Amazon PD order volume exceeded expectations! Many sellers increased fivefold

Amazon Prime Day will be held in 25 countries around the world from July 11 to 12. Currently, Prime Day has landed on various sites one after another, and the sales performance in different markets varies greatly.

Judging from the current situation, the US site has come from behind and is performing amazingly, with doubling of orders being common, and some accounts' orders increasing by 4-5 times. Sellers are overjoyed and call it "unexpected"; the European site's performance is poor, even worse than usual; the Japanese site has seen a small surge in orders, but overall it may not be as good as last year.

There were many unexpected problems in this promotion , including abnormal login of auxiliary browsers, crash of Amazon pages, the reported flash sales were displayed in the background but not displayed in the foreground, and the reported flash sales were suppressed by member-exclusive discounts and were not displayed... It was a real-life version of "Startling by Each Step".

At the same time, due to factors such as Temu and other platforms grabbing orders, promotional price wars for many products on Amazon have started again. A treadmill can even be bought for less than $3, and there are products with promotional strength exceeding 90%. Sellers have made different choices to boost performance or protect profits.

The results of the multi-site battle are released, and PD performance far exceeds expectations

The evening of July 10th was the eve of Membership Day, and some sellers were already on duty at the company, vowing to fire the first shot of the peak season. Yesterday, an operator came to the company early in the morning and saw Damai and Wangwang at his workstation. The company was playing "Good Luck Comes", and the atmosphere of the big promotion was full. Some companies also hung up posters for explosive sales and held a grand "prayer ceremony", hoping to go all out to PD for explosive sales.

(Photo source: Amazon)

Member Day is an annual event, and most sellers will participate, but the specific degree of participation varies. A senior seller said that he did not have high expectations for this year's Member Day, so he did not report many deals, and only gave member discounts to several major products and slow-moving products.

Sellers set different goals for this promotion: some aim to maintain profits, some hope to survive and keep their positions by advertising; some hope to take advantage of this favorable situation to rush down the product rankings, and some aim to clear inventory:

"Others are booming with orders, but my theme is to clear stocks."
"I signed up for everything over 10 euros. I don't want to settle the bill. I just want to have fun."
"This year's membership day goal is to sell 1 million US dollars and make a profit of 200,000 US dollars."
"I'm a wheat guy. In previous years, I watched the big guys show off their achievements. This year, I prepared a lot of goods, and I hope I can have a small explosion."
"The goal is to triple sales, so we've launched the latest ad matching model and are ready to go."

So how has the sales performance of each site been so far?

US Station: Sales volume is unexpected

Yesterday at 3 pm, the Amazon promotion started, and soon the page reported an error, indicating that it encountered an unexpectedly large amount of traffic. This morning, I checked the order volume, and many sellers said that the performance was unexpected, and today's performance was particularly good. It is very common for orders to double, and sellers have increased by 2-3 times at least, 5-6 times at most, and even 8 times.

"The US is very strong, we have almost 400 orders, and even the clothing category is currently only 10,000 orders."

"I opened it at 9am on July 12 and saw that it was double what it usually is. I'm very satisfied. I hope it can triple by the end of the day."

“It’s almost five to six times more.”

"It's a big hit, the advertising costs are not as much as expected, so far the PD is still pretty good."

"I finished the same amount of orders as I used to do in a day in one night. It was great. I worked overtime to meet the budget late at night."

One seller said that the order volume has more than doubled, and there are no discounts. He did not participate in the crossed-out prices, and the profit was off the charts. Many sellers said frankly that the current performance was unexpected, and today was particularly good, which was a pleasant surprise.

"It feels like Amazon spent a lot of money on this membership day in order to compete with Temu. In the past, sales basically tripled, but this year's sales are already quadruple as much as yesterday, and many big guys have already increased their sales by 5-6 times," said a seller.

European Grand Prix: Poor performance

The European site promotion started the earliest, but the performance was much worse. Sellers said that the sales volume in the European site did not increase significantly, and was even lower than usual:

"Europe's orders are sparse, not as good as usual."

"We haven't received two orders yet, but usually we get several orders at this time of year."

