Delivery companies in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific look set to be flooded with well over 100 million additional shipments as millions of Amazon Prime subscribers snap up Prime Day deals on Monday and Tuesday.
Big parcel carriers, postal operators, local couriers and not least Amazon itself will all be under pressure to process and deliver the Prime Day orders in line with the e-commerce’s giant’s delivery commitments to customers.
The US company, which has well over 100 million Prime subscribers worldwide, is confidently expecting dramatic growth in orders after extending its one-day sales extravaganza to two days – July 15 and 16 – this year.
The sales event was already the biggest-ever last year as shoppers in 17 countries bought more than 100 million products during a 36-hour ‘day’. But this year’s 48-hour Prime Day, which features product launches, lightning deals and plenty of entertainment (including livestreamed pop concerts), looks likely to be much bigger.
It is available to Prime members in 18 countries: North America (U.S., Canada, Mexico); Europe (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Spain, UK), Asia Pacific (Australia, China, India, Japan, Singapore) and – new this year – United Arab Emirates, where Souq.com, acquired in 2017, was recently transformed into ‘Amazon.ae’.
Amazon itself does not release sales figures for Prime Day but US magazine Internet Retailer projects gross merchandise sales of more than US$6.1 billion during this year’s event, up 46% from an estimated US$4.2 billion in 2018. It calculated this forecast based on more Prime members this year, the longer 48-hour sales period, more discounted offers and other factors.
According to the e-commerce giant, Prime Day is “a two-day parade of more than a million deals worldwide reserved exclusively for Prime members, with new deals launching as often as every five minutes”.
Jeff Wilke, Amazon CEO Worldwide Consumer, said: “Our vision is that Prime Day should be the absolute best time to be a member – when you can enjoy shopping, savings, entertainment and some of the best deals Prime members have ever seen.”
Sales highlights will probably include Lady Gaga’s new HAUS Laboratories beauty collection and products from other celebrities, discounted Amazon devices and other consumer electronics, fashion, beauty and health items, and household goods.
The online marketplace giant also highlighted “hundreds of thousands of Prime Day deals” from small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) worldwide on its Amazon Storefronts, Amazon Handmade, Amazon Launchpad and more sales platforms. “Last Prime Day, small and medium-sized businesses selling in Amazon’s stores surpassed $1.5 billion in sales,” it noted.
In terms of deliveries, Amazon underlined that Prime “was built on the foundation of unlimited fast, free shipping”. In the US, this includes one-day and two-day delivery coast to coast, same-day delivery in 44 major metropolitan areas and rapid Prime Now deliveries within hours in selected markets.
Over the last few months, the company has been gearing up for Prime Day volumes by continuing to expand its logistics and transportation networks, and launching delivery initiatives such as Counter, a new click & collect service in cooperation with various retailers in the US, UK and Italy.
In its latest move, Amazon announced last week that customers can now return goods free of charge without needing any label, packaging or a box at several US retail networks, including its own physical stores, 1,150 Kohl’s stores in 48 states and more than 4,768 UPS Stores nationwide.
“We understand that finding a box and tape, and printing a label for a return can still be a hassle. Now, most Amazon returns are easier than ever with no box required. After getting a QR code from the Amazon Return Center, items can simply be handed to an associate without a box or label, and they will pack and ship it for free,” the company said.
