Guru Hariharan’s Post

Today we release the Amazon Prime Day 2024 BY THE HOUR recap Check the link in comments to access it... Here's what stood out to me From our data, it appears that deals and discounts led to increased sale prices this Prime Day, as shoppers capitalized on markdowns to buy higher-ticket items.  Prime Day 2024 saw revenues nearly triple compared to the previous week, with an overall 15% increase in average prices. THRIVING CATEGORIES Toys, Electronics, Home & Kitchen, and Patio, Lawn & Garden categories thrived, boasting revenue increases ranging from 400%+ to 600%+ percent as compared to the week prior. CHALLENGED CATEGORIES Notably, Pets saw prices fall by 14% and only a 79% revenue increase—making it relatively one of the weaker performing categories over Prime Day. What did you observe now that you've had a chance to recap both days?

Our team at CommerceIQ's just shared this quick recap of the first day of Prime Day. Here's what we saw 1. Prime Day has had a 330%+ impact on overall sales, with categories like Toys, Home & Kitchen and Patio, Lawn and Garden growing between 5x to 15x on the first day. 2. This growth has coincided with an increase in ASP of +17%, signaling while consumers are certainly benefitting from discounts, they are likely buying more expensive items, or larger bundles to take advantage of the deals. This was not true however in Pets, Patio, Office, Home & Kitchen and Electronics all saw price levels fall, likely indicating deep discounting within the categories. 3. Prime Day 2024 paced much faster than Prime Day 2023. 2024 saw a higher percentage of first day sales generated in the first 9 hours of Prime Day. Shoppers this year were shopping more in the early hours of the morning or in the middle of the evening as compared to 2023. *Note: all figures are comparing to the 6-Day averages between July 10 to 15 leading into Prime Day How did your Day 1 go? We'll be doing a full breakdown by end of week, comment below if you want me to send that to you 👇

*Today CommerceIQ releases The State of Retail Ecommerce for Q2 2024* See link in comments for your copy of the 83+ Page recap > KEY FINDINGS < All findings are based on internal data in aggregate from CommerceIQ’s Platform for Amazon users from July 2022 to June 2024. How should you sum up Q2? Lots of growth amidst continuing profitability challenges. Retail ecommerce ordered revenue grew 7.2% in Q2 2024 compared to Q2 2023, but nearly all categories saw a decline in gross margins, with an overall decline of 2.4% vs. Q2 2023. Regardless, brands continue to prioritize growth, with online ad spend increasing by 10.1% leading into Prime Day 2024. > TOP 5 TAKEAWAYS < 1. Revenue growth occurred despite falling prices, as consumers purchased more items at lower costs 2. All categories except Office Products saw revenue growth, with most experiencing price decreases 3. Gross margins continue to fall across categories 4. Pet and Beauty remain highly competitive, with ad spend increases of 68% and 79% respectively 5. Sponsored Brand advertising saw the most growth, likely due to Prime Day preparation < WHAT SHOULD YOU DO IN Q3 > EFFICIENCY: With margins compressed, optimizing operations and ad spend is crucial ADAPT: Understand shifts in purchasing patterns and price sensitivity PREPARE: Prime Day and other major shopping days require strategic planning BALANCE: Carefully consider ad spend increases against potential returnsHow are these trends impacting your ecommerce strategy? Share your thoughts below! Full report details in the first comment

Walmart with their Deal Days has become the first challenger of Amazon Prime Day. How can you prepare to win across both events? Reviewing your performance during Cyber 5 is a good place to start. EMARKETER compared retail sales of Amazon versus Walmart during the period between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday. Amazon 𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒗𝒆 6𝒙 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒂𝒍𝒆𝒔 𝒗𝒐𝒍𝒖𝒎𝒆 as compared to Walmart. My prediction is Walmart will close the gap in terms of sales volume with their Deals Day given the growth we've observed in the past two quarters. You as a brand owner can do a few things to maximize your growth across both tentpole sales events. 1️⃣ Testing and monitoring incremental sales driven from your marketing efforts is incredibly important. If you have access to a metric like iROAS across Walmart and Amazon, now is the time to get into the weeds and evaluate which combinations of SKUs, Offers, Time of Day and Keywords are yielding the best incremental sales across these two retailers. 2️⃣ Expect demand to be pulled forward on Walmart Deal Days for SKUs that are sold across both Walmart and Amazon. Consider how you can structure your bundled offerings, or structure unique promotions for each retailer to maximize opportunities for consumers to make purchases across both sales events. 3️⃣ This may be more important for Walmart given they are running their event across 4 days, and are gating access to Walmart+ members to start. On Prime Day we observe the majority of revenue is generated within the first 18 hours, and ROAS is highest on the first day. Walmart's unique structure can introduce a lot of variance, and the gated Deal access could see a further acceleration of sales in the first few hours of the event. What do you expect to see with Walmart's event this year?

