Amazon Vendor Central Business Value
Amazon Vendor Central Promotions, Coupons and Deals
Section 5: Best Deals
Cheat Sheet
How to Create a Best Deal
• In order to create a Best Deal, select “Promotions” from the Drop-Down Menu of the “Merchandising” tab on the top menu of Vendor Central.
• On the next page, click the “Start a New Campaign” button on the top right side of the page.
• On the following page, click the “Create a Best Deal” button to the right side of the “Best Deal” block.
• On the following page, select your “Vendor Code” from the Drop-Down Menu supplied as well as your “Billing Contact”.
• Choose your Start and End Dates for your campaign in the relevant box below, knowing that the Best Deal only runs for up to 2 weeks at a time.
• You can then choose to add your products to your campaign in one of two ways:
* Option 1: Enter the ASINs you wish to create Best Deals for in the “Refine by” box to the left of the page. Click the “Add” Button alongside the ASINs you searched for as they appear in the blocks to the left of the “Refine by” section. You can then proceed to either enter one discount as a percentage or monetary value for all selected ASINs, or individually enter unique discounts per ASIN. Note that the minimum discount you can offer on a Best Deal is 10%. You will notice that, as you enter your discount value, Amazon gives you a cost breakdown under the product, that is, your cost to Amazon, the current retail cost on the Amazon Marketplace and the likely promotional price. Your percentage will change to a monetary value in the box as well.
* Option 2: You can add products by clicking the “Add” Button alongside the ASINs as they appear on the left side of the page, including those that appear as eligible, which you can also select all by simply clicking the “Add X Eligible Products on this Page” button. You can then proceed to either enter one discount as a percentage or monetary value for all selected ASINs, or individually enter unique discounts per ASIN. Note that the minimum discount you can offer on a Best Deal is 10%. You will notice that, as you enter your discount value, Amazon gives you a cost breakdown under the product, that is, your cost to Amazon, the current retail cost on the Amazon Marketplace and the likely promotional price. Your percentage will change to a monetary value in the box as well.
• Note that for both of the above options, you will be notified if this ASIN is not suitable by a message appearing in a block to the right of the ASIN that says “No Retail Offer”.
• Alternately, once you have selected your products and entered your discount, some items may be flagged with a notice to the left of the page saying, “Based on our forecasting model, this product will not meet our financial or demand requirements for promotions” with a “More info” link which will explain more about why they don’t meet the requirements.
• Make sure to select your Hero ASIN in the top right of the block as well: this would have to be one of the products you have selected for the deal.
• You can also add products with a spreadsheet by clicking the link that reads “Add products with a spreadsheet”.
• In the Pop-Up Window, click the button to the left that says, “Download Spreadsheet Template” and download the template.
• Open the spreadsheet and enter all the ASINs you wish to run the Best Deal Campaign for.
• Alongside each, select which type of discount you would like to give, that is, percentage or monetary value and then proceed to enter that value in the column alongside for the field “Per Unit Funding”.
• Once you have completed the template, save it and return to the Pop-Up Window on the Best Deal Campaign creation page and upload it by clicking the “Browse” button on the right side of the Pop-Up Window and proceeding to upload your template.
• Then click the yellow “Submit” button to complete your upload.
• Once you have completed adding your products with the relevant discounts, click on the button to the top right of the page that says, “Continue to Next Step”.
• Here you can review your Best Deal Promotion and choose to edit it further by clicking the “Edit Promotion Details” button or finalise the promotion by clicking the “Submit Promotion” button.
• Items to take note of in your overview are the “Merchandising Fee” lines and “Estimated Promotion Demand”.
• Amazon will review your submitted campaign, and if approved, will send you an agreement to accept which we will go through in the Billing video of this section.
How to Edit a Best Deal
• It is important to note that you cannot edit a Best Deal Promotion Campaign once it has started and you cannot edit a campaign once it has finished so this video only pertains to Best Deal Campaigns that have not yet started.
