
Amazon is holding its annual Spring Deals sales event in Europe in April, and merchants have until the end of March to submit deals to be included. That means another Amazon sales event may not be far behind - let the speculation about the date of Amazon Prime Day commence!
According to an
announcement in the UK, Spring Deals 2022 will run from Friday, April 1 to Wednesday, April 13 across the following stores: Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.it, Amazon.es, Amazon.com.tr, Amazon.se, Amazon.nl and Amazon.pl.
Merchants' deadline for submitting "Spring Deals" is March 28, 2022.
While Amazon gave plenty of notice about the date of Spring Deals, it doesn't tend to do the same for its annual Prime Day - possibly out of concern that shoppers might hold off on purchases to see if they can get a better deal during the heavily promoted annual shopping extravaganza.
TechRadar predicted Amazon Prime Day would take place on Monday, July 18 - Tuesday, July 19, since it had always held Prime Day in July prior to the pandemic. (In 2020, Amazon held Prime Day on October 13 - 14, and last year, it held Prime Day in June.)
However, last year,
Amazon executive Brian Olsavsky said the move from July to June in 2021 was intentional due to two factors: the Tokyo Olympics in July 2021 and the fact that July is a big vacation month - "it might be better for customers, sellers, and vendors, to experiment with different time periods," he said.
Amazon uses Prime Day for numerous reasons:
- Boost sales during retail's off-peak season.
- Increase subscribership to Prime membership program.
- Flex its logistics network for a pre-peak workout.
- Boost adoption of Alexa by promoting its gadgets.
- Whip sellers into a frenzy so they lower prices.
TechRadar also predicted in last month's article that Amazon would make more of an effort to boost its marketplace sellers as it has over the past two years.
What kind of items do you feel make good candidates for marketplace sales events? And feel free to post your predictions for the timing of this year's Prime Day.
Update: Amazon has advised sellers to submit their Prime Day deals by April 29 and send shipments to fulfillment centers so they arrive before June 20.