advent calendars
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Can you think of a better way to build up excitement for Christmas than an advent calendar brimming with fun activities, riddles, and jokes?

Yeah. Neither can we.

But if you’re an Amazon KDP seller looking to cash in on this niche, understanding its performance on the platform is crucial.

That’s why in this article, we offer insights into the advent calendar niche and reveal the most attractive themes to target.

What are advent calendars on Amazon KDP?

Before we get to the meat and potatoes, it’s essential to explain what advent calendars are on Amazon KDP.

In the physical world, advent calendars contain small gifts, chocolates, or other thematic items for each day leading up to Christmas. On Amazon KDP, advent calendars are digital or printable products.

Created for December, each day of the calendar can contain different content, such as:

  • Riddles
  • Jokes
  • Stories
  • Poems
  • Activities
  • Challenges
  • Educational content
  • Quotes

The main idea behind these products is to provide engaging content in digital form for advent calendar enthusiasts.

But how big is the niche on the Amazon KDP?

The size of the advent calendar market on Amazon KDP

At first glance, the advent calendar niche is substantial.

According to Book Bolt, the top five sellers have combined sales of over 2,366. In addition, the average BSR of listings ranking for “advent calendars” is an extremely low 152,447. This suggests a significant sales potential.

However, BSR and sales data can be superficial.

To find out more about this Amazon KDP segment, we explore additional factors and metrics. These include keyword search volumes, keyword saturation, and pricing.

Keyword search volume

A look into the top searched-for keywords provides essential insights for two reasons.

First, this data can guide you in creating your advent calendar and optimizing your listing for popular themes. Second, it demonstrates how many buyers search for specific products every month.

More experienced sellers can even make forecasts about traffic and sales from this information.

Here are the niche phrases that generate the highest search volumes:

  • “Advent” – 2,624,299
  • “Advent calendars” – 2,621,666
  • “Advent calendar” – 2,579,687
  • “Christmas advent” – 1,787
  • “Advent book” – 1,425
  • “Advent children” – 1,033
  • “Calendar advent” – 601
  • “Advent books” – 538

We can extract several insights from this list.

For starters, the search volume for “advent” significantly surpasses many other Amazon KDP niches.

In addition, the search query “advent calendar” and its plural form is also incredibly popular with a combined search volume of over five million searches. This is a clear signal that the segment is worth exploring.

As we look further down the list, we see that there is also interest in children’s advent calendars.

But are sellers incorporating these keywords for optimization purposes?

Let’s find out.

Keyword saturation

Keyword saturation is the number of times certain keywords are used in listing titles.

Using Book Bolt, we discovered the following:

  • Main event: Christmas (395), advent (350), day (118), holiday (81), countdown (78), December (60), season (59), activity (47), festive (46), Santa (27)
  • Type of no/low-content book: calendar (282), book (213), coloring (105), puzzles (55)
  • Purpose of product: gift (106)
  • Styles and themes: fun (67), sex (62), naughty (46)
  • Main audience: kids (63), adults (59), family (42), children (32), couples (31), child (24)
  • Product interior: games (35), search, (35), activities (34), color (32), puzzle (31)

Unsurprisingly, Christmas is the most frequently employed keyword.

But there’s more.

While the majority of listings in this space are positioned in the calendar category, some sellers market their products as books, coloring books, and puzzles.

Another expected conclusion is that they are primarily purchased as gifts rather than for self-use.

Popular audiences include couples and children, where dominating adjectives include “fun” and “naughty”.

What’s peculiar about this niche is that “sex” appears in the list of trending keywords. This matches the earlier discovery we made that couples are a wave-creating audience.

On the other hand, children’s advent calendars are mostly no- and low-content books that offer games, searches, activities, coloring shapes, and puzzles.

The top advent calendar themes to target

From the above findings, we can conclude that two themes stand out from the crowd:

  • Sex advent calendars for couples
  • Children’s advent calendars

Both of these sub-niches are wrapped around the core theme of Christmas.

From a seller’s perspective, this means offering items that combine festive elements and keywords (like Santa, snowmen, snowflakes, and reindeer) with audience-related components (a target group like children or couples).

Pricing

If you’re considering penetrating this Amazon KDP category, you’ll need a bulletproof pricing strategy.

To achieve this, it’s key to examine how other sellers are positioning their listings on the price spectrum.

