Back to School on Amazon: 5 Tips to Succeed

Back to school is a favorite time for many — parents who are ready to have a quiet house and kids who are ready to see their friends again. Especially since the pandemic resulted in at-home school for the past year or so, many students are now going back to school for the first time in a while. With that, students will need lots of supplies for the new school year, including supplies they might not have needed for the last year.

Our Amazon experts have compiled 5 tips to help you succeed in this back-to-school season, especially if your brand has a product that is great for school.

Take Advantage of Prime Day Traffic

Your brand likely saw an increase in traffic during Prime Day — capitalize off that increase by utilizing DSP to retarget those users who viewed your product pages. You can negate purchasers on DSP, which you can’t do with Sponsored Display, which is why we recommend DSP for this strategy.

With DSP, you can hyper-target for back-to-school audiences and products based on the increased traffic data you have from Prime Day. Depending on the product, you can utilize in-market or lifestyle data for parents with kids of a certain age, demographic data for college students, or data for life-stage.

Create custom creative for your ads instead of running generic ones. This specific targeting is the perfect time to make custom creative that is back-to-school focused! Your creative could give your product a whole different purpose, especially if it’s not a “traditional” back-to-school item.

Note In-Classroom Items

Now that many schools in America are going back to fully in-person classes, school supplies will be in high demand once more. Items that were not purchased last school year because of the pandemic — such as glue, crayons, and notebooks — will be needed for in-person learning. And, because of the worry of spreading germs, these items will need to be purchased on an individual basis, not as items to be shared in a classroom.

The supply mix will be different for in-school learning. Grocery items, especially individually packaged snacks, will be extremely popular as concerns about germs are still at an all-time high. Pre-packaged snacks will become necessary in the classroom as homemade goods will likely not be an option.

Additionally, as students head back to the classroom, parents will be looking to purchase new clothes, shoes, and accessories for their kids. Lunchboxes, thermoses, water bottles, food containers, backpacks, and more will be popular as well!

As sports make a comeback this year, students will need new uniforms and equipment, which will result in a boom in sports and outdoor equipment, including lawn chairs, coolers, and sunscreen for game days!

And for that back-to-school glow-up for high school and college students, many will be looking for new beauty products to make a good impression on their classmates they haven’t seen in so long.

Think about Workers, Too

Back to school season also means back to the office for parents! Especially as many offices are opening back up for employees to work in, they’ll be searching for supplies as they head back into the office for the first time in over a year. Snacks, thermoses, business casual clothing, and beauty tools and products will be increasingly popular as more people head back to office work.

On the flip side, as many workers shift to a permanent work-from-home situation, we’ll likely see growth across the home category in general as people formalize their office or workspace at home. Desks, laptop stands, office chairs, noise-canceling headphones, and plants will likely boom as people seek to make a comfortable workspace at home.

Utilize Different Ad Types

With this high-traffic time, you’ll want to utilize different ad types. Depending on your category of product, you might vary your ad type.

Amazon Sponsored Brand Video is a relatively new ad type that has been proven successful. Additionally, Sponsored Display Ads have different targeting options that allow you to target specific categories and audiences. There are lots of different placements as a whole on this ad type.

You can do product substitutes and target complementary products, which is a huge benefit for this ad type. So, if you’re shopping for a pencil case, you can create an ad for pencils on there as well as a supplementary product. You can target whoever your market is, but for back to school, it will likely be mothers between 25–50 years old. You can see the audience volume and already start strategizing about how you’ll get the most bang for your buck by doing your research ahead of time.

Monitor Inventory Levels

As always, when you’re coming up on a high-traffic or high-sales volume season, you’ll want to carefully monitor inventory levels to make sure you’ll have enough product in stock to accommodate for those sale numbers.

Especially with Q4 and the holiday season coming up close on the heels of back-to-school season, you’ll want to make sure that you have enough product in stock to make it through this season, as well as processes in place to restock almost immediately to prepare for the boost in sales that comes in Q4.

Let the experts at Blue Wheel help you strategize for high-traffic seasons. Reach out today!