Amazon offers several promotional tools beyond PPC advertising. Coupons, Lightning Deals, and other promotions can boost visibility and sales — but they come with costs that need to be weighed against the benefits.
Amazon Coupons
Coupons appear as a green badge on your listing in search results, making it stand out visually. Customers click the coupon to apply a discount (either a percentage or fixed amount off the price). The green badge catches attention and can significantly increase click-through rates.
The cost includes the discount itself (which you fund) plus a £0.60 redemption fee per coupon used. So if 100 customers use your £2 coupon, you are paying £200 in discounts plus £60 in fees — £260 total. You need to determine whether the additional sales volume justifies this cost.
Coupons work best for products that are already competitive on price and benefit from the visual standout in search results. For products with tight margins, the combination of the discount and the per-use fee may not be sustainable.
Lightning Deals
Lightning Deals are time-limited promotions (usually 4–12 hours) that appear on the Amazon Deals page. They create urgency through a progress bar showing how much of the deal has been claimed. Amazon charges a fee to run a Lightning Deal — typically £70–£150 depending on the time period and category.
Lightning Deals can generate a significant spike in sales volume during the promotion period. The increased velocity can improve your BSR and organic ranking, producing a lasting benefit beyond the deal itself. However, you need enough inventory and margins to absorb both the deal fee and the discounted pricing.
Best Deals
Best Deals (also called 7-Day Deals) run for a week and appear on the Deals page with a "Deal" badge. They require a smaller discount than Lightning Deals but run for longer. The fee structure varies.
Do They Work?
Promotions can work well in specific situations: launching a new product where sales velocity matters more than immediate profit, clearing slow-moving inventory before storage fees increase, capitalising on peak shopping periods (Prime Day, Black Friday), and building BSR momentum in competitive categories.
They work less well when margins are already tight (the discount pushes you into a loss), when the product does not have enough reviews or listing quality to convert the extra traffic, or when used too frequently (customers start waiting for promotions instead of buying at full price).
Strategic Use
Treat promotions as tactical tools, not permanent strategies. A Lightning Deal before Christmas to boost visibility during peak season makes strategic sense. Running coupons permanently to try to compensate for a poorly optimised listing does not.
Always calculate the total cost including the discount, fees, and reduced margin — then compare against the expected increase in sales and any lasting benefits like improved ranking. If the numbers work, promotions are a valuable addition to your toolkit.