Amazon Prime Day is weeks away, so I wanted to share some guidance on how you and your teams can prepare based on our data at CommerceIQ. 👀 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐖𝐄 𝐒𝐀𝐖 𝐎𝐍 𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐃𝐀𝐘 2023 👀 The first day (or really the first few hours) of Prime Day are crucial for most brands. Brands who prepared, were setup with leadership alignment and the technology to make decisions on an hourly basis were the ones that succeeded. Here are 3 examples of why hourly decision making could make or break your Prime Day based on what happened in 2023. 1️⃣ Peak glance views and revenues happen by 9AM PST on Day 1 of Prime Day, missing this window could mean losing SoV to the competition. 2️⃣ ROAS is also 25% to 43% higher on Day 1 compared to Day 2, so ensuring budgets are allocated accordingly will maximize your profitability. 3️⃣ Categories like Electronics sold through the fastest, generating 50% of their total Prime Day sales in just 18 hours. ✅ 5 𝐓𝐈𝐏𝐒 𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐓𝐎 𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐃𝐀𝐘 2024 ✅ Winning on Prime Day relies heavily on your preparation in the weeks leading up to Prime Day. Here are 5 ways to succeed in 2024. 𝐑𝐮𝐧 𝐚 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐥! Overall, we saw a 4x to 10x traffic boost and a 3.5x to 9x revenue boost on Prime Day, with elevated traffic levels sustaining up to 10 days after Prime Day. Running just a 5% to 10% discount grew traffic by 300%+ and revenue by 200%+ Regardless of your stance on Prime Day's importance... I insist you run at least some kind of deal on your core ASINs. 𝐃𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐠𝐨 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐜𝐤 Specifically for Stock Levels, consider implementing direct fulfillment as a back-up option in case inventory in Amazon’s FC runs out on Prime Day. 𝐅𝐢𝐱 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐏𝐃𝐏𝐬 Specifically for PDPs, consider updating your PIM to a daily sync starting NOW leading up to Prime Day. Download keyword trends for your category and map it 1:1 to each PDP to ensure the most relevant terms are captured before Prime Day. 𝐒𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐨 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐧 Specifically for discount levels, use price elasticity models and promo simulations to estimate the combination of ad spend and discounts to sell through your target units of available inventory. 𝐄𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 𝐀𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 For brands that rely on Prime Day as a key selling day, ensure leadership is aligned on the day of to approve by-the-hour changes to your budget and deals to take advantage of changes in consumer behavior throughout the day.

🚨 Google just announced their GenAI Search 🚨 Over the last year we've seen Instacart, Walmart and Amazon release their own Generative AI powered search. But Google's announcement is particularly significant. Google's impact on the path to purchase for shoppers is immense. It launches to billions by the end of the year. Only Amazon (and some argue TikTok for younger shoppers) has recently become a true challenger in being the starting point for a shoppers journey. Take a look at this example Google shared. Cleaning a couch after spilling something on it is a common place a consumer might begin their shopping journey. The GenAI summary begins to influence how the shopper ultimately might choose to solve their problem, it prompts them with 4 options and then links below to some top pages. As a brand, you know have to think how would you influence these suggestions. 1️⃣ Vacuum: If you are Dyson or SharkNinja this is in your favor, but if you're Swiffer how do you rank ahead as a use case? 2️⃣ Spot Clean: This references dish detergent, how do you influence what brand is mentioned or what the consumer should choose next? 3️⃣ Baking Soda: Everyone knows Church & Dwight Co., Inc.'s Arm & Hammer, is that what people will naturally go and buy when reading this? 4️⃣ Fabric Cleaner: This is a long tail of brands that could satisfy this, how can you influnce what type or formula makes sense? How do you envision this impacting shopping behavior when it goes live end of this year?

Woke up to some incredible personal news today to be a Finalist for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards. A heartfelt thank you to all of my family, mentors, supporters, and all the team members from Boomerang Commerce and CommerceIQ that have shaped my journey as an entrepreneur.