Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com Inc., speaks at the National Press Club in Washington, DC on Thursday, September 19, 2019.
Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | fake pictures
Amazon is postponing its Prime Day tent shopping event until at least early October.
The company had previously targeted September as the potential moment for Prime Day, but on Wednesday, Amazon informed outside vendors that the date could be delayed another month, according to the email, which was seen by CNBC and first reported by Business. Insider. .
The email advises sellers to use the week of October 5 as the “placeholder date” for Prime Day coupons and promotions, but warns that “the exact dates for Prime Day have not been announced.”
“A final date will be announced as we get closer to the event,” says the email. “We look forward to seeing shipments that offer customers the greatest pleasure during one of the most important shopping days of the year, Prime Day!”
An Amazon spokesperson told CNBC in a statement: “We have not made any announcements about Prime Day.”
Prime Day, which started in 2015, is generally celebrated in July. The discount celebration is partially designed to secure new Prime members, as well as to promote Amazon’s own products and services and provide a mid-year sales boost.
In recent months, brands and sellers have been preparing for Amazon to delay the first day of this year. Amazon held a fashion sales event in June, called the “Big Style Sale,” in an attempt to give a boost to sellers feeling the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. It was also meant to help sellers get rid of excess inventory instead of Prime Day.
Amazon has been working to get its logistics operations back to normal after being hit by a wave of online orders at the height of the pandemic, resulting in delivery delays and inventory shortages.
Since then, operations at Amazon warehouses have slowly returned to normal, but the company is now facing new coronavirus outbreaks across the country, which could threaten to reverse its logistics operations again. The recent surge in Covid-19 cases has already resulted in some delays in domestic and international shipments, said Fahim Naim, a former Amazon executive and CEO of e-commerce consultancy eShopportunity.
Naim added that some of his customers have sold through his inventory due to increased online traffic inside and outside of Amazon and have been struggling to get items back in stock. Inventory shortages, as well as warehouse delays, “have added a lot of uncertainty in recent weeks,” Naim said.
Amazon cannot delay Prime Day beyond October, as it would coincide with the holiday shopping season, which generally begins in November, Naim said.
That said, if there is any company that can convince customers to buy big in consecutive months, it would be Amazon, “added Naim.
– CNBC’s Lauren Thomas contributed to this report.
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