PD sales boom! A large number of sellers have increased their sales tenfold

"Did you have a huge order during Member Day?"

This sentence can be said to be the most common sentence said by Amazon sellers in recent days. 2024 is the tenth year of Amazon Prime Day . Regardless of whether they participate or not, new and old sellers are almost paying attention to every move of the promotion .

Like previous years, the status of this Membership Day can be summarized as follows: complaints and expectations fly together, sales soar and plummet, all kinds of surprises and accidents fly together ... As the main battlefield for cross-border sellers, the US site is the main source of sales, followed by sites such as Europe and Japan!

Unlike previous years, the overall sales volume of this Member Day hit a new high, and sellers continued to receive good news about explosive orders, but it also reached a new height. The overall prices of clothing, 3C, home furnishings and other products fell sharply, and many sellers were basically doing charity at a loss. In addition, the mentality of some sellers has changed: they still have expectations for Member Day, but their enthusiasm has declined.

Prime Day: Hot or cold?

This year, Amazon Prime Day was held as scheduled from July 16 to 17 (except for some sites). The promotion is in full swing. Many operators worked overtime until midnight last night. Although some sellers did not have to work overtime, they were too excited to sleep. They had to get up every two hours to check sales. This situation is especially applicable to novices who have just participated in Prime Day.

Explosive sales can affect mood, and some people may be happy and energetic all night; sales below expectations can also affect mood, and some people may be nervous and anxious all night.

Judging from the overall feedback from sellers, the sales on the first day of PD were not satisfactory. The order volume of many people was only slightly higher than usual. Data from Momentum Commerce, an app store for Amazon's sales partners, showed that Amazon Prime Day sales increased by about 12% year-on-year in the first 7 hours of the event.

After one night, the order volume changed from the first day's decline and began to rise. It can be clearly felt that good news about the explosion of orders continued to come today ↓↓↓

Friends generally say that this year's traffic is much better than in previous years.

Is it a hit ? I can get 5 moments ago with one swipe, so cool.

A link that is usually pretty good can probably get more than 2,000 orders today .

The traffic for this year's Member Day event was good, and sales had increased fivefold by 10 a.m.

The number of orders in a few hours is equal to the entire day’s order volume. Membership Day is amazing!

Normally we have 20 to 30 orders a day, but within three hours of membership day starting, we had over 100 orders.

This membership day exceeded expectations , with sales at 6 a.m. equal to the entire day's normal sales.

At 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon , more than 3,000 pieces of stock were sold out.

…

Screenshots from the seller group revealed by Yienjun show that many sellers have seen a sharp increase in orders, with sales increasing 5-fold, 10-fold or even higher. One seller's PD order volume exceeded 1,000 on the first day, and the PD was even more unstoppable on the second day, with sales exceeding 2,000 by 11 a.m.

One seller said in detail that he did not expect the promotion to be so effective this year. All products registered for the promotion are hot-selling. Today's sales are more than three times that of yesterday. A link that usually performs well continued to perform well today, and it seems that the inventory can't keep up .

Another seller also said that he didn't spend money on BD and LD during this Member Day, but only did Prime discounts . Some links didn't even report the event, but the platform traffic exceeded expectations, and the overall order volume was estimated to be more than three times the usual. Although this data is not as good as many peers, the product price is relatively high and the profit is acceptable. The seller is very satisfied with this result.

How to relieve worries? Only by booming sales! A large number of Amazon sellers are experiencing the joy of booming sales. However, people’s joys and sorrows are not the same . “One’s own failure is terrible, but the booming sales of peers is even more worrying.” In another corner, many sellers found that they were also the runners-up on this Member Day…

"The number of orders has only been declining for half a month, and Member's Day has merely brought things back to normal levels." A seller said that this year's sales volume is far lower than last year. Last year's sales volume was six times the usual amount, and this year it would be good to have three times the usual amount. Moreover, prices are lower this year, and profits are less.

Another seller said that the biggest goal of PD this year is to clear out the inventory without losing money. Unfortunately, today is not as good as yesterday. Everyone is getting orders, but it seems that he is the only one who is getting Acos.

