How to Prepare for Shark Tank or Oprah’s Favorite Things on Amazon

Your brand has just achieved Shark Tank or Oprah’s Favorite Things status, and you feel like the chosen one. Well done! Once you pat yourself on the back, your very next step needs to be launching or optimizing your presence on Amazon. The goal: Use this time-sensitive media exposure to catapult your brand and maximize product sales.

Let’s break down your best strategy for leveraging this new VIP status on Amazon. There are 2 types of Shark Tank and Oprah’s Favorite Things brands in your predicament:

1. The Prepared – Established Amazon sellers who need to optimize their Amazon brand presence

2. The Surprised – Sellers who need to both set up an Amazon account and optimize their listings

Needless to say, the Surprised are a bit behind the 8-ball—but don’t be discouraged! Know that all similarly selected sellers are dealing with the same media time constraints. Unfortunately for all, Amazon does not offer time-sensitive B2B support.

If you are not an established Amazon seller, run don’t walk to an agency like Lean Edge for fast and smooth setup of your Amazon brand on the mega marketplace. Accept the challenge of opening your Seller Account, enrolling in Brand Registry, listing your catalog, building content and garnering early reviews. It’ll seem overwhelming, but with expert help you’ll get the job done swiftly.  

For Amazon sellers who are established, don’t rest on your laurels. You’ll need to prepare for the (hopeful) onslaught of new sales by stockpiling inventory, which is never easy on Amazon. Also use this time to improve your creative assets on Amazon. Your goal is to captivate new buyers with a better branded experience once they arrive on your product pages. Plant a stake hold in your niche market now, so the coming media spike maximizes your brand exposure and sales. This entails a creative team and advanced planning.

For both, maximizing your timing of sales on Amazon requires your brand to be on-point. Best SEO and Visually Optimized Content, Advertising, Reviews, A+ Content, Brand Stores and Amazon Posts should be standing by. If you aren’t ready, you’ll squander added promotional opportunities that Amazon can offer your brand—like social media placements, buying guides, influencer marketing, etc.

Fortify Your Inventory for Media Appearances

Capitalize on this promotional crunch time by stockpiling inventory in advance. Typically, brands like yours sell 300-6,000 units of their featured products during this period. If done right, you’ll also see increased sales throughout your entire product catalog (win-win!). First, you need to have the inventory in stock.

Lean Edge recommends the following plan of action:

• Have enough Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) inventory in stock.

• Have Fulfilled by Merchant (FBM) as a backup if that runs out.

• Keep extra staff on hand for FBM orders to avoid late shipping penalties.

Having enough stock is the most critical way to capitilize on these appearances

Most brands who come to us are not prepared to meet this demand surge. Featured Brands run out of stock quickly, losing long term sales volume and brand exposure. Featured Brands who meet this sales surge, experience a satisfying lift in organic rank and are better positioned for increased long-term sales.

Special note for Shark Tank candidates: Sales levels depend on how the media personality reacts to your products. Clearly, products that the Sharks respond to positively, or invest in, see a greater sales lift than products they respond to negatively.

Know Their Timelines

Both Shark Tank and Oprah’s Favorite Things are ruled by media giants unaffiliated with Amazon. They live by their own production schedules. Since they aren’t concerned about your business timeline, you need to know theirs.

• Oprah’s Favorite Things:
  Brand selection process usually occurs in the summer with Oprah Winfrey’s list published in early November. That’s a short timespan to stock your Amazon inventory. It’s even more challenging, because it overlaps with Amazon’s peak season. At the holidays, Amazon Fulfillment Centers place tight restrictions on inventory levels and inbound receiving processes are at their slowest. Be savvy with your planning.

• Shark Tank:
  After filming your pitch, you’re not guaranteed an on-air appearance. If you do get one (great job!), you’ll be given 3 weeks notice. This means you’ll be gambling with timing and cost of inventory. Make a misstep risks higher storage fees and negative inventory metrics from Amazon. While there’s no surefire way to navigate this, we recommend having a 3PL (3rd Party Logistics) warehouse on standby in case of FBM order surge.

Lucky brands, might also get featured a second or third time. This could come in the form of a rerun, follow-up story or repurposed content from the Media Outlet. Once you are notified of this, you will want to once again increase your inventory and update your content.

[On March 1, 2023 Amazon introduced Capacity Limits to give you a certain volume of FBA space for the next month with a loose estimate of future FBA space. You can then “bid” for additional storage space if you are expecting a jump in sales volume.]

Hello, Amazon Support?

Amazon is not directly linked with Oprah’s Favorite Things or Shark Tank, but it does have a few marketing tools on hand for those who are in the know.

First, (if you are a new Seller or lucky enough to have one) your Amazon Account Manager is a great resource. Tell them about your status and timeline; ask questions. Amazon will love your future surge in sales, but it won’t grant you exceptions to inventory limits, IPI scores or last-minute Account Health issues. Be aware that at any time before, during or after your Shark Tank or Oprah launch, even established sellers can be surprised by listing suppressions, claims flagged or a need to explain Hazmat or ingredient issues to list products. All of which can take several days to months to resolve. Work with your assigned Amazon Account Manager and 3rd Party Agency to get ahead of red flags.

On Amazon there is a Shark Tank Category managed by Amazon Launchpad.

After your air date, you can apply to have your products added to this category if a Shark has invested in your product.

Inclusion in promotions will not grant you automatic admission to Amazon Launchpad.

The system is so large that the individuals you work with will have limited influence over addressing the pain points that arise because of the unknowns and short timing.

Amazon has also provided some brands featured in Oprah’s Favorite Things to have limited-time Account Support. The primary role that this support provides is to make sure your products are listed and active by the time the list is published. They often have a feature page dedicated to Oprah’s Favorite Things List. Do not expect full service support or have the expectation that just relying on this will help you realize full sales potential.

Preparing for Shark Tank or Oprah’s Favorite Things

In addition to preparing inventory and listing optimization (pre and post appearance), we suggest you:

1. Update your content and ads to reflect your appearance. Mention “As Seen On” in your images, title, bullets, A+ Content and ads.

2. Have retargeting enabled in your advertising. Then collect Amazon Store followers, so you can retarget them with email campaigns on Amazon.

3. Enroll products with fewer than 30 reviews in the VINE program. Amass customer reviews to buffer your brand from any potential negative ones.

4. Have a watch/appearance party on all social media and Amazon Live.

5. If your product is a consumable, make sure it’s enrolled in Subscribe and Save.

6. Leverage a third party review software to build your reviews after the sales surge (Feedback Whiz, Feedback Genius or Feedback Five). Be aware that some reviews might be negative because the customer base might not truly reflect your true customer base or your product might have been slightly misrepresented in the feature.

7. Apply to be listed in the Shark Tank Category / Browse Node after appearance.

We have a few more specific strategies, depending on the type and size of brand. Reach out to Lean Edge Marketing with questions or for assistance.