Sellers' orders are halved! Big sale is approaching

This week, with the July 4th U.S. Independence Day holiday approaching, there will be a low point in sales; the number of orders will decline faster in the week before Member's Day. In addition to the factor that consumers will restrain their shopping before the big sale, the early big sales on multiple platforms such as TikTok will also significantly divert traffic. According to statistics from institutions, more than 100 retailers will hold competitive promotions during the same period as Prime Day.

As Member Day approaches, the number of orders begins to decline

After Amazon announced the Prime Day, sellers' sales began to gradually decrease, ending in a decline in June, and the number of orders in July was still poor. One seller said that compared with the same period last year, the traffic in June dropped by 2/3, which was not even seen in January. "I was trembling in the past two weeks, down 70% from the same period last year."

Not only are overall orders poor, but the large fluctuations in order volume also make sellers uneasy.

A seller in an auto parts store said that he had been selling on Amazon for several years and had never encountered such an unstable order volume. "This year, the order volume feels extremely unstable. The number of sessions is average, but the number of orders varies greatly. In order to spread the risk, we have spread the listings to 6 stores. In March, the daily sales of a single store ranged from 400 to 600 US dollars, which was very average every day. In June, huge fluctuations began to appear. Sometimes a store that made 500 US dollars a day only made 50 US dollars."

However, the seller carefully checked the store's situation and found no problems with the performance and listings. There was no copycat sales, but there were simply no orders. As sales fluctuated, the seller's mood also fluctuated. This situation is quite common and has attracted the attention of many sellers.

"Since June, our store's sales have been like an electrocardiogram, with a long-term low and then a sudden rise. Every time sales are not good, I look for problems with the links, market trends, and analyze competitors, but everything seems to be fine... In the past four or five days, it has been declining sharply." said a seller.

June is often the month with the lowest sales volume in a year , but the situation this year is more complicated. Sellers reported that the company's payment volume showed that June was a bleak month, with sales occasionally rising for two days before quickly falling. There are two speculations in the industry about the reasons for the fluctuations in order volume. One is that various e-commerce platforms have been organizing activities to grab traffic recently, and consumers have been restraining purchases before the Member Day. The other is that Amazon's new algorithm has changed the way traffic is distributed.

As the Member Day approaches, the downward trend in orders is becoming increasingly apparent. Sellers say that “sales are frozen, it’s simply unbearable to watch.” “Flash sales don’t have as many orders as usual.” However, sellers will face another sales trough this week, and next week’s orders will drop even more significantly for three reasons:

1. Independence Day holiday is coming

Every July 4th is the Independence Day in the United States, which is one of the major statutory holidays in the country . People celebrate the holiday by hanging national flags, participating in grand parades and fireworks shows, etc. On Independence Day, American consumers' shopping needs are mainly focused on food, beverages, decorations and party supplies, leaving them with no time to shop for other categories online.

Therefore, sales generally decline during Independence Day. Many sellers have formed "muscle memory" that orders will drop precipitously around July 4th almost every year, and this year is no exception.

2. Members hold back on placing orders before the day of the meeting

Once Amazon sets the promotion time, many consumers start to control their shopping, hoping to buy at a low price during the promotion. This is the biggest factor affecting the order volume. Many sellers are quite dissatisfied with this:

“ Since Amazon officially announced Prime Day, my orders have dropped in half. ”

“Am I the only one who hates Prime Day? My sales plummet as soon as the date is announced because customers are waiting to buy in the hope of a Prime Day discount. But Prime Day sales don’t even come close to the sales lost in the first three weeks.”

3. Walmart and other platforms offer big promotions in advance to grab orders

Before last year’s big promotion, sellers reported that the order volume was unusually low, one of the reasons being that other platforms diverted traffic. This year, too, before the Amazon promotion began, Walmart, TikTok, Target, Best Buy and other platforms rushed to launch promotions, which will inevitably affect the sales of sellers before the promotion.

Among them, Walmart will hold a grand promotion event "Walmart Deals" a week before Prime Day. The promotion time will be from 17:00 on July 8 to 23:59 on July 11, Eastern Time, for 4 days; TikTok Shop's US mid-year promotion (Deals For You Days) will start on July 9 and end on July 11; Target will hold the "Target Circle Week" event from July 7 to 13 for a week.

The agency predicts that there will usually be more than 100 retailers holding competitive sales events during the same period of Prime Day, and sellers will face greater sales pressure before the big promotion.

Prime Day sales are expected to reach $14.7 billion , and sellers are preparing for it

Sales were low before the big promotion, and although the promotion made up for the previous sales, the actual discounts would reduce profits, and there would be risks of overstocking and inventory backlogs. Therefore, many sellers did not look forward to the big promotion, but had to bite the bullet and participate anyway.

"Prime Day is not a question of whether you look forward to it or not, but you have no choice. Basically, you have to do it if you can. Sales have already dropped for a week before the promotion. If everyone else in the category signs up for the event, your sales will drop even more if you don't participate. You will be helpless if your boss puts pressure on you." said a seller. In addition, products with large inventory can be given priority to apply for the event, and even if they are just runners-up, they can still improve their rankings.

At present, many sellers are gearing up for big promotions. Whether it is old products or new products, the advertising suggested bids are doubling, which shows that sellers are spending a lot of money on promotion.

Should you raise prices on Member Day to keep profits, or give up money to make friends? Most sellers passively choose the latter. Among a group of peers who use price games to grab orders, you can only keep one of profits and sales.

Prime Day is Amazon’s biggest sales event this year, with sales expected to reach $14.7 billion over two days, breaking last year’s record of $13 billion and up more than 14% , according to data intelligence company Similarweb .

But in this shopping, buyers are most concerned about price. Due to the pressure of continued inflation, consumers looking for big discounts will become the main force of this big promotion, and consumers pay more attention to discounts than ever before.

Data shows that the average selling price on Amazon fell 3% year-on-year. Consumer electronics was the best performing category during Prime Day , but its sales fell 10% year-on-year in May , meaning that shoppers are controlling their purchases of large items in the hope of getting Prime Day discounts.

The downward trend in product prices on Amazon is due to the rise of competitors Temu and Shein , which have become popular in the United States with their low prices. Even though Amazon is still the king of online shopping, it is difficult to stop the e-commerce upstarts from eating into its market share. A survey of consumers by marketing company Omnisend showed that one-fifth of Americans shop once a week on Chinese platforms, including Temu , Shein , TikTok Shop , etc. , and 21% of consumers think Amazon is too expensive, which means that discounts have become the first choice for consumers .

In order to achieve explosive sales during the Member Day promotion, sellers need to make sufficient price concessions.