In summary, almost every year some people have huge orders while others fail, and the performance of the US site is better than other sites.

"When we were prepared for the worst and faced the challenge, we found that the actual situation was even worse than we expected." Some sellers had already anticipated that sales in Europe and Japan might not be very good, but when the results were laid out, they still felt unbelievable.

Regarding the Japanese site, a seller on the Japanese site said that this year's sales are not as good as last year. It can be said that the sales volume is the same as usual . Some sellers' discounts are almost broken, and the sales volume is only 2 to 3 times the usual level. The effect is only slightly better than flash sales.

As for the European site, the big promotion started for a long time yesterday, but there has not been much news of explosive orders. However, there are many complaints. One seller said that the French site is not very good every year, and this year is particularly bad, so he does not plan to sign up tomorrow.

Profits cut in half again! This membership day is very competitive again

If you use one sentence to describe this year's Membership Day, many Amazon sellers may blurt out: This Membership Day is so exciting with just one word: “Vast!”

" Looking at the front-end prices on Member's Day this year, everyone is very competitive. Profits are cut in half again and again, and there is almost no profit margin. If there is not enough sales support, it will be a waste of time. " The seller Xiao Li (pseudonym) said that although Member's Day was also very competitive in previous years, this year's Membership Day is particularly competitive, and product prices are abnormally low. At such prices, it is only a great opportunity to clear inventory, and there are no benefits in other aspects.

Every year on Member Day, big sellers take the cake, small sellers have to wait for the spoils, and a group of innocent sellers are left behind. This year is no exception. It can be observed that big sellers of 3C, clothing and other purposes are selling goods at a discount price, and products with discounts of 30%, 40% or even higher are everywhere. For example, many Anker products have a 30% discount, and one product is directly reduced from $65.99 to ¥36.99, with a discount rate of up to 44%; many products of Shokz, a big seller of headphones, have been greatly reduced in price, with one product directly reduced by $40.

Best-selling products usually have a unique location advantage, and now with such a great price advantage, what reason do they have not to have a huge sales volume?

The price war between big sellers has reached such an extent, and the price competition between small sellers is also extremely fierce. "The price of the competitor seems to have a gross profit of only 15% on a normal day, but it can be reduced by 20% during the big sale. Such a low price promotion, isn't it a loss for charity?" The seller Xiao Wu said that he couldn't understand it.

It is understood that from June to now, the sales volume of Xiao Wu's products has been declining. If nothing unexpected happens, the number of orders will plummet after the big promotion. Xiao Wu believes that the number of orders during the membership day only makes up for the "deficit" before and after the big promotion. In the case that the overall number of orders has not increased, it is crucial to maintain profits. Price reduction promotions with only sales but no profits are meaningless. In the end, only the platform and consumers benefit, and sellers cannot get any benefits from it.

Many sellers agree with this view. An old player who has participated in many Member Days was unwilling to provide free warmth to foreign consumers, so he carefully calculated before the big promotion: "The US site gave up the expensive LD and 7DD and only participated in the member-only promotion, otherwise the promotion fee would not be earned back; a product on the Canadian site participated in 7DD, and it can barely maintain the profit..."

To make matters worse, product prices are lower than in previous years, while costs such as advertising are even higher.

Sellers have said that the cost of product advertising has been too high recently, but the effect has not been as expected, especially the clicks on new product ads, which require a very high CPC.

To encourage sellers to spend more on advertising during Prime Day, Amazon said it would temporarily adjust the increase in floating bids for "remainder of search" and "product page position" from 50% to a maximum of 100% , and then restore it to 50% after Prime Day ends.

That is to say, if the seller's basic bid is $1.00, now the bid can be raised to a maximum of $2.00 for the top ad slot on the first page of shopping search results, all other ad slots, and product page display slots. The higher the advertising cost, the higher the exposure and better position of the product. Amazon's adjustment of the advertising bidding rules is undoubtedly encouraging sellers to increase advertising investment, making this year's "traffic battle" even more intense.

Various unexpected situations such as the sudden drop in BSR link rankings have continued, which has also put a heavy pressure on the sales of some Amazon sellers...

