Amazon Seller Central Deals Explained

Driving Sales and Brand Awareness: The Power of Amazon’s Lightning and Best Deals

Amazon provides exclusive opportunities for sellers with Lightning Deals and Best Deals. Lightning Deals are time-bound promotions that showcase a featured item on the Amazon Deals page for a limited duration, typically ranging from 4 to 12 hours, as per Amazon’s discretion. By participating in Lightning Deals, sellers can significantly boost sales and efficiently manage their inventory, while also increasing brand awareness.

On the other hand, Best Deals are another exciting promotional offering where a product is featured on the Amazon Deals page for a specific number of days.

To qualify for these exceptional deals, sellers must be registered as professionals and maintain an overall rating of at least 3.5 stars. Additionally, the products must meet several criteria, including:
  1. A proven sales history within Amazon stores with a minimum 3-star rating.
  2. The inclusion of multiple variations to cater to diverse customer preferences.
  3. Adherence to guidelines regarding restricted, offensive, embarrassing, or inappropriate products.
  4. Eligibility for Amazon Prime in all applicable regions.
  5. Products must be in new condition.
  6. Compliance with Amazon’s customer product reviews policies, which can be reviewed on our platform.
  7. Pricing policies that conform to Amazon’s guidelines and include a valid reference price. Detailed information is available on the “Show a reference price on your products” and “Amazon Policy on Reference Prices” pages.

Meeting the deal frequency requirement, as explained in the “Create a Deal” section.
It is essential to note that if a product is approved for a deal but subsequently fails to meet the aforementioned criteria, the deal will be promptly canceled, and the seller may not be eligible for a refund of deal fees. Moreover, their future deal eligibility may be affected.

Currently, only professional sellers are eligible for these deals, and they can find eligible products listed in the “Eligible ASINs” section of the Deals Dashboard. The eligibility of ASINs may vary based on the country and time of year, and certain criteria might be undisclosed by Amazon, affecting the recommendations for specific ASINs.

Eligible ASINs are updated weekly, meaning that products eligible this week might not be eligible the following week. If a particular ASIN is not currently eligible, sellers can explore other promotional options, such as Coupons and Promotions, to increase the visibility and sales of their products on Amazon’s platform.

To make the most of these opportunities, sellers can choose between two types of deals: Lightning Deals and Best Deals. To get started:

Click on the Hamburger icon at the top left corner of the  Seller Central page.

Then hover your mouse on Advertising and click on the Deals.

Amazon Seller Central - Advertising - Deals

Access the Deals dashboard and select “Create a new deal.”

Amazon Seller Central - Deals - Create a Deal

Selection of Eligible Products

When creating a Deal on Amazon, it’s essential to consider the following:

Eligible Products: You have the option to filter eligible products based on deal type and eligible stores. Additionally, you can search for eligible products using their ASIN.

Amazon Seller Central - Deals - Eligible Products

When there is no recommendation

Amazon Seller Central - Deals - No Recommendations

Participating ASINs: Make sure that the ASINs you select are part of the deal.

Deal Store: Once you’ve selected the product, you can choose an eligible Amazon store to run your Deal.

Deal Schedule: Provide the schedule for the deal. After selecting the Amazon store, you’ll be presented with available weeks for that product in the selected store. Lightning Deals can be scheduled to run for up to 12 hours on a chosen day during the week, while the Best Deals will run for seven consecutive days during the selected week. Unfortunately, you won’t have the flexibility to choose the specific date or time for your Deal. However, if your Deal gets approved, you’ll be able to see the scheduled date and time in the Deal Dashboard one week before it runs.

Lightning Deal – Schedule – Fees

Amazon Seller Central - Deals - Select Store - Schedule - Fees - Lightning Deal

Best Deal – Schedule – Fees

Amazon Seller Central - Deals - Select Store - Schedule - Fees - Best Deal

Once you’re done with the scheduling, move on to the next step.

Deal Price: The suggested Maximum Deal price considers the lowest price offered by a seller for the product in New condition. Keep in mind that the Deal price might fluctuate if there are any changes to the current price. Also, remember that you cannot raise the price while the Deal is active.

Deal Quantity: Ensure that you have the proposed quantity available at least seven days before the scheduled date.

Product Variation: You have the freedom to include any eligible variations in your Deal, as recommended. However, we advise you to include as many product variations (e.g., size, color, style) as possible to avoid rejection. For certain products like clothing and shoes, including at least 65% of variations in the deal is suggested, but this requirement may vary by locale and time of year. Once the deal is submitted, avoid adding new variations to the parent listing that weren’t originally recommended during the deal’s creation. Doing so could lead to your deal being suppressed or canceled. Specific products may have a minimum percentage of variations required.

Please be aware that the cumulative discounts from concurrent promotions, such as Coupons, Promotions, Sale Price, Business Price, and Giveaways, will apply to Deal discounts. To illustrate, let’s consider an example:

Regular Price of an item: $100

Deal Discount: 20%

Promotion Discount: 5%

In this scenario, the total discount applied to the item will be calculated as follows:

Total Discount = (Regular Price * Deal Discount) + (Regular Price * Promotion Discount)
Total Discount = (100 * 0.2) + (100 * 0.05)
Total Discount = $20 + $5
Total Discount = $25

Thus, when a Deal offering a 20% discount is combined with a concurrent Promotion of 5%, the final total discount on the $100 item amounts to $25.

