The US epidemic has not eased yet! Amazon postpones Primeday

After last week's exponential surge, the cumulative number of confirmed cases in the United States has now reached 360,000, and the death toll has exceeded 10,000.

The number of newly confirmed cases in a single day has exceeded 30,000. Although the increase has slowed down compared with the previous week, the epidemic in the United States is actually far from reaching a turning point.

The COVID-19 test confirmation rate has remained at around 20% in recent days. No matter how many people the United States tests every day, more than one-fifth of them are diagnosed with COVID-19. This phenomenon shows that there are still a large number of undiagnosed people. The current slowdown in the number of confirmed cases is mainly limited by the current testing capacity of the United States (only more than 100,000 people can be tested every day).

Faced with such a serious epidemic, Amazon did not resume delivery on April 5, but this is not the worst. According to foreign media reports, Amazon is considering postponing Primeday for at least one month as there is still no sign of improvement in the epidemic.

The impact of Primeday delay

The foreign media news came from an internal Amazon letter exposed by an employee, which also stated that the turning point of the epidemic has not yet appeared, the suspension of restocking of non-essential goods and the surge in sales of essential goods have made it difficult for Primeday to operate normally, and the losses from postponing Primeday have amounted to hundreds of millions of US dollars.

The email also stated that Prime Day would be postponed until at least August, and might be further postponed if the epidemic is more serious than expected.

This promotional festival specifically for Amazon Prime members has been going on for several years. It is held every year during the prime time in mid-July, and this year will be the first time that Primeday has been postponed.

Amazon's postponement means that it is not optimistic about the current epidemic situation in the U.S. Many sellers are worried that the postponement of Prime Day will also lead to further delays in FBA replenishment and recovery.

Amazon has recruited 80,000 people for the 100,000 additional warehouse positions we mentioned last time. There will definitely be no problem in handling the surge in epidemic prevention orders during the epidemic, so Amazon's transportation capacity is not the main factor in the postponement of Member Day.

I think the reason for the postponement is that Amazon speculates that there will still be a large demand for epidemic prevention products until July, which will seriously affect the sales of non-essential goods. It is not suitable to hold a full-category promotion festival such as Primeday at this time.

Therefore, the postponement of Prime Day does not mean that the labor situation in FBA warehouses has become more severe, but it is more of a consideration on the demand side. You don’t have to worry about FBA restocking for the time being. In fact, many sellers have reported that there are more SKUs that can be restocked in the past two days, which also shows that Amazon is gradually relaxing the restocking threshold for third-party sellers.

Postponement is not a bad thing. It is not impossible to create another Primeday sales record by avoiding the period of low demand during the epidemic and seizing the opportunity when the epidemic situation improves and people start revenge shopping. This will depend on further news from Amazon.

Foreign media also said at the end that Amazon has refused to comment on this news, and it seems that the leaked content is likely to be true. Amazon also opened PrimedayLD registration some time ago, and it probably did not predict that the new crown epidemic would be so terrible at that time.

The news of the postponement of Primeday will definitely be announced to everyone later. For now, it will not affect our sellers. During this period, everyone should pay more attention to the issue of replenishment . Now those who have inventory in FBA can have a small boom.