Amazon Prime Day is under siege as competitors rush ahead

As July approaches, e-commerce giants such as Amazon, Walmart, and Target have successively announced the dates for this year's big sales in the past two days.

Amazon's Prime Day events in 18 sites including the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and France are scheduled for July 16-17, while those in Australia, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, and Brazil are scheduled for July 16-21 (local time). The event date for the Indian site has not yet been announced.

Walmart's Walmart Deals will be held from 5:00 p.m. EST on July 8 (Monday) to 11:59 p.m. EST on July 11 (Thursday). In addition, Walmart+ paid members can start buying promotional items from noon on July 8, five hours earlier than other shoppers. It is worth mentioning that in addition to members, Walmart's big promotion is open to all users .

Target announced that this year's one-week Target Circle Week will last from July 7 to July 13 , offering 30-50% shopping discounts to Target Circle members, which overlaps with Walmart's special sales.

From the above time periods, we can see that in the US market, both Walmart and Target set their promotion time before Amazon, and the time span is also wider than Amazon. To a certain extent, Amazon's US Prime Day this year faced a lot of pressure from its peers.

If the pressure from peers is an "external threat", then Amazon's greater pressure may come from various "internal troubles".

First, in mid-month, news broke that warehouses such as LAS1, GYR2, GYR3, LGB8, and VGT2 were overstocked . Taking LAS1 as an example, a freight forwarder issued a notice in mid-month that all recent appointments at LAS1 warehouses were cancelled and new appointments were postponed to July 10. Another seller revealed that "IAH3 warehouse has been overstocked for 20 days and will not accept orders." The warehouse overstocking has caused a headache for sellers who want to prepare for PrimeDay.

Later, multiple categories of listings were judged as children's products by the platform, and sellers were required to provide various certification materials. Even when sellers filed complaints on the grounds of misjudgment, they were rejected by the platform, and the number of products misjudged by sellers had been increasing. As a seller of adult products, Amazon also requires it to provide proof that the products are not for children. Although ASIN is gradually returning to normal, it still dampens the enthusiasm of many sellers. At the same time, the new round of second-instance scanning has also exhausted the sellers who received the notification. Coupled with the poor performance of Black Friday last year, some sellers have decided not to participate in this year's Prime Day.

The combination of various buffs makes people sweat for Amazon's Prime Day this year. Of course, as an e-commerce platform with the largest number of members, Amazon still has considerable advantages. Data shows that by 2023, the number of Amazon Prime members in the United States will reach 167.2 million, and it is expected to reach 171.8 million this year; and among Amazon customers in the United States, the proportion of using Amazon Prime is as high as 71%.

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