How Are Merchants Prepping For Prime Day?

Buoyed by the success of its first ever Prime Day last summer, Amazon is again prepping a massive sales day for mid-July, and merchants and retailers are gearing up for the event.

Amazon said its first Prime Day last July 15, to celebrate the online retailer’s 20th anniversary, garnered 18 percent higher sales than its previous Black Friday, the traditional start of the holiday shopping season the first Friday after Thanksgiving and 266 percent higher than sales on July 15, 2014.

Earlier this year, Amazon sent a letter to merchants stating that it planned another Prime Day in mid-July and encouraging them to submit products for consideration as part of its Prime Day Lightning Deals by May 4.

“Last year we celebrated the first ever Prime Day, a one-day global shopping event exclusively for Prime members,” the letter stated.

“Customers ordered 34.4 million items, breaking all of our Black Friday records with 398 items ordered per second. Prime Day was also a success for sellers on Amazon that use Fulfillment by Amazon, with record-breaking unit sales growing nearly 300 percent worldwide.”

Amazon asked merchants to “provide the best value to customers” as part of the deals they planned to offer on Prime Day, and that they would notify them by May 18 if their deals were selected.

All inventory for Prime Day deals had to be received at Amazon fulfillment centers by June 22, Amazon said.

Experts have also warned retailers that, although Amazon has not confirmed the date for its second Prime Day, they should expect high traffic on that date and have plenty of inventory on hand to satisfy the demand, because people will be looking to shop online that day.

“The deluge of deal hunters expected on Amazon on Prime Day will be happy to lap up a good deal, no matter if it’s Prime eligible or not,” Selina Heckendorf writes in a blog post urging merchants to stock up for Prime Day.