Q4 Is Closer Than You Think: A Guide to Selling Seasonal Products (Follow the Data Ep. 30)
It’s never too early to start thinking about Q4. And with Q2 already under way, we’re one quarter closer to the holiday season. As Q4 approaches, you may want to consider sourcing seasonal products. Seasonal products aren’t for everyone, and they certainly aren’t for the faint of heart. But if you choose to take the risk, there’s potential for huge reward.
Show Notes
- Find a seasonal product to sell using Product Discovery. Use filters like Best Sales Period to look at seasonal products to jump on now.
- Serious about planning ahead for Q4 and potential seasonal products? Check out our Q4 Prep Guide.
- Successful seasonal product have successfully written listings. Make sure yours is optimized whether with Keyword Research or a professionally written listing
- Once you have a seasonal product in FBA, you need to get ranking quickly. Set up a launch the right way with the help of an Amazon Seller Coach. Contact one today at [email protected]
- Wondering how Keyword Research works? Let Amazon expert, Cameron Yoder, walk you through the tool.
Podcast Transcript
CAMERON YODER:
Nice.
CASEY GAUSS:
Did you see my fact checking on George from MerchantWords?
CAMERON YODER:
Yeah, I did. That was funny, dude. Come on. Did you put that – yeah, you put that in –
CASEY GAUSS:
The marketing chat.
CAMERON YODER:
– in the marketing chat. That –
CASEY GAUSS:
I’m just a fact checker. BS caller on that.
CAMERON YODER:
[Unintelligible 0:00:17.8] just because no product is selling more than 30 units per month on average. Swinger anklets.
CASEY GAUSS:
Come on.
CAMERON YODER:
Wife. Anklets, oh man.
CASEY GAUSS:
Hot wife anklets. Nobody is searching that, bro.
CAMERON YODER:
Dude. Wait. How did you – oh, no, never mind. That dude –
CASEY GAUSS:
Get the heck out of here.
CAMERON YODER:
Come on, man. Swinger anklets. Are you kidding me? Ugh, man.
CASEY GAUSS:
Good?
CAMERON YODER:
Yeah.
CASEY GAUSS:
Ready?
CAMERON YODER:
Yep.
CASEY GAUSS:
It’s never too early to start thinking about Q4, and with Q2 already underway we’re one quarter closer to the holiday season.
CAMERON YODER:
As Q4 approaches you may want to consider sourcing a seasonal product. Seasonal products aren’t for everyone, and they certainly are not for the faint of heart. But if you choose to – oh, whoa, to the – but if you choose to take the risk there’s potential for huge reward. I’m Cameron Yoder.
CASEY GAUSS:
And I’m Casey Gauss, your hosts for Follow the Data: Your Journey to Amazon FBA Success. In this show we leverage the data we’ve accumulated at Viral Launch from over 30,000 product launches and our experience working with more than 8000 brands to help you understand the big picture when it comes to Amazon and, more importantly, the best practices for success as an Amazon seller.
CAMERON YODER:
In this episode we are going to walk you through the timeline for sourcing a seasonal product using a Q4 example. You’ll see it’s not too early to start your product research if you’re serious about selling a holiday, quote, hotcake. We’ll also talk you through basic inventory planning so you can stay in stock all season and outsell the competition. Let’s get started.
CASEY GAUSS:
Let’s find those hotcakes, Cam.
CAMERON YODER:
Hotcakes. Let’s get us some – let’s get some holiday hotcakes in here. It’s almost comparable to bread.
CASEY GAUSS:
Yeah, no pun intended – pun intended.
CAMERON YODER:
No pun intended, yes.
CASEY GAUSS:
All right. What’s up guys? So Q1 just got done. Early April, you know, it’s like April 10th today, so first third of the first month of the second quarter of the year. So you know, when Cam and Becca came to me with this idea I was like guys, it seems a little bit early for that, but Cam was walking me through kind of the timelines and, you know, I don’t know if we’ve talked about just how great seasonal items can be or, you know, a lot of people – I think a lot of the kind of traditional sourcing gurus say stay away from seasonal products. I 100% understand why. The problem is that there is so much opportunity for seasonal products. We see some guys just absolutely killing it. I don’t have the stats, but there’s this guy, Justin Ligeri. If you want to check him out he claims to be the seller to have the first one million-dollar day. I almost want to say that he had a two million-dollar day, but anyways, he at one point had the largest two-week payout. I mean this guy is just killing it because he focuses, I think, almost exclusively on seasonal items, and it’s because people come in, and they spend an insane amount of money for Halloween. I think that’s his biggest month, or his biggest season. People spend just crazy amounts of money on these seasonal items, and there is so much opportunity. The downside is that it is seasonal, right? So if you are selling Santa hats you’re probably not selling Santa hats very well in July. So if you say, you know, I’m going to sell 500 Santa hats a month and you plan out, you know, six months of inventory, 12 months of inventory, you’re going to be sadly mistaken come, you know, July, June, you know, August or whatever, like when sales aren’t there. So if you are doing this you need to take a very data-driven approach so that you are making the right decisions.
CAMERON YODER:
Yeah, I really think that seasonal products in general – and seasonal does not – also, I don’t want you to necessarily think that seasonal means just in December, or just Christmas, because again, seasonal can mean, or does mean, a spike at really any point in time in the year that’s consistent, that follows a trend.
CASEY GAUSS:
Valentine’s Day-related products.
CAMERON YODER:
Or like Halloween.
CASEY GAUSS:
Pool floats.
CAMERON YODER:
Pool floats, yeah, yeah, Christmas, whatever, something that’s seasonal, spikes consistently at some point in time in the year. Like – seasonal products tend to follow the mantra of like high risk, high reward, right? And in this case you can use data to decrease the risk that you’re taking and really be smart and intentional about your decision. At the same time really the big risk – the goal of a seasonal product, not with everybody, but typically is to have enough inventory in Amazon, get to Page 1 for the primary search terms and sell your inventory during the full period of time, during typically the spike month or spike – whatever period of time that spike is, and then maybe not hold onto that inventory the rest of the year because that’s going to cost you money. So the challenge and the risk becomes ordering enough inventory at the right time, getting in Amazon at the right time, ranking for that item or those items at the right time, and having enough inventory, being in the right spot to capture those spike sales. That is – it’s a lot to think about, and I actually know just like – and Casey you probably know a lot of people that do pretty well with seasonal items. I actually know someone who has been selling seasonally and is actually trying to get out of selling seasonal items.
CASEY GAUSS:
Oh, why is that?
CAMERON YODER:
He is – according to him, he doesn’t really like the stress that comes with it.
CASEY GAUSS:
I see.
CAMERON YODER:
And it takes a lot of – and that’s not to deter you at all it. It just takes – for him, at least, it takes a lot of upkeep. Like he has to be really intentional, and it takes a lot to be intentional about ordering the right amount of inventory or knowing which market to go into. And so this, again like we said from the intro, is not for the faint of heart. However, it can get very profitable for