Amazon is launching another Prime promotion to save sales. Sellers: Thanks for the invitation, but it’s not necessary…

Not long ago, NDR (Ned Davis Research), a well-known American investment research institution , said that the possibility of a global economic recession has risen to 98%, and the continued aggressive interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve and European central banks have triggered "serious" recession signals.

Inflation remains high. Consumer spending of Europeans and Americans has been compressed, consumer demand has declined, and retail giants are offering more frequent promotions and bigger discounts than ever before to clear inventories and stimulate performance growth.

To stimulate consumption, Amazon launches Prime Day 2.0

On September 26th local time , Amazon announced on its official website that it will hold the first Amazon Prime Early Access Sale on October 11th , which also marks the beginning of Amazon's holiday season.

It is understood that the event will be held from October 11th to 12th and last for 48 hours. A total of 15 countries /regions will participate in the Prime Early Access Sale , including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and Austria .

Amazon said that this is a new global shopping event for Prime members. While giving Prime members the opportunity to enjoy great holiday shopping season deals early, it will also open up new growth opportunities for sellers.

This new "48-hour event" will offer Amazon Prime members hundreds of thousands of deals in categories including electronics, fashion, home, kitchen, pets, toys and Amazon devices.

As part of the new event, Amazon will launch a new top 100 sales list, including some of the most popular products of the season . The specific list will be announced on the event day, October 11.

Currently, Amazon has reminded Prime members to pay attention to setting up personalized transaction notifications and creating shopping lists in advance to prepare for the early experience of discounts. Once the Prime Early Access Sale begins, members will receive push notifications about any available deals.

In addition to this event, Amazon also said that the holiday season has begun and Prime members can find holiday gift inspiration through gift guides, which include hot products in the toys and home categories .

When asked whether "Prime Early Access Day" would become an annual event like "Prime Day" , Amazon did not respond directly , but only said that "this year's new event is very special for members and the company will do its best to make it a success."

In fact , this "Prime Early Day" coincides with the quietest time of the year for the retail industry, between the back-to-school season and the November holiday shopping season . The e-commerce industry has been hit repeatedly this year , and its performance has been generally negative compared to the past .

It is worth noting that Target , another US retail giant , also announced last week that it would advance holiday sales and hold holiday promotion Deal Days from October 6 to 10. Meanwhile, Walmart also moved its holiday return window forward to October. It can be seen that US retail companies have already started the battle for the peak season.

Amazon is coming up with new tricks amid weak performance growth

As we all know, since the beginning of this year, the growth rate and speed of the global e-commerce market have been severely dragged down by factors such as supply crisis and intensified inflation, and e-commerce retail giant Amazon has also been severely affected.

eMarket data predicts that although Amazon will continue to dominate the US e-commerce market in 2022, its market share will decline from 38% in 2021 to 37.8% , which is also its first decline in the United States. Its data also pointed out that Amazon 's US e-commerce gross merchandise value ( GMV) will hit a record low in 2022 .

In addition, as retail giants such as Walmart intensify their competition and new e-commerce platforms are launched one after another, it is conceivable that Amazon's survival pressure has soared.

Since the beginning of this year, the e-commerce market has slowed down across the board. Amazon's first and second quarter financial reports both announced its loss situation. The first quarter of fiscal year 2022 was its first loss in nearly seven years , and it did not turn a profit until the second quarter. Based on this, in order to control losses, Amazon has laid off tens of thousands of employees this year, stopped site expansion plans, and shelved the construction of storage facilities.

Not only that, Amazon also makes a big fuss about sellers and buyers.

In August, in order to ease the pressure of operating costs, Amazon announced that it would charge third-party sellers using Amazon Logistics ( FBA) additional logistics service fees of varying degrees from October 15 to January 14 of the following year , depending on the size, category, weight, etc. of the product .

In September, in order to stimulate buyers to consume, Amazon announced a new interest-free installment payment method - "Amazon   Layaway allows buyers to pay for goods over five months with no additional fees or credit checks.

However, this behavior of stimulating consumption has not been recognized. Many sellers believe that this has provided a new idea for freeloaders.

Another Amazon promotion? Sellers: No way.

Since its first launch in 2015, "Prime Day" has become one of Amazon's most important annual promotions.

In June and July of this year , before the much-anticipated Amazon Prime Day, many sellers were worried that Amazon Prime Day would be diverted because Walmart and Target held similar promotional events - " Walmart Plus Weekend " and "Target Deal Days" respectively . However , judging from the final battle report, this year's Member Day event performed better than before, both in terms of sales volume and sales volume, far exceeding any previous years .

During the Prime Day promotion in July this year , Amazon sold more than 300 million items, up from about 250 million in 2021. Amazon once again broke the sales record for Prime Day events , with total sales of up to US$1.7 billion.

Despite this, many sellers have told Ennet that these impressive figures were contributed by their "charitable" behavior .

Sellers said that in order to stimulate sales and increase sales, Amazon's discount requirements for products participating in Prime Day this year reached an unprecedented level. Participation in the event did stimulate sales, but it was also a fact that they lost all their money. With the general increase in raw material costs and transportation costs, the cost of the product itself has risen, and Amazon has also severely reduced discounts. As a result, sellers said: basically they are losing money to gain publicity .

Based on this, sellers expressed their “decline” for Amazon’s second big promotion this year .

A logistics service provider told Ennet that in previous years, the international logistics peak season started in August and September, and shipping costs also skyrocketed . It was no problem to ship 10-15 containers a week, but this year it was difficult to ship 3-5 containers during the same period, and the company even had to cut its European department .

A seller launched a poll on Weibo asking “Is Amazon’s peak season coming?” Nearly half of the sellers said “I don’t feel anything, it’s just average” and “What the hell is a peak season?” Other sellers self-deprecatingly said “I feel it, it’s about the same as expected” and “It’s far beyond expectations.”

Based on this, it can be seen that the entire cross-border industry no longer has much expectations for this year's European and American holiday peak season, and the peak period of order growth in previous years does not seem to have created a boom this year.

Although many sellers are not optimistic about Amazon's big promotion, there are still sellers who think they can look forward to it optimistically, saying that "any opportunity to clear inventory cannot be missed . "

The event has not started yet, so it is still unknown whether this autumn promotion will bring positive and optimistic news to Amazon and sellers. If it can stimulate consumption, everyone will be happy. If the response is mediocre, it seems to be expected. However, the specific performance can only be judged after the end of the event .

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