The annual shopping extravaganza hosted by the global e-commerce giant Amazon—Prime Day—is about to kick off.
Recently, the official WeChat public account of Amazon Global Stores officially announced that the submission channel for the 2024 Prime Day promotion event has been opened. It urged sellers to seize the opportunity, accurately fill in the submission information according to the established requirements, and join hands to welcome this global consumer shopping feast.
The Achievements of the 2023
In 2023, the sales performance of Amazon Prime Day was nothing short of brilliant.
According to data released by Amazon, the event set a new sales record on its first day, with Prime members worldwide purchasing over 375 million items and saving up to $2.5 billion through various discount promotions.
It is worth mentioning that third-party sellers on Amazon’s global platform performed exceptionally well, with their sales growth rate even surpassing that of Amazon’s operations, fully demonstrating the enormous influence of Prime Day events globally and the significant potential of cross-border e-commerce markets.
For sellers, Prime Day sales undoubtedly present a rare business opportunity. Especially with the continuous growth of Prime membership numbers, the allure of the shopping extravaganza has become increasingly prominent. According to the latest forecasts from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP), by the end of 2023, Amazon’s Prime membership in the United States had reached 176 million, a 5% increase from the previous year’s 168 million.
At the same time, CIRP also noted that in 2023, 74% of Amazon customers in the United States were Prime members, a significant increase from 66% two years ago.
The steady increase in Prime membership numbers indicates that the number of consumers participating in the 2024 Prime Day sales event is expected to increase, and sellers are also expected to capitalize on this opportunity to generate more orders.
Therefore, seizing this golden opportunity, meticulous planning, and active preparation will be the key to sellers achieving breakthroughs in sales performance.
However, it is worth noting that Amazon conducted a surprise account scanning operation on the eve of this significant promotion, which may indicate that its policy enforcement will become stricter.
Amazon Policy Tightening Ahead
Merging variations is a common practice among sellers, and in the past, Amazon has been relatively lenient towards this.
However, since the beginning of this year, many sellers have received warnings or even direct red warnings from the platform due to improper variation operations.
Amazon explicitly stated that accounts were deactivated because sellers violated ASIN creation policies by creating variations. Some sellers have faced account closures, all listings have been cleared, and account balances have been frozen, forcing sellers to stop these unauthorized variation operations.
Suspended sellers are actively searching for the reasons triggering the suspension. According to service providers, reasons for suspension may involve performance infringement issues left over from old stores, new registered stores undergoing direct scrutiny, and past variation violations on accounts.
While merging variations remains unclear, on March 20th, Amazon’s sudden crackdown dealt another blow to sellers.
In the afternoon of March 20th, many Amazon accounts were directly deactivated, with the deactivation carried out in batches involving several old accounts. Amazon’s emails stated that these accounts had abuse issues, leaving sellers clueless about the specific reasons for the account suspension and feeling extremely anxious.
Besides the internal anxiety and unease, many sellers have realized that Amazon’s compliance policies have been gradually strengthening this year. New regulations are introduced almost every other time, posing considerable challenges to sellers’ operations.
Navigating Compliance
In the increasingly stringent regulatory environment, many sellers are finding compliance to be a challenging path.
However, regardless of the difficulty, sellers must adhere to relevant regulations.
On one hand, only by complying with local laws and regulations and respecting consumer rights can sellers establish a solid footing in the fiercely competitive market.
On the other hand, compliance operations can effectively reduce business risks. During cross-border operations, sellers who violate relevant regulations may face serious consequences such as fines, product delisting, or even expulsion from the market. Adopting a compliance mindset is crucial, as any notion of taking shortcuts will ultimately lead sellers to face the consequences of their actions.
Compliance operations are essential for cross-border sellers to achieve long-term stability and development.
With Amazon’s increasingly stringent compliance requirements, sellers should proactively adapt to changes, enhance self-discipline, and continuously improve their compliance awareness and capabilities to ensure success in the upcoming major promotional events.