Networks.
Social networks have gained strength in this type of functions to redirect visits so that a “Buyer” can not only enter to review a product that caught their attention, but to decide on the purchase. This is how Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, LinkedIn and other social networks are other channels to achieve this traffic capture and serve as a springboard so that a “buyer” can more easily make the purchase.
Every day we spend a lot of time on our social networks, therefore, they are an indispensable resource when it comes to being able to publicize a product and make something go viral or become a trend. We can use these digital tools to attract buyers and send them to purchase on platforms such as Amazon, where, in addition to providing greater security to transactions, it is a globally recognized channel and each sale adds up so that the products also achieve a good position in this marketplace.
Década Studio advises you so that you can carry out this pre-sale of articles
Our mission is to accompany you step by step so that you can take advantage of these other alternatives that Amazon offers you, such as product pre-sales. In this way, you can sell these products in advance and have time to organize what is necessary and have everything ready for the launch day, boosting positioning, reaching more customers and, therefore, increasing sales.
Do not hesitate to contact us for advice!
