Author: Michael Mothner / Source: The Next Web
Amazon introduced Prime Day in 2015 as a way to celebrate its 20th anniversary as a one-day sale with the aim of overshadowing Black Friday. The sale was available only to Prime members and over the years has become a premier shopping day that grabs media attention and drives competitive brands to launch side-by-side sales.
This year, Prime Day had several added elements to drive buzz like a concert and extended hours. The ultimate aim of Prime day is to boost sales, recruit Prime members and promote products.
But, is Prime Day sending the right brand message for Amazon? My argument is no for the following reasons.
Customer expectations are heightened beyond reach
Amazon drives customer expectations to new heights with two-day delivery promises and now yearly sales bonanzas. These expectations impact retail businesses across the board and are arguably even beyond Amazon’s own reach at this stage.
With record traffic flooding the Amazon site during the beginning of the Prime Day sales, Amazon experienced a crash that lasted nearly two hours. The impact of this outage left customers looking to shop leaving Amazon to head to competitors’ sites. Target, for example, shared that Prime Day was the highest single traffic and sales day for their website for the year so far.
Additionally, the retail behemoth’s warehouses are struggling to keep pace with demand. This is impacting bottom line costs and worker satisfaction. This year, a three-day strike took place in Spain, Germany, and Poland coinciding with Prime Day.
Workers went on strike to demonstrate against working environment, low compensation and conditions placed on time off.Discounts and deals attract the wrong customers
Prime Day is built around discounts similar to those that drive shoppers to flood local malls on Black Friday. The problem these deals present is that they attract subscribers to the Prime program, Amazon’s ultimate aim, who are seeking deals.
This may be a good take-off point in bolstering initial numbers but the churn rate, I imagine, is quite high. The yearly membership rate of $119 with the first 30-days free and the ability to cancel at anytime likely invites deal seekers in to take advantage of the sales…
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