Deal Title: The title for a deal will be based on the product name of the participating ASIN in the deal or the parent ASIN if the deal includes variations. If you wish to change the deal title, you must update the product name of the ASIN or parent ASIN before creating the deal.

Deal Image: The image for a Deal will be taken from the images available on the Amazon detail page. Remember that Deal images must have an all-white background and cannot include any text, logos, or watermarks that are not part of the product itself. Deals with images violating Amazon’s Product image requirements are subject to cancellation and may result in account suspension. If the available deal images during the deal creation are incorrect or do not match the detail page’s images, please ensure that the correct images are uploaded to the ASIN or parent ASIN (if the product has variations). For any image-related issues on product detail pages, feel free to contact Selling Partner Support.

Deal Frequency: Amazon endeavors to provide customers with fresh deals on a daily basis. To ensure this, they have certain guidelines in place. For instance, Lightning Deals cannot be scheduled for the same ASIN within a seven-day period, and Best Deals cannot be run on the same ASIN within a 21-day period. It’s important to note that Amazon reserves the right to cancel any deal without prior notification if it fails to adhere to these specified criteria.

Fees: Before submitting your deal, review the applicable fee. For detailed information, refer to the Deals Fees section.

Deal Status: Some Deals may be immediately approved, while others could be suppressed at any time if they don’t meet the eligibility criteria. To minimize the risk of your Deal being suppressed or canceled, and to avoid an increase in FBA inventory and fees, we recommend monitoring the status of your deal on the Deals Dashboard.

Lightning Deal – Set Deal Price & Units

Amazon Seller Central - Deals - Select Store - Schedule - Lightning Deal - Deal Price - Inventory

Best Deal – Set Deal Price

Amazon Seller Central - Deals - Select Store - Schedule - Best Deal - Deal Price

Finalize the details and submit the deal.

Monitoring Your Amazon Deal’s Status

Amazon Seller Central - Deals Dashboard - Status

Once sellers create a Deal on Amazon, keeping track of its status becomes essential. The Deals Dashboard provides valuable insights, and you can take the following recommended actions based on each status:

Draft: When your Deal is in the Draft stage, it indicates that one or more values have errors. To proceed, edit the relevant information and then resubmit the Deal for approval.

Under Review: While your Deal is Under Review, it awaits Amazon’s approval. Usually, this process results in immediate approval or rejection, but occasionally, it may take up to 15 minutes for processing.

Needs Edits: A Needs Edits status means you must address highlighted areas of the Deal before resubmission for approval.

Pending: In the Pending status, your Deal qualifies for eligibility, but its schedule hasn’t been set yet. Amazon will provide the date and time within one week of the scheduled run.

Upcoming (Pending date/time scheduling seven days before the earliest start date): Upcoming status implies your Deal is eligible, but its schedule is yet to be set. The schedule will be provided within one week of the start date.

Upcoming: When your Deal is marked as Upcoming, it means it is scheduled to run on the specified date and time. Please note that the schedule is automatically generated and cannot be altered. However, if you wish to cancel the Deal without penalty, you have the flexibility to do so up to 25 hours before the scheduled start time.

Suppressed: Suppressed status indicates that your Deal doesn’t meet eligibility requirements. Click on the information next to each greyed-out ASIN to understand why it was suppressed. To prevent cancellation, make necessary changes to price, quantity, or inventory at least 25 hours before the scheduled start time.

ASIN Greyed Out: Greyed-out ASINs signify that the products do not meet eligibility requirements and must be removed from your Deal. Excessive greyed-out ASINs may hinder Deal creation or reactivation.

Running: When your Deal is Running, it is active and adheres to its start and end date. During this phase, only edits relating to fixing deal price issues or cancellations are allowed. After the Deal is sold out or canceled, further edits are not possible, and reactivation is not allowed.

Canceled: Deals can be canceled for various reasons, such as manual cancellation by the seller or failure to address suppression at least 25 hours before the scheduled start time. Amazon reserves the right to cancel deals without prior notification if they violate the company’s policy on Deal frequency.

After creating a Deal, avoid the following changes to the ASIN(s) or parent ASIN participating in the deal:

  1. Do not delete or close any listings from your Manage Inventory page.
  2. Avoid changing the SKU number for any products participating in the Deal.
  3. For Deals with variations, refrain from making changes to the parent ASIN. This includes creating new child ASINs as variations, changing the parent SKU, or deleting/closing the parent listing from the Manage Inventory page.
  4. For instance, if your Deal includes 3 size variations (small, medium, large), avoid introducing new variations (e.g., x-small, x-large) that were not part of the original Deal recommendation. Such new variations will not be eligible to run in the Deal, leading to the entire Deal’s suppression due to no longer meeting eligibility criteria.

By adhering to these guidelines and regularly monitoring your Deal’s status on the Deals Dashboard, you can effectively manage and optimize your Amazon Deals for greater success.

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