Prime Day flopped? Sellers: The entire company didn’t make a single order

Prime Day officially begins today, and Amazon has sent out a sales boosting message in advance, wishing sellers a huge sales boost. However, the actual situation this year may not be as good as expected, with one seller saying: "Our European site definitely reported a fake Prime Day, and the entire company did not receive a single order."

Big sales on European and Japanese sites started, sellers: It's so quiet this year

Before Prime Day every year , sellers would make a "sales explosion charm" by hand, and sincerely wish for big sales. This year, Amazon thoughtfully updated the PD image materials for sellers, and simply and crudely wished sellers "prosperity! Uninterrupted sales! No negative reviews! Big sales!" It can be said that it understands everyone's thoughts very well.

Some sellers have carefully summarized the Beijing time when Prime Day starts on each site :

Japan Station: Starts at 11:00 PM Beijing Time on June 20

European Station: Start at 7:00 am on June 21st, Beijing time

US Station: Starts at 3:00 PM on June 21, Beijing Time

However, judging from the order situation on the Japanese and European sites that have already started, this year's promotion is not optimistic.

At present, it is rare to see sellers posting news of explosive sales, but many people are complaining:

——The worries of doing outdoor activities in the UK station seem to be not making much progress

——Our company’s European site definitely reported a fake membership day. The entire company did not place a single order.

——This year is so quiet

——It’s really less than usual

——The market is in a state of poverty, and it depends on the results of this year’s inventory clearance.

——It feels cool, nothing happens.

Many sellers reported that they may have participated in a fake membership day. Since the membership day, ACOS has only increased and not decreased. "Can ACOS 500% be trusted? The orders did not explode at all, but the ads exploded first. I hope it was because the items were added to the shopping cart..." a seller sighed. Some sellers even said that they suspected that it was not a flash sale, but a charity sale, and they would not sell at a loss.

In fact, before the PD started, sellers had already adjusted their links to welcome the big promotion. Compared with the ambition to make a fortune in previous years, some sellers' goals this year are a bit humble, and they just hope to clear the inventory with a large number of orders. But it seems difficult to realize this wish at present.

Some other sellers who have a pessimistic view of the recent situation are relatively calm: "I am not excited anymore. The popular items have always been popular, and the unpopular items have always been unpopular. The next step is to clear out the unpopular items and make room for the popular items."

Compared with the embarrassing situation at the Japanese and European sites, orders at the American site, which was supposed to start PD at 3 pm , began to increase.

One seller was very puzzled: "PD will start in a few hours, why are Americans still buying at this time? Isn't it good to buy at a discounted price, or will it take a few days to receive the goods if you place an order a few hours later?" There were more than one similar feedbacks. Another seller also said that he really didn't understand. The sales volume was almost twice the usual level before the big promotion started.

These lucky sellers were forced to happily experience the joy of booming orders in advance. While sales on the site were not very good in the morning, the big promotion on the US site gave many sellers high hopes.

Membership Day is a top priority of the year, and many companies will arrange for someone to look after it all night. An operator said that the company will work overtime until 9 o'clock today , and at least one person will be arranged to work all night for each account. Many Amazon sellers' offices will be brightly lit tonight.

Product discounts are huge, and a wave of suicidal price cuts is coming

In order to get a lot of orders during the PD promotion, some sellers are willing to spend a lot of money to offer big discounts! Looking through foreign media, it was found that some products of PD had early promotions a few days ago, and many products offered 20-40% discounts, and some products even offered 60% discounts.

Among the early promotional products, the editor saw Anker's products. Anker's eufy sweeping robot offered a 40% discount.

For these discounted products, the early promotions may not be the lowest prices, and some products even indicate that PD will offer lower prices on the same day.

Behind these low-priced products are Amazon sellers who are looking forward to a surge in orders. They hope to win by price and began to significantly lower prices some time before PD.

One seller said that a competitor reduced the price from 13.99 to 4.8, but the order volume did not increase and the GMV was halved. This behavior was jokingly called "suicidal price reduction" by industry insiders. Simply reducing prices to try to squeeze out competitors is not necessarily effective. Instead, while hurting peers, you also suffer heavy losses, and in the end it benefits European and American consumers.

In fact, many sellers have been engaged in price wars this year, and many categories on Amazon have fallen. Among them, several categories have seen the most serious price cuts due to big sales. This phenomenon does not only occur before the PD promotion.

However, "suicidal price cuts" may eventually hurt themselves. According to industry sources, Amazon may mark some products that cannot be sold. Some links with poor data are marked as no future, and most of these products are low-priced or super low-quality.

As an Amazon seller, if you sell products at super low prices and your data is still poor, then this connection is definitely hopeless. Amazon's data is the most authentic feedback.

All profits are gone, some sellers are unable to offer PD discounts

The sellers who cut prices are partly to outperform their competitors and partly to clear out excess inventory. Those with inventory have been making a fuss, while those without inventory have been pretending to be calm.

Before PD, due to inventory restrictions, logistics and other reasons, many sellers did not have inventory. When facing a big promotion, they could only wait for others to make a big order. Due to the shortage of inventory and meager profits, some sellers would not offer large discounts.

Keababies sells baby care and maternity products on Amazon.com . Its co-founder Ivan Ong said Keababies sold about $500,000 during a two-day PD event last October . Attracted by Keababies' deep discounts, Amazon buyers snapped up bibs, baby combs, pillows, baby carriers and diaper changing mats.

But this year, Keababies can’t offer as many discounts . The company is facing inventory shortages, and manufacturing and supply chain costs are soaring , so deep discounts like last year won’t happen.

“I don’t have enough profit margin to do PD promotions, and the container price of imported products has increased by about 2 times,” said Ong .

Without major promotions, Ong expects sales this year to lag behind last year’s . Discounts are a key factor in driving Prime Day sales, in part because they help sellers boost their Amazon store rankings or appear on special deals pages on the site, which can drive traffic.

Amazon, whose third-party sales have grown to nearly 60% of the company’s total retail sales, has stressed that sellers should expect to see benefits from PD . But some sellers , such as Keababies, expect they will struggle during the event.

At the same time, Walmart and Wayfai will also enter the market during the PD promotion to compete with Amazon.

Wayfair’s June clearance event runs until June 23, with discounts of up to 60% on indoor and outdoor furniture. Walmart’s Deals for Days promotion lasts for four days, during which buyers can enjoy Black Friday-level discounts.

During this year's PD, the sales of Amazon's competitors should not be underestimated .

Prime Day, Amazon, Orders