Amazon suffers huge Prime Day sales plunge as families hang onto cash amid recession fears

Daily Mail​

2 days ago

Amazon gave Prime Day a surprise makeover — but American shoppers clung to their cash.
Momentum Commerce, a major online shopping firm, reported a 41 percent plunge in Amazon sales compared to the first day of last year's event.
The firm's sales slump comes after Amazon extended its usual two-day price-cutting blitz into a four-day extravaganza.
Top bosses like CEO Andy Jassy and executive chairman Jeff Bezos bet that more time would mean more spending from inflation-weary shoppers.
But as the first day came and went, that calculation didn't seem to pay off — at least for one of Amazon's biggest sellers.
Momentum, which helps popular brands like Crocs and Therabody massagers sell on the platform, said it's still holding out hope that sales will pick up before the clock runs out.
'It all hinges on this four-day strategy being a success,' John Shea, the firm's top boss, told Bloomberg. 'Amazon sacrificed a lot on Day 1. It's a wildly unpredictable and uncertain year.
Amazon, for its part, pushed back on the downbeat numbers.
A spokesperson told DailyMail.com that the numbers cited by third-party firms like Momentum are not reflective of the e-commerce brand's overall performance.
'Typical of statements made by third-party consultancies that don't have access to the actual data, these numbers are highly inaccurate,' an Amazon spokesperson said.
The company is expected to release official results Saturday, once the four-day event concludes.
Until then, early data offers only a partial picture on the success of a now-96-hour Prime Day.
Still, the firm's slow start comes at a time when American consumers continue to express worries about their personal finances.
Independent analysts told DailyMail.com that the weak Day 1 report may reflect a deeper issue: Americans' shaky confidence in the economy.
But it might be too early to tell.
'If sales continue to be lackluster, it will be a hard-to-swallow harbinger for all retailers going into the holiday shopping season,' Carol Spieckerman, a retail analyst, told DailyMail.com.
The company said it is happy with its first-day performance and that Momentum's sales numbers don't reflect the broader sales figures
'Consumer confidence is down and clouds of uncertainty haven't cleared.'
Spieckerman added that Prime Day now faces stiff competition.
Walmart, Target, Macy's, Wayfair, and Lowe's have all rolled out competing sales this week, hoping to siphon off some of Amazon's dominance.
Other experts said shoppers may still be waiting for the perfect moment to strike the checkout button.
'People are more considered and are taking their time over purchases,' Neil Saunders, a retail analyst at GlobalData, told DailyMail.com.
'This means trade could pick up sharply as we get to the last couple of days.'
Still, some retail experts caution against reading too much into day one's data.
With Prime Day now stretched across four days, shoppers may simply be holding out for better deals — or spreading their spending over a longer window.
Shoppers may even be comparing their Prime Day deals with incentives from other online retailers.
In a LinkedIn post following Bloomberg's story, Momentum's CEO said the brand still expects its companies to see a nine percent increase compared to last year's Prime Day sales.
So far, the brands Momentum manages have seen a nearly five-fold increase in sales compared to non-incentive days.
'Anecdotally, we are hearing that the "halo-effect" of Prime Day off-Amazon is quite a bit higher than it was last year and that bodes well for consumer spending too,' he wrote.