Imitation might the sincerest form of flattery, but sometimes, it’s also not a terrible way to run a business. Especially when a company like Amazon seems to operate above and beyond what other merchants are capable of, stealing a page from its playbook doesn’t seem like such a terrible idea.
According to Internet Retailer, that’s exactly what some retailers are doing in response to Amazon’s upcoming second annual Prime Day event. Rather than get left in the dust, spokespeople at both JCPenney and Target confirmed that they would be running their own sort of daily deal-focused events during the Prime Day run-up. While the former’s “Penney Palooza” sale will look more like Amazon’s promotion, with certain product categories highlighted for targeted deals and a free shipping threshold reduced from $99 to $49, Target will be sticking to its guns of back-to-school sales.
“We are generally focused on offering compelling promotions based on our guests’ shopping mindset throughout the entire year,” a Target spokeswoman told Internet Retailer. “In the next few weeks, we know our guests will begin to shop for back to school, so our July/August promotions are focused on giving them deals on supplies, backpacks, apparel and more.”
JCPenney, Target and any other aspiring retailer looking to imitate Amazon’s method of sales success knows that they won’t be able to reproduce Amazon’s numbers — Prime Day 2015 sales were 18 percent higher than those of Black Friday the year before. However, if they can get just a few percentage points to slide their way come June 12, it should be considered a win.
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