|
As time turns to July 18, the much-anticipated Amazon Prime Day comes to an end. According to a report by Momentum Commerce, sales in the first six hours of Amazon Prime Day in 2024 increased by 13% year-on-year. Based on the strong sales performance in the early stages of the promotion, some institutions predict that Amazon's Prime Day this year may set a new record. However, judging from feedback from the industry, as the big promotion campaign continues, "most contrasting" seems to have become the keyword for Amazon Prime Day 2024: "skyrocketing revenue" and "thin profits" coexist, and "explosive orders" and "cold reception" fly together. According to Amazon's official notice, Prime Day 2024 will be held from July 16 to July 17, for two days. There are some minor differences between different sites: As of press time, Prime Day on some sites has come to an end. Judging from the battle reports released by many Amazon sellers, this Prime Day was not too cold. On the first day of the promotion, sellers in Germany, the United States, Japan and other sites all shared good news, and many of them doubled their orders. ▲ The picture comes from Zhiwubuyan "On the German site, at 10:00 European time on the first day of membership day, the number of orders increased by 1.5 times compared to normal days!" “I have finally become a seller who can show my orders. The products with high unit prices have been selling like hot cakes on the US site!” "We receive more than 1,000 orders per day on a single link, which is nearly 10 times higher than usual." ▲ The picture comes from Zhiwubuyan Many sellers pointed out that compared with the order situation of several major promotions last year, the order trend of Prime Day this year is obviously much better. The survey data also showed that among the sellers surveyed this year, nearly 60% of the sellers achieved sales growth, of which 16% saw a sharp increase in sales and 40% saw a slight increase in sales. Compared with the "only 30% of sellers saw sales growth" in the same period of 2023, the overall sales performance of Prime Day in 2024 showed a significant increase. But as the saying goes: Some are happy while others are sad. This year, some sellers also mentioned that the order volume was lower than expected on Prime Day, especially sellers on the French site, who generally said that the order volume was cold: "I'm not the only one who participated in this lonely event. The orders are not even as good as the normal day's orders in June!" “The volume and sales volume of the French station barely increased, and were even worse than usual.” Some sellers believe that competition on Amazon is becoming increasingly fierce. During Member Day, the big sellers basically have good sales, while the small sellers are just running behind. That is why a large number of sellers say "orders are booming" while many others complain about "cold reception." However, some sellers mentioned that many small and medium-sized sellers saw their orders double during this Member's Day. It is somewhat biased to talk about sales performance based solely on volume. Other factors should also be considered to analyze the reasons for poor orders, such as operating strategies, product quality, and the local market environment where the site is located. In addition, the sales difference between the first and second day of this Prime Day also exceeded sellers’ expectations. According to Adobe Analytics , US consumer spending on the first day of Amazon Prime Day reached $7.2 billion, up 11.7% year-on-year. Overall sales of electronic products increased by 33% compared to June, with headphones and Bluetooth speakers increasing the most, reaching 164%, followed by TVs, fitness trackers, tablets and other products. Judging from feedback from the industry, on the first day of the promotion, many sellers expressed their admiration for the excellent traffic on this year’s Prime Day. But on the second day of Prime Day, the orders of Amazon sellers who had seen a surge in orders on the first day were almost cut in half . Some sellers even joked: Is Prime Day only one day? Why didn’t anyone notify me? ▲ The picture comes from Zhiwubuyan It is understood that in previous years, the sales performance on the second day of Prime Day was better than that on the first day, so this contrast has also attracted the attention of many sellers. Some sellers believe that Amazon Prime Day took too long to warm up , and consumers filled their shopping carts in advance and bought all the products on the first day. Some sellers also speculated that in order to increase competitiveness, Amazon may have prepared a wave of off-site traffic for Prime Day, but the subsequent growth was somewhat weak. There is no doubt that judging from the sales performance, this year's Amazon Prime Day has seen a surge in sales compared to the previous two years. However, amid the surge in sales, many Amazon sellers are still feeling uneasy. Amazon sellers are caught in a "prisoner's dilemma" as they are dissatisfied with the price war but forced to participate in it. As the overall economic environment still faces many uncertainties, before Prime Day, according to a survey, half of Amazon sellers expected to "welcome a surge in orders" and "try not to lose money" in the peak season in the second half of 2024. Today, Amazon Prime Day sales have clearly exceeded expectations, but judging from the feedback from sellers: during this year's Prime Day, "welcoming the explosion of orders" and "trying not to lose money" almost coexisted. On the one hand, the cost of acquiring customers is gradually increasing, and the profit margin is passively compressed: As the competition for traffic acquisition on Amazon becomes increasingly fierce, the high cost of advertising has become the biggest problem for Amazon sellers to increase sales. During the Prime Day, many sellers once again fell into the dilemma of "ACOS increased, but orders did not increase" . ▲ The picture comes from Zhiwubuyan On the other hand, market competition is fierce and profit margins are shrinking: many sellers actively lower product prices in order to grab traffic, so that they can only "lose money to gain publicity" - even if orders are booming, there is actually little profit left. The price war is particularly severe among sellers in categories such as 3C and clothing, with discount rates for many products ranging from 30% to 45% . And the price war is not limited to Amazon. During this year's Prime Day, other e-commerce platforms also launched different promotional activities to grab a wave of traffic, such as Temu's "Temu Week" and TikTok e-commerce's "Deals For You Days", all of which tried to attract consumers' attention through more conspicuous discounts. Some sellers call it a "stampede-style" price war: the prices of many products are inverted, and the big sellers have sharply reduced profits and have to cut off their arms to survive, while other players are faced with a prisoner's dilemma, being dissatisfied with the price war but having to follow suit. The final result of this price war may be that sellers who lack core competitiveness will be eliminated first, and the remaining sellers will have a hard time moving forward under the ever-lowering consumer expectations. The Adobe Digital Price Index tracks online prices in 18 product categories, showing that prices have fallen for 22 consecutive months, including a 4.2% year-on-year drop in June. However, for now, in the view of industry insiders, Amazon is still the largest e-commerce platform on the market, and its Prime Day also has the potential to generate explosive sales. ▲ The picture comes from the Internet Adobe Analytics reports that online spending during Prime Day will reach a record high of $14 billion, up 10.5% year-on-year. Even in the face of the "prisoner's dilemma", some sellers still have a healthy sales boom.
|