"I thought PD would be able to check the stock, but it feels even cooler than usual. "

“European standard products, basically no reaction.”

For the sellers on this site, this big promotion seems discouraging, and it is unclear whether there will be a rebound in the future.

Japan: Not as good as last year

One seller analyzed that this year's Member Day, the US site was OK, the European site was mediocre, and the Japanese site was not as good as last year. "If compared with other sites, the Japanese site is always the best, but if compared with last year, the Japanese site is relatively poor this year." Some sellers had a small boom, but many sellers said that it was not satisfactory.

Price war: You can buy a treadmill for $3, Temu is here to grab the order

In previous years, in order to attract traffic, many sellers would offer large discounts and price competition was fierce, and this time is no exception.

After the European promotion started, some sellers found a large number of "philanthropists". All of them were directly discounted by 20% when they searched on the front desk. Is it true that exclusive discounts on Member Days are no longer offered by raising prices first and then setting discounts? Some sellers said that this step must be done, and many of their peers also do it: "We set it up in advance, and then raised it uniformly in the afternoon."

This year, the promotional prices in many categories are still very sincere. Sellers found that the search interface was all red, and they exclaimed "It's crazy..."

A product originally priced at $229 was offered a 48% member-only discount, meaning members could buy it at $119.08. In addition, there was a $99 coupon, meaning members could buy it for only $20, with an overall discount of more than 90%. The sellers were surprised and joked: It doesn’t matter if you make money or not, the main point is to make a sincere “friend”.

“The competition has already hit 30%, and we’re really already at a negative profit. We have no choice but to be a runner-up. ” lamented a seller.

Another screenshot went viral among sellers. The picture shows a treadmill originally priced at $279, but during the promotion, two discounts of $136.71 and $139.5 were added. In the end, the buyer only had to pay $2.97, which surprised the industry. The product is now displayed as "Currently unavailable." Another point that the industry finds strange is that the treadmill actually appears in the "skate bag" category and ranks at the top of the list, and the appearance picture in the list is also a skate bag, which is inconsistent with the actual main picture of the treadmill.

Is it possible to buy a treadmill for $3? The seller @跨跨小汪哥 analyzed the link and data and believed that the screenshot was real and that some people could indeed get the product for $3. "We checked and the Keepa curve below it showed that the link suddenly rushed to the front of the category, which means that it must have rushed to the top by super-low prices."

In addition, there are women's skirts that are directly sold for 0; which makes people exclaim: there is no curliest, only curlier!

As for the unsatisfactory order situation of some sellers, some sellers speculated that it was related to Temu’s division of the pie. “Temu usually has 600 orders, but recently it has started with 2,000 orders.” A seller pointed out that Temu’s membership day also started earlier than Amazon, and the platform offered large coupons, which will inevitably impact the sales of low-end products on Amazon.

In fact, for many people, Prime   The sales volume of the day is about twice that of the usual day, so there is no need to have too high expectations. It would be great if we can use the traffic boom to count the goods, reduce the inventory pressure, collect the money and save some storage fees. Although the profit is not much, participation is still necessary.

In the view of experienced sellers, Amazon Prime Day is now a mature regular event that hardly arouses strong emotions, and sellers no longer cram at the last minute: "Many things have become normal. If you are prepared, you are prepared. If you are not prepared, you will not be able to make miracles happen. Instead, you should do a good job of reviewing and thinking about how to fight for the peak season after PD."

A large number of sellers’ flash sales are not displayed, or they may miss the big promotions.

This membership day was not peaceful, as problems arose one after another.

Yesterday morning, the big sale just started and sellers were ready to show their skills. As a result, the login process turned on a red light. Many people reported that a commonly used browser could not log in and kept prompting network abnormalities. During the big sale, some sellers were not ready for the preparations, and other sellers also needed to check orders or adjust strategies in real time. The browser problem at this critical juncture made the sellers' blood pressure soar: "The membership day will start in a few hours, and it's really unbearable that it crashed now." Fortunately, the problem was resolved later.