The lowest, highest, and average prices in this niche are:

  • Lowest price: $4.93
  • Highest price: $28.94
  • Average price: $9.58

Using these numbers, you can project your royalties per sale. You can also determine if advent calendars are a domain worth your time and effort.

What are some of the best-selling merchants doing right?

Now, it’s time to analyze what raw data looks like in practice.

Using Book Bolt’s features, we dissected two top-performing listings in the advent calendar space:

Seller 1

  • Title: My First Advent Calendar | High Contrast Baby Book for Newborns | 0-12 Months: Simple Black and White Images to Develop Babies Eyesight | Infants Visual Stimulation
  • Author: Millie Marys
  • Price: $6.49
  • BSR: 49,357
  • Total sales: 276

Seller 2

  • Title: Advent Calendar Riddles and Games: A family advent calendar, suitable for both children and adults | A gift book for the run up to Christmas packed … A fun-filled and original gift for December!
  • Author: Editions AvaJohnson
  • Price: $9.89
  • BSR: 40,273
  • Total sales: 292

Here are the core conclusions about these sellers’ strategies.

Keyword usage

Seller One’s exclusive focus is on visually stimulating advent calendars for infants. This is made clear through the use of keywords like “newborns” and “infants”.

This resonates with our earlier revelation that children are the audience that dominates in this market. At the same time, it’s a novel approach as most sellers target more mature kids.

The title is further enhanced for keywords that represent a particular age group (0-12 months, baby), visual aspects (high contrast, white images), and categories (calendar, book).

Seller Two, on the other hand, targets a wider audience. The title features words like “family”, “adults”, and “children”, making this item suitable for everyone.

Other highly searched-for keywords present in this title include “Christmas”, “December”, and “gift”.

The diversity in both titles guarantees higher visibility on Amazon and more traffic.

Pricing

While there are similarities in the two listings’ keyword use, the sellers’ approach to pricing is entirely different.

Seller One’s listing is priced at $6.49 (significantly lower than the average in the market), while Seller Two sells for $10.99 (higher than the medium).

We explore the profitability of both strategies in more detail below.

Cover design

The first listing’s cover design features a typical Christmas theme with red, green, and white colors. It successfully caters to parents of infants with a child-friendly design.

The second listing, in contrast, relies on bold colors to grab the attention of the target audience.

With a black background and yellow text, the design showcases a Christmas tree, presents, and some question marks indicating that the book contains riddles and games.

Interesting to note is that both calendars share a square trim size, which fits well within this category.

What is the profitability of this niche?

As we delve into the profitability of the advent calendar niche, our next step involves using the Amazon KDP royalties calculator.

Based on the tool’s calculations, here are the financial rewards of the two bestsellers:

Seller 1

  • Price: $6.49
  • Total sales: 276
  • Royalties: $1.59
  • Profitability: $737.76

Seller 2

  • Price: $10.99
  • Total sales: 292
  • Royalties: $3.75
  • Profitability: $2,148.75

Right off the bat, we can see a dramatic difference in revenue. Whereas Seller One’s royalties are $1.59, Seller Two is making $3.75 per book sold.

This means that pricing just above the average within this niche is a more strategic approach. It can lead to an impressive profitability of over $2,000 for well-optimized listings.

Our recommendations

Based on the insights we gathered from our research, we offer a few practical and valuable tips and tricks.

By implementing these best practices into your sales strategy, you can gain a competitive edge in the advent calendar market.

Keywords

Choose high-search-volume, low-competition keywords related to advent calendars.

At the same time, remember that simply using the keyword “advent calendar” won’t be enough. Include words related to your target audience, theme, content, and design.

Price

We highly recommend selling your advent calendars at a price that is slightly above the market average.

This will enable you to enjoy higher returns per sale and bring in a more fruitful monthly revenue.

However, keep in mind that if you’re a new entrant or beginner on Amazon KDP, it may be better to price your advent calendars below the average. This will help you quickly attract attention through affordability.

Cover design

In terms of design, we advise choosing a square cover.

Regardless of whether you’re targeting children or adults, make sure that the design fully matches the audience’s expectations.

Incorporate theme-related elements and components, like colors, shapes, figures, and fonts.

Final remarks

With the ability to earn over $2,000 in the advent calendar niche, it’s safe to say this niche is lucrative for most sellers.

Although a seasonal opportunity, advent calendars can transform your performance on Amazon KDP.

To achieve this, it’s crucial to evaluate, plan, and prepare in advance. With Book Bolt’s diverse functionalities, you can make all the right choices and skyrocket your sales.

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