According to feedback from many sellers, on the eve of Membership Day, they encountered the situation of "BSR links being downgraded to make way for self-operated and VC products" . Seller Xiao Zhang observed that BEST SELLER and AMAZON PICK were usually at the top of the natural position of the category's major keywords, but in recent days these links suddenly dropped out of the top and moved to the middle of the page. Multiple VC links, US local links and products from direct stores naturally moved into the upper middle of the first page or even the top three. However, these products that suddenly ranked high usually do not have high sales, which can be said to be "unworthy of the position". It is a bit unreasonable to explain this phenomenon with a system bug, because the positions of the other products that were originally ranked at the bottom are still the same as before.

A high ranking means more orders, and all parties are competing for orders. Products whose positions are squeezed out will naturally be greatly affected. "When the Member Day started, I just refreshed the BS list and found that 6 of the BS list were self-operated, which squeezed me out." A seller complained helplessly.

In this way, the already meager profits of Amazon sellers will only be "plundered" again.

Various problems occurred frequently during the Member Day, and a large number of sellers "stepped on landmines"

Member Day is the peak sales season, but it is also the time when platform bugs frequently appear. Following the "Member Day start time is displayed incorrectly" and "Prime exclusive discounts are not reported incorrectly, but the deal cannot be displayed on the front desk", a large number of sellers have found that starting from 9 o'clock today , ads suddenly cannot be accessed! As an Amazon employee who has experienced many ups and downs, seeing the platform paralyzed at a critical moment, everyone can't help but want to speak out their Chinese quintessence ...

Prime Day is the peak time for TRO /complaints , spoofs and other issues . In order to prepare for Prime Day, Amazon sellers often have to prepare a large number of goods, with hundreds or even thousands of goods in warehouses and in transit, which cannot withstand any disturbance. Some sellers may wake up several times every night to check whether the ASIN is normal and whether the account is still valid because they are too nervous.

There are many sellers who missed or almost missed the Member Day due to various circumstances!

Listings removed, accounts blocked: On the eve of Member Day, Amazon has been cleaning up the platform environment. Various account blockings such as variant illegal scanning, abuse scanning, infringement scanning, and authenticity closure have emerged one after another. Listings have also been removed in many cases. Accounts and products are gone, and the relevant sellers can only watch others' orders explode.

One seller sold over 600 units of a certain product a day and had originally hoped to make a fortune on Member Day, so he stocked up on tens of thousands of goods. However, he did not expect the main site to be blocked due to related issues and the goods could not be rescued. It became a luxury to have a surge in orders overnight, and clearing out the inventory became a top priority.

Complaints about malicious trademark registration : According to feedback from many Amazon sellers, they encountered complaints about malicious trademark registration on the eve of Member Day.

One of the sellers who was affected said that he had registered the American and European standards, which belong to Category 3, but the British standard with the same name was preempted. He tried to submit a complaint, including product purchase invoices, background screenshots of product listing time, and background screenshots of product performance that was earlier than the other party's registered trademark, but was rejected by the platform.

If you apply to the Trademark Office to invalidate the other party's trademark, it will take too long. As Member's Day is approaching, a group of sellers said they could not wait and had to contact the other party to purchase the trademark. After communication, they found that this group of people are professional in registering trademarks and thus harvesting the sellers' business. Although the sellers are well aware that the other party is blatantly "robbing money", in order not to miss Member's Day, they have to negotiate the price with the other party.

In addition, Amazon warehouse explosions, out-of-stock, shopping cart disappearances, rampant copycat sales, etc. also affected sales during the Member Day. Apart from these unexpected situations, many sellers also missed the Member Day due to their own mistakes. According to feedback, some people mistook the autumn promotion for the Member Day promotion. Seeing that others were busy with orders, only their computer page was still showing that the event was about to be launched, they once doubted their lives ...

Major platforms "besiege" Amazon! The economic slowdown has arrived

Many industry insiders said that this year's Prime Day began to show signs of weakness.

