Carrie Miller’s take on the Serious Sellers Podcast really reframes the goal of Prime Day. She makes the point that Prime Exclusive Discounts are not just for your hero products, but are an incredible opportunity to sell through excess inventory on high-traffic days. It’s a strategic tool for clearing out older products you have too much of, letting you recoup cash and improve your overall cash flow.
Her thinking pushes back against the idea that Prime Day is only about maximizing sales on your bestsellers. The real opportunity for some brands is a massive, captive audience you can use for cleanup. When you run a Prime Exclusive Discount, your product gets a red deal badge in search results and on the product detail page. This makes your listing stand out and gives it a huge visibility boost. For a product that’s been sitting, this sudden attention can be exactly what it needs to finally start moving. You’re leveraging Amazon’s own marketing machine to solve your inventory problem.
This is especially powerful if you’re using Amazon Warehousing & Distribution (AWD). As Carrie noted, if you use AWD for your upstream inventory storage, Amazon effectively considers you “in stock” even if the units aren’t in the primary fulfillment center yet. This is a critical safety net. It means you can run an aggressive discount on old inventory without the fear of stocking out and hurting your sales velocity or account health. You can let the sales run and trust that Amazon’s logistics will keep up.
Josh Hadley, speaking on a later episode of the same show, really drove this home with a personal story. He talked about the “monstrous” amount of profit his business was losing to aged inventory surcharges. For him, using Prime Day events to clear out that inventory was a massive financial win. It wasn’t just about the revenue from the sales, but the money saved on escalating storage fees. It shows that the discount you offer is often much less than the fees you’d pay over the next several months.
Chelsea Cohen on The Seller's Edge calls this "inventory-minded marketing.” It’s about aligning your promotional calendar with your inventory levels. Prime Day preparation becomes less about a pure sales push and more about a strategic rebalancing of your stock. Using AWD is your strategic backup plan, ensuring the fulfillment side can handle the demand your marketing creates. This way, you’re not just chasing volume; you’re making a smart financial decision to turn a potential liability back into cash.
