Kristen Bell and Kennedy Lowery, founder of Live By Being - