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The fourth edition of Prime Day from Amazon.com Inc. has attracted buyers from around the world, highlighting the evolution of the promotion, passing from a sale of obscure products to 36 hours of discounts on major brands such as Samsonite Luggage, Callaway Golf Clubs and General Mills Cereals
This is a stark contrast to the first Prime Day of 2015, when customers watched on social media offers disappointing that looked like a warehouse clearance sale. This year's product line demonstrates the influence of the e-commerce giant when it gives access to its loyal premium subscribers who pay fees in exchange for discounts on shipping costs, video streaming and other advantages. Many brands decided that it was wiser to offer significant discounts and pay Amazon for advertising in order to gain sales on the site rather than participate in an event estimated at $ 3.4 billion. dollars of expenses.
Procter & Gamble Co offered 25% off Tide laundry products. Callaway Golf Co. offered up to 50% off golf clubs and accessories and Under Armor Inc. had discounts of about 40% on clothing and sports shoes , according to data from Boomerang Commerce.
"This symbiotic relationship between Amazon and major legitimate brands Prime Day, as well as serious brands on the intensification of their e-commerce game," said Guru Hariharan, CEO of Boomerang. 19659002] Amazon does not publish Prime Day sales figures. Expenditures increased 89% over the previous year during the first 12 hours of the event, according to estimates from Feedvisor, which sells pricing software used by Amazon merchants. The increase in sales occurred despite technical problems that hindered the early hours of the promotion. Many buyers were disappointed when they were unable to add products to their shopping carts or their attempts to search for merchandise caused an error page containing photos of dogs.
Amazon has acknowledged the problems, but has not yet explained what caused the crash. Ben Zilberman, marketing director of Radware, a cybersecurity company, said the site was being attacked by bots designed to grab bids so buyers could sell them elsewhere or lock in stocks to protect prices on the market. other sites. in Israel. Robot attacks are common on retail sites during major promotions, and Amazon has introduced many "captchas" used to distinguish humans from robots during the sale, an indication that it was pushing back bot traffic, he said.
These high volumes make it difficult to perform security to distinguish between a regular customer and a bot, "said Zilberman." Traffic on retail sites comes from bots, sometimes 75 %. "
The traffic flow is good for Amazon's fast-growing advertising business, a profitable source of revenue that complements its low-margin e-commerce activities. Brands and merchants are buying advertising to gain importance on the site, helping Amazon in Seattle to make more money on the popular platform. "Amazon is the fourth most popular site in the States United States, behind Google, Facebook and Google's YouTube video service
Keyword-targeted ad prices are auctioned based on supply and demand Jeremy Hull, vice president of IProspect, a marketing firm Digital
"Most brands are increasing their ad spending on the first day," Hull said, adding that they saw an increase of 30%. in the search volume and the brand's commitment on Google and Facebook that day, as shoppers browse before making an online purchase.
Small businesses also had a piece of Prime Day. Amazon has millions of merchants selling goods in its market, mostly small and medium-sized businesses that have sold more than $ 1 billion during the promotion, Amazon said in a statement
. peanut butter and almond. The company panicked when Prime Day began and buyers were having problems because it had beefed up its inventory in anticipation of the promotion. But then the power of social media has taken root. Disappointed buyers have posted screenshots of Amazon's error message and said that they wanted to buy their favorite protein bars, putting the product and links to its Amazon agreement in face of about 20,000 new potential customers. This generated a social buzz for the product that boosted traffic when Amazon recovered, said Jeff Perkel, director of e-commerce for the San Diego-based company.
"It was a little scary when noon hit and we started to see a bunch of dog pictures," Perkel said, referring to the images on the error page. Amazon. "Then we started to see things on social media that we could not imagine. The glitch has turned into positive impressions for us. "
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