According to Adobe's forecast, Amazon's two-day (7.16-7.17) Prime Day event sales may reach approximately US$14 billion, a record high, which will increase by 10.5% compared with Prime Day sales in 2023. In addition, data from CFRA Research shows that Prime Day sales account for approximately 1% to 2% of Amazon's global net sales.

Judging from the data, Prime Day spending will hit a record high. However, several analysts said that signs of economic slowdown have emerged, and Amazon's sales growth is expected to be at least slower than last year.

Prime Day sales continued to grow this year , thanks to bigger discounts and the event being held closer to the back-to-school season .

First, the strong consumption on Member Day was driven by bigger discounts. This view comes not only from seller feedback, but also from reliable data support.

Vivek Pandya, director of digital insights at Adobe, said that retailers found from the last holiday shopping season that discounts drove sales in an environment where consumers were more cautious about spending. They used similar strategies in this event, with discounts peaking at 22% in major categories such as electronics, compared to just 14% during last year's Prime Day event; in addition, the discounts on clothing (discounts increased from 12% to 20%), home/furniture (9% to 17%), toys (12% to 15%), sporting goods (6% to 11%), and TVs (5% to 14%) also increased significantly.

The increasing discounts also indicate to some extent that American shoppers are willing to spend more during retailers' events and may be reaching a saturation point, forcing platforms to find various ways to stimulate consumer spending.

In addition, this year's Prime Day is closer to the back-to-school season, which also boosted Prime Day sales data. Because the July discounts bring consumers into the back-to-school season, and the back-to-school season slides into the ever-extending holiday promotions. It can be inferred that consumers buy back-to-school related products in advance, and then the consumption expenditure of the back-to-school season will be greatly reduced.

It is worth noting that this year’s Amazon Prime Day was “besieged” by multiple platforms.

Amazon is not the only choice for consumers when they want to buy discounted goods. Seasonal discount activities on major platforms are increasingly integrated. As we all know, competitors such as Temu, TikTok, Target, and Walmart are all conducting big product promotions around or during Prime Day.

Target holds the " Target Circle Week " event every mid-year. The 2024 Target Circle Week will last from July 7 to July 13, earlier than Amazon.

TikTok e-commerce launched its first Deals For You Days shopping event this year, which started on July 9 and lasted until July 17, offering consumers discounts on thousands of products during the event, including products from popular brands such as L'Oréal Paris, Maybelline New York, NYX Professional Makeup, Our Place, Too Faced and Zwilling USA.

Temu's Temu Week event has been underway for some time and will not end until July 18. Temu said Temu Week is "the biggest promotion of the season" and consumers can get up to 90% off on selected products.

Walmart launched the Walmart Deals sales event, which will run from July 8 to July 11. Like many platforms, Walmart also hopes that consumers will spend money earlier instead of shopping during Prime Day.

Sellers return to rationality: expectations for Prime Day are reduced!

There are too many promotions and they happen too frequently. Not only have consumers become accustomed to them, but sellers have also become numb to them.

On the surface, this membership day was still lively, but there were some differences compared to previous years.

" The major seller groups are no longer as lively as before. Even on the first day when the Japanese and European promotions started, the entire cross-border circle was quiet . It was not until 3 pm when the US promotion started that the sellers' discussions gradually increased." Many old sellers said that before the start of Member Day in previous years, their peers had already started discussing news, tips, rumors, etc. about Prime Day. There were even red envelopes in the major Amazon communication groups, but this year there was not a single red envelope...

In addition, it can be found that new sellers may be extremely enthusiastic about Prime Day, while more and more old sellers are beginning to lower their expectations for Prime Day.

"In the final analysis, Member Day is a test of the sellers' basic skills. If they don't work hard, they won't suddenly have a surge in orders on Member Day." In Xiao Zhang's view, Member Day is a big promotion for big sellers, not a big promotion for everyone. More importantly, as the Amazon platform gradually matures, the days of a surge in orders during big promotions are gone. Sellers themselves not only need to have sufficient funds, but also need to pay more advertising fees and a higher level of operation.

Although sellers have begun to lower their expectations for Prime Day, during next year’s PD, sellers may not have much expectations for Prime Day, but will keep refreshing their order lists! This has become a habit.

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