• In order to edit a Best Deal, select “Promotions” from the Drop-Down Menu of the “Merchandising” tab on the top menu of Vendor Central.
• On the next page, use the “Refine By” filter section on the left of the page to search for your “Best Deals” Campaigns and select “Best Deal” from the “Promotion Type” Drop-Down Menu.
• In the table to the right, locate the Best Deal Campaign you wish to edit and click on the “Promotion Details” link in the top right-hand corner of the Campaign Block.
• On the Best Deal Promotion Campaign page, click on the button to the right of the page that says, “Edit Promotion”.
• Here you can amend your Best Deal by adding more products, changing your discount value or remove products from the campaign.
• Once you are happy with your amendments, click the “Continue to next step” button in the top right hand side of the page to review and submit your amended campaign as per the steps mentioned in the previous video when creating your Best Deal promotion.
• You would mostly need to edit campaigns that have the status reading “Needs your attention” as something is not eligible on your campaign: this can be the ASIN or discount are no longer eligible.
• Either way, you would need to go into this Promotion Campaign and edit it as required.
How to Cancel a Best Deal
• You can cancel Best Deal Promotion Campaigns that have yet to run or have already started running but can obviously not cancel Best Deal Promotion Campaigns that have ended.
• In order to cancel a Best Deal, select “Promotions” from the Drop-Down Menu of the “Merchandising” tab on the top menu of Vendor Central.
• On the next page, use the “Refine By” filter section on the left of the page to search for your “Best Deals” Campaigns and select “Best Deal” from the “Promotion Type” Drop-Down Menu.
• In the table to the right, locate the Best Deal Campaign you wish to cancel and click on the “Promotion Details” link in the top right-hand corner of the Campaign Block.
• On the Best Deal Promotion Campaign page, click on the button to the right of the page that says, “Cancel Promotion”.
• A Pop-Up Window will appear where you have the option to cancel your cancel request by clicking the “Don’t cancel promotion” button or approve it by clicking the “Cancel Promotion” button.
Viewing Best Deal Results and Metrics
• To view the results and metrics of your Best Deal Promotions Campaigns, for those that have started as well as for those that have ended, select “Promotions” from the Drop-Down Menu of the “Merchandising” tab on the top menu of Vendor Central.
• On the next page, use the “Refine By” filter section on the left of the page to search for your “Best Deals” Campaigns and select “Best Deal” from the “Promotion Type” Drop-Down Menu.
• In the table to the right, locate the Best Deal Campaign you wish to view the results and metrics of.
• These results will be shown in the Best Deal Campaign block under the headings to the bottom right of the block, “Units Sold” “Amount Spent” and “Revenue”.
• Should you wish to download this report, click on the “Promotion Details” link in the top right-hand corner of the Campaign Block.
• At the top of the Best Deal Promotion Campaign page, you will again see the results and metrics of “Units Sold”, “Amount Spent” and “Revenue” but there will now be a button to the right of these results saying: “Download Report” with a date the report was last updated beneath it so that you can see the relevancy of the data within.
• The Report, once opened, will give you the same results as displayed on the Campaign page along with the ASINs on the campaign, the campaign name, start and end date, et cetera.
• You can then use this report to analyse the promotion as needed.
How Best Deals are Billed
• With each Best Deal that you create and submit, you will be presented with a Funding Agreement and a Merchandising Fee, which outline how you will be billed for the Promotion which you will be required to accept in order for your Best Deal Campaign to go live.
• To locate Funding and Fee agreements, select “Promotions” from the Drop-Down Menu of the “Merchandising” tab on the top menu of Vendor Central.
• On the next page, use the “Refine By” filter section on the left of the page to search for your “Best Deals” Campaigns and select “Best Deal” from the “Promotion Type” Drop-Down Menu.
• In the table to the right, locate the Best Deal Campaign you wish to view the agreement and billing invoices for and click on the “Promotion Details” link in the top right-hand corner of the Campaign Block.