Traffic during the promotion period is definitely different from that during normal days, so many sellers said they wanted to "take advantage of the popularity". "The US membership day has started, and we can also set up membership discounts for Canada and Mexico to get some traffic. Even a small amount is still meat, so don't waste it."

In terms of promotion, Deal promotions and Prime exclusive discounts are the main choices for sellers, and the coupon usage rate is also very high. However, this year some sellers did not submit any flash sales, and only set coupons for some products, knowing that they would probably be left behind; a few sellers did not even take any action, preparing to remain unchanged in the face of changes:

"This year, I only applied for BD and member-exclusive discounts, so I don't expect to have a lot of orders. "

" PD has started a war, no activities have been reported, and all advertising has been reduced. I don't know what the situation will be like. I hope it can double again. "

"I just looked at the competing products, and few of them are offering membership discounts. I won't participate."

"In the case of clearing out stock, of course you can set up discount coupons for everyone, but if you are ruthless enough, it will be more effective to just lower the price."

"If prices need to be raised, they should be raised; if coupons need to be closed, they should be closed. We are going all out!"

However, many sellers were very annoyed that they were unable to implement the promotion after signing up for it. This issue has sparked discussion on Zhiwubuyan.

A seller said: " We started signing up for the Member Day event in April , and prepared 500,000 in inventory from April to June, with a shipping cost of nearly 200,000. But when the event started on July 11 , we found that our event was displayed as ' in progress ' on the backend flash sale page , but not on the frontend. "

He urgently asked the customer service about this, and they told him that many sellers had encountered this problem, and if the flash sale failed, no flash sale fee would be charged. This left the seller speechless, " We spent 700,000 yuan on stocking, and now they just say the flash sale fee will be refunded? "

Amazon later informed us that the issue had been resolved and the system was restored, but it would still take time to appear.
 

Another problem is the suppression of flash sales and discounts. Some sellers reported that this year's LD will conflict with member-exclusive discounts, resulting in the failure of LD to run successfully. In this case, it is necessary to cancel the member-exclusive discount before LD starts to avoid LD failure.

"Although the two conflicted in the past, it was only the Prime exclusive discount that was temporarily invalidated, and the LD ran normally. After the LD ended, the exclusive discount would take effect again. But if the two are submitted together this year, it may cause the LD to be invalidated."

Similarly, for products that submit BD and member-exclusive discounts in the background at the same time, the front-end deal label and price will not be displayed, because the member-exclusive discount and the background deal will inhibit each other, resulting in non-display.

In this regard, some people suggested that if the seller has submitted LD, BD, and member-exclusive discounts in the backend, it is recommended to cancel one of them, and it will be restored after waiting. This issue has caused many sellers to complain.

Member-exclusive discounts are the first choice for many sellers. To avoid the exclusive discounts page from being overwhelmed and unable to operate after the event starts, many sellers have adjusted the event prices in advance.

According to regulations, both Prime offers (Amazon Logistics and SFP) and non-Prime offers (seller-delivered) can offer Prime-exclusive discounts. Sellers' Prime-exclusive discounts must meet all of the following conditions:

Prime-exclusive discounts must meet all regular eligibility criteria , Prime-exclusive discounts must meet all regular eligibility criteria , the product must have a star rating of at least 3.5 stars , or no star rating ; the discounted price must be at least 20% off the non-promotional price for non-Prime members , and the discount can only be a maximum of 80% off the non-promotional price for non-Prime members . The Prime-exclusive discount price must be 15% lower than the reference price (i.e., list price or original price) , etc.

In the actual sales process, sellers will also adjust promotional methods appropriately, such as adding or canceling discounts based on the results. Some sellers have pointed out that it is important to note that canceling a coupon will not take effect immediately. Buyers who have received coupons before cancellation can use these coupons to check out within about 30 minutes after cancellation. Coupons will become invalid after half an hour, so be careful to avoid overlapping with other discounts.

Another focus of this promotion is advertising performance.

Before the start of the Member Day, sellers generally complained about poor advertising conversions, with costs soaring but orders plummeting. It is likely that consumers were preparing for the big sale and looking for products of interest first. As a result, some sellers gave up additional bidding and saved their budget and bidding for the Member Day.

