Actionable tips to boost your back-to-school sales in 2023

The highly successful Prime Day shopping event held on July 11-12, 2023 has provided great momentum for Amazon’s back-to-school campaigns. The popularity of the two-day mega-shopping event translated into a worldwide purchase of over 375 million items. Notably, July 11 turned out to be the single-largest sales day in Amazon’s entire history. The e-commerce behemoth generated over $3 billion in sales by rolling out the best back-to-school deals during Prime Day. A remarkable increase of over 50% in Prime student membership immensely contributed to this outstanding achievement. It reiterates the fact that Amazon Prime offers great value and appeals to the student demographic. Offering enticing deals, expedited shipping and an extensive collection of products has driven impressive results for Amazon. With 2023 being no exception, the back-to-school season has always been a prominent time for Amazon.

Riding on the successful wave of Amazon Prime Day, it is important to develop effective marketing campaigns to make the best of the 2023 back-to-school season. For targeting shoppers in the Amazon UK marketplace, we need to be aware that schools start here at the end of August or the beginning of September. So, whether it is conducting thorough research to understand market trends, customer preferences or developing effective strategies, proper planning is a must. Let’s learn about some key steps to consider when devising a comprehensive marketing strategy for back-to-school campaigns on Amazon.

Conduct competitor research

As summer draws to a close, you need to be proactive and start preparations for the back-to-school season. It is a great opportunity for businesses to entice customers and offer products for their children. But to create differentiation and outpace marketplace competition, you must examine your competitors’ strategies and outcomes. A deeper analysis of their ad campaigns, pricing strategies, and marketing techniques will provide you with great insights. You can evaluate their overall performance, assess their strengths and accordingly redefine your business goals.

Select the right products

• Prepare your inventory for back-to-school – The primary step to kick-start your back-to-school preparation is to ensure your product collection is ready for the season. A careful selection of products and organising them in the inventory is a critical part of the preparations.
• Offer variants to drive customers – Provide greater flexibility to customers in their purchasing decisions by offering a variety of options within a product category.

Optimise keywords and product listings

After picking the most promising products for the 2023 back-to-school season, concerted efforts are required to optimise your keywords and product listings. Perform rigorous Amazon product keyword research to choose relevant and high-converting keywords that improve your search rankings, conversions, and sales. Strategic use of keywords in your advertising campaigns ensures positive outcomes. You can seek assistance from Amazon sales experts in selecting high-performing keywords for your advertising campaigns and bids to maximise visibility and increase sales.

Adhering to Amazon guidelines and following an SEO-centric approach for product listing optmisation can substantially push your organic search rankings higher. Your back-to-school product listings must include accurate details, optimized titles, informative descriptions, high-quality product images, and enticing copy that highlight key product attributes and benefits. You must constantly work at optimizing your listings, by improving your product photos, titles, keywords, and every key aspect to boost your back-to-school product rankings and visibility.

Revisit your pricing strategy

• Consider appropriate discounts – Offering discounts is a proven technique to attract customers during the back-to-school season. A 40% discount may sound tempting, but if you apply it to all your products without discretion it will undermine your brand image.
• Offer competitive prices – A tendency to inflate prices during the back-to-school season can have a negative impact. You will end up losing customers who are expecting better and genuine deals. Setting competitive prices attracts more customers and has long-term benefits. A reasonable pricing strategy builds trust among shoppers and encourages them to choose you over your competitors.
• Leverage psychological factors – Psychology plays a key role in making pricing decisions. For instance, you may find that your backpacks in (blue colour) are top sellers due to their competitive price point. Now, if you introduce (red backpacks) at a slightly higher price, you can easily influence customer behaviour and increase your profits. A finer understanding of the customer preferences and factors that influence their buying decisions will help you maintain appropriate pricing.
• Avoid price comparisons – Make a conscious effort to avoid pricing comparisons where customers pick the cheapest available option while ignoring other key factors. Proper structuring of prices is important to maintain profitability while matching customers’ needs and expectations.

Utilise product bundles

In addition to selling conventional back-to-school supplies, you can always bundle other items to make the most of this profitable season. Nowadays, college-going kids have become too conscious about what they eat, how they look, and the aesthetics of their immediate surroundings. So, an opportunity to grab deals starting from food items, to the latest clothing, to home décor always appeals to them.

How much time you spend on back-to-school shopping is crucial. Whether it is parents, students, or teachers, everybody is looking at ways to simplify their shopping process. You can utilize product bundles and create an attractive package of commonly bought items and encourage customers to purchase multiple products.

Gear yourself up

The back-to-school season is majorly about audiences frantically seeking the best products at the most affordable prices. Ensure that your product listings and ads are ready for the occasion. Having a great product line isn’t just enough, you need to capture the instant attention of your potential customers with incentives and enticing offers.

Communicate effectively

In addition to a crisp and concise product title, informative bullet points, and well-crafted descriptions, you need to convey the unique benefits of your back-to-school products to parents and students. Make them understand the real utility of your products in their back-to-school routine.

Include captivating visuals

Utilise lifestyle imagery and Amazon Infographics to perfectly showcase your products. Images of students, parents, or teachers using the products adds to the real-life utility of your back-to-school items. Clear and bright images that capture the key attributes and benefits of your products encourage shoppers to buy.

Target potential customers with PPC Ads

Use appropriate Amazon PPC advertising campaigns to target potential customers during the back-to-school season. Make the best use of the BTS season to drive customers who are most likely interested in your product offerings.

Take advantage of Brand store

You can create dedicated back-to-school product pages in your Brand store to draw the attention of the shoppers. Lifestyle images, copies that emphasize back-to-school products, and curated products will attract more customers and substantially increase your conversions and sales.

Final Thoughts

Now is the time to expedite your preparations for the 2023 back-to-school season on Amazon! A vast number of shoppers are out there to grab the best deals on back-to-school items and classroom supplies. By examining the previous year’s data, you can gain better insights into consumer preferences and their purchasing behaviour. It will enable you to stock the required amount of BTS items in your inventory.

Highlight the key attributes of your products and their benefits for parents and students to help them make the right purchase. Allocate a budget for your campaigns and use various advertising options to boost your search rankings and amplify your back-to-school sales. You can also get in touch with our dedicated Amazon experts to create a rich and impactful 2023 back-to-school campaign.