• In the “Promotion Details” table, there will be a clickable link to the right of the Field “Funding Agreement”.
• This clickable link is the number of your agreement for reconciliation and recognition thereof when reconciling your deductions from your payment remittances from Amazon.
• Click on this link.
• You will be taken to the “Co-Op” page where you can download the invoices for this promotion by clicking the “View Invoices” link to the right of the agreement.
• On the next table, you will be able to download your invoice as a PDF or excel and download the backup report explaining the invoice.
• The Backup report will give a rebate value per line item which is as per the Agreement and so is easily calculable when reconciling the Backup Report and the invoice against the agreement and your Metrics mentioned in the previous video.
• To view the agreement again, click the “See your Co-Op Agreements” button at the top right side of the Co-Op Page (which can also be located from the Drop-Down Menu of the “Payments” tab on the top menu of Vendor Central).
• On the next page, select the “Accepted/Rejected” tab at the top of the page to view all your agreements.
• From the table provided, locate your Funding Agreement Number and click on the Title Link to open the Agreement.
• You are also then able to print this agreement for your reconciliation file by clicking the “print” button at the bottom of the Agreement Pop-Up.
• This Agreement will show you the per unit discount in dollars alongside each one of the ASINs in this Campaign.
• In this instance, the per unit discount is $4.09 for the two ASINs in the Deal.
• Going back to our Backup report, you can easily work out that the rebate is indeed $4.09 per unit sold.
• The “Per-Unit Funding” on your Campaign is indeed $4.09.
• The “Amount Spent” in your Metrics or Results is $5,893.69 and the Backup Reports Rebates Totals amount to $5,893.69.
• The Invoices when added up also total $5,893.69.
• The “Units Sold” on your Metrics is 1441 units and the total quantity on your Backup Reports is 1441 units.
• Your invoices also say that the “Per-Unit Funding” was $4.09 and that 1441 units were sold in this campaign across all two invoices.
• Further to this, there is still the Fee Agreement. Each Best Deal promotion has a base merchandising fee.
• This is a one-time, flat fee that will be invoiced separately after the promotion ends. If your deal is suppressed before going live, you won’t be charged.
• However, if your deal is suppressed after going live, you will be charged.
• Promotions may be suppressed after they go live if, for example, Amazon runs out of inventory, or the promotional funding you provided does not support a promotional price that beats the lowest price in the trailing 30 days by at least 5%.
• The fee amount will depend on when your promotion goes live.
• The current fee structure in the US for this account in the video is $0.00 for all occasions, that is:
* Non-event days: $0.00
* Black Friday or Cyber Monday: $0.00
* Holiday: $0.00
• The fee amount shown is based on the start date you proposed; if the start date changes, you will be charged the base merchandising fee applicable to the actual start date of your promotion.
• If there was a Merchandising Fee, you’d be able to view it by going back to your Promotion Details page as explained earlier and clicking the link alongside the “Fee Agreement” field, noting that this clickable link is also the number of your agreement for search purposes.
• You will be taken to the “Co-Op” page where you can download the invoices for this promotion by clicking the “View Invoices” link to the right of the agreement.
• On the next table, you will be able to download your invoice as a PDF or excel and download the backup report explaining the invoice.
• To view the agreement again, click the “See your Co-Op Agreements” button at the top right side of the Co-Op Page (which can also be located from the Drop-Down Menu of the “Payments” tab on the top menu of Vendor Central).
• On the next page, select the “Accepted/Rejected” tab at the top of the page to view all your agreements.
• From the table provided, locate your Merchandising Fee Agreement Number and click on the Title Link to open the Agreement.
• You are also then able to print this agreement for your reconciliation file by clicking the “print” button at the bottom of the Agreement Pop-Up.
• This Agreement will show you what your Merchandising Fee is for this promotion, based on the dates when the promotion ran, that is, whether it was during an event time or a non-event time.
• Most of these Agreements and invoices are deducted from Payments that Amazon makes to you for the Purchase Orders they place with you.