What does July look like for Amazon merchants without a Prime Day?

With the exception of the pandemic-disrupted 2021, this is the first time since Amazon’s inaugural Prime Day in 2015 that merchants don’t have a July Prime Day to anchor their summer sales strategies. Amazon moved the event to June this year, leaving a gap in the peak summer retail calendar.

Amazon’s June Prime Day, which ran from June 23 to June 26, delivered deeper discounts to people across categories. Shoppers showed up and spent $26.4 billion in consolidated e-commerce sales in the US, data from Adobe showed.

The sales momentum built with Prime Day is expected to spill over into July, experts told Retail Brew. Some brands are seeing a 10%–15% dip in July, but that’s to be expected after a sales event as big as Prime Day.

As for July deals, they’re largely off the table, and the usual post-Prime Day lull is setting in. Brands have already shifted focus to back-to-school season and Q4 prep to lock in final shipments, wrap up FBA inventory forecasts, and set ad budgets.

“Everybody is seeing some softness in July, and that seems totally normal,” Winston Ibrahim, founder and CEO of water filtration brand Hydros, which sells on Amazon’s marketplace, told Retail Brew.

Katya Constantine, CEO of agency Digishopgirl Media, which helps brands sell on Amazon, agreed.

“There’s always a natural lull after the Prime Day,” she told Retail Brew in an email, “but I wouldn’t say there’s anything beyond that this year.”

However, Jon Elder, CEO and founder at Black Label Advisor who works as a consultant for third-party sellers on Amazon, was more upbeat about July and the remaining half of the year for Amazon merchants.

“Brands overall simply adjusted to Prime Day being in June instead of July,” Elder told Retail Brew in an email. “The assumption was that Amazon did not want their event overlapping the biggest World Cup games.”

Less is more: “It’s been a little bit softer, but not that much softer,” Ibrahim said, adding that the softness in July so far was in the range of 10%–15% for Hydros products. “We did very well in June, and so July is slightly down from the historical [numbers], but not to the level that we’re seeing any impact, especially considering the bump that we saw in June.”

Hydros reported a 30%–40% spike in sales aided by the June Prime Day. “We were not very aggressive for Prime Day this year because we were in the process of getting more inventory in stock, and we still saw a bump just from the halo effect,” Ibrahim said.

Home goods were among the best-selling categories on Prime Day this year.

“Prime Day dramatically increases sales velocity for brands as they run aggressive deals,” Elder said. “This velocity spills over into the following weeks, so the mood is very positive right now.”

July musings: While Hydros isn’t running promotions on Amazon in July, the brand, who suggests customers replace their water filters every three months, is going all in on back-to-school promotions in the first half of August, which it views as the bigger opportunity.

“Back to school is usually the better sell-in period for us,” Ibrahim said. “It activates our core consumers of moms and sustainability-minded, value-minded young adults who are shopping for themselves.”

“Brands are planning for the biggest Q4 in American history on Amazon,” Elder added. “With Prime Day setting new records in June, brands are fully expecting shoppers to show up in record numbers.”

Ibrahim said Hydros has breathing room to work on new products currently in the pipeline and start the second half of the year organized instead of scrambling. Missing Prime Day or not, he said, “it’s a nice relief not to have a sprint in July.”