During Membership Day, sellers put in a lot of effort in advertising, and the advertising data naturally exploded.

Sellers increased their advertising budgets and bids to meet the increased traffic, but the advertising conversions were still not ideal, and the data once went off the charts. "The ads went off, but the orders didn't. Since early this morning, the budget for the day has been used up, but the orders haven't increased much." Another seller agreed: "Really, I tried to increase it little by little, after all, the budget has been used up, but the ads haven't brought in any orders."

Sellers complete the work of getting buyers to place orders by reporting activities and advertising promotions, and then Amazon handles the back-end delivery. However, during the Prime Day, warehouse workers in the UK and Germany are going on strike again.

Recently, the British trade union GMB stated that nearly 900 Amazon workers at the Coventry warehouse in the UK will go on a three-day strike from July 11 to 13, completely covering the Amazon Prime Day time. The strike will last for two hours in the morning and afternoon each day.

The reason is also the issue of wages. The senior organizer of GMB said that this struggle will only end with 15 pounds (19.25 US dollars) per hour and union rights. Previously, Amazon raised the minimum starting wage of employees to 11-12 pounds per hour, which is still far from the former demand.

In response, Amazon told the media that although the strike was held during Prime Day, it was not expected to affect PD delivery because the Coventry warehouse only received goods from suppliers and distributed them to other Amazon facilities. Goods that have already been put on the shelves will not be affected.

At the same time, strikes also took place at Amazon Germany, with Germany's second-largest trade union ver.di organizing strike action at 10 distribution centers.

ver.di announced that it would strike at Amazon's logistics center in Windsor from July 9 to 11, the eve of Prime Day . The union demanded that Amazon recognize the collective bargaining agreement of retailers and mail-order companies in Lower Saxony and develop a collective agreement for "good and healthy work." The strike was a response to the increased workload and forced overtime for employees during Prime Day.

According to ver.di, the company has informed workers that if they refuse to work overtime on Prime Day, the packages will be sent abroad, resulting in a significant increase in transportation distance. Germany is one of Amazon's top sites, which will inevitably reduce the user experience.

In recent years, strikes by warehouse workers during Prime Day have become a common occurrence, with the impact on Amazon's delivery business being relatively limited.

PD becomes "Christmas in July", and US retailers are scrambling to follow suit

Compared with other seasons, summer is a typical off-season for sales, with less consumer spending. However, Amazon has made use of the long off-season to create its own July holiday, and after several years of market education, it has cultivated it into the biggest discount day of the year.

Now in its ninth year, Amazon's annual Prime Day has become an iconic holiday in the lives of Americans, offering them discounts on everything from electronics to toilet paper.

Market research firm Insider Intelligence said that last year Amazon drove more than $7 billion in sales through Prime Day, and this year the retail giant is expected to surpass the previous record with sales of about $8 billion. Amazon Prime users are surging, with nearly 175 million people in the United States currently using Amazon Prime, accounting for about two-thirds of the U.S. population.

Now, major retailers have launched membership programs and discount days similar to Prime.

Walmart launched a similar event called Walmart Plus Week from July 10 to 13. The first 24 hours were exclusive to Walmart+ members, but on the second and third days of the event, anyone could enjoy the discounts.

Target calls its shopping festival Target Circle Week, which this year runs from July 9 to July 15 and is exclusive to Target Circle members. Best Buy's "Black Friday in July" promotion lasts for three days, from July 10 to July 12.

Andrew Lipsman, an analyst at Insider Intelligence, said Prime Day has become "a shopping extravaganza that now rivals Black Friday or Cyber ​​Monday."

However, while other retailers are also trying to participate in shopping activities and offering discounts to attract customers to their own e-commerce platforms, it is difficult for them to beat Amazon in this game. This is basically consistent with the feedback from cross-border sellers.

" Walmart's Member Day has been running for almost a day, and the traffic is average, with a 30% increase. Deals with gold labels may not necessarily lead to a huge increase in orders. The SKUs selected for the deal have an average of about 20 to 50 orders each. The traffic should have been dispersed to various platforms. " said a seller.