Last Wednesday, in a noteworthy effort to spur widespread additional interest and new subscribers within its Prime buying program, Amazon declared its inaugural Prime Day, offering its online Prime program customers Black Friday like pricing deals in the middle of July.
The date was chosen because it represented the 20th anniversary of Amazon. The significance of a compelling holiday like online buying event in July was more important. Amid a flurry of anticipation as well as competitor response, Prime Day ended up having a mixed online fulfillment response. From our Supply Chain Matters lens, in spite of large-scale marketing driven promotional efforts, the event looked to be more of an inventory clearance event than one that would add a new dimension to Christmas in July in online fulfillment.
Online consumers did respond but had mostly a mixed reaction with the #PrimeDay hashtag garnering mostly disappointment or cynical commentary regarding the lack of compelling product offerings and/or deals. Some noted slower web site response time. Bargains on high-profile items such as Amazon’s Fire TV stick or the Amazon Kindle HD sold-out rather quickly, reverting to an unspecified wait list. The hashtag of #HappyPrimeDay turned instead to #CrappyPrimeDay for some. Product selection turned out to be more generalized and included apparel, household and other every-day type items. That prompted our declaration that from our supply chain lens, the reality of Prime Day looked more to be one of a July inventory clearance event.
Online sales tracker ChannelAdvisor reported that by Noon, Amazon’s U.S. same-store sales were about 80 percent ahead of volumes the prior July 15th.  During the day, Amazon’s marketing types were hyping numbers to business channel CNBC regarding one-day sales records. However, the network could not avoid overlooking the mixed reviews streaming across social media. We tested bargains and selection at around 10am Eastern and found few compelling bargains to be garnered but rather pointers to every-day selection categories and pricing.
An Amazon press release on Friday declared a headline that the online retailer sold more units on Prime Day than that of Black Friday 2014. Worldwide order growth increased 18 percent more than Black Friday of 2014. Customers reportedly ordered 34.4 million items among Prime eligible countries. Readers should recall, however, that 2014 Black Friday sales were reported by the National Retail Federation as 11 percent below that of 2013 with shoppers spending upwards of 6.4 percent less. In 2014, shoppers opted for last-minute deals.
The Amazon release notes specific item level sales to include, among others:
- 41,000 Bose Headphones, compared to 8 the previous Wednesday
- 28,000 Rubbermaid 42-Piece Easy Find Lid Food Storage Sets, compared to 428 the previous Wednesday
- 24,000 Instant Pot 7-in-1 Programmable Pressure Cookers, compared to 182 the previous Wednesday
- 14,000 iRobot Roomba 595 Pet Vacuum Cleaning Robots, compared to 1 the previous Wednesday
Various sales and operations and supply chain planning teams will appreciate the impact and pain level of such one-day order volume spikes, especially when planning is based on past online order history likely had to scramble to fulfill such demand. It is literally a huge gamble to position such inventory for any single customer, albeit Amazon and Wal-Mart.
Other teams are more likely in the midst of assessing whether Amazon’s demand needs impacted other key customer needs, or whether such spiked July demand will have a substantial impact to the forthcoming three months of B2C channel fulfillment sales.
The build-up to Prime Day definitely caught the attention of other retailers, particularly Wal-Mart, which quickly marshalled a series of product promotions designed to both offer a lower-cost membership program as well as compelling deals on Wal-Mart.com. Reports indicated that Wal-Mart.com encountered greater interruptions and slower response times as online consumers checked for matching or better deals. None the less, Wal-Mart was quick to declare its counter-attack to be an online success, as well as the largest day for same-day pickup at a retail store.
Amazon declares that Prime Day will now be an ongoing annual event.
Like any new online fulfillment program, a lot can be garnered from results of the inaugural event. While Amazon’s line-of-business and marketing teams can declare victory, it is the online consumer that has the ultimate final vote as to the attraction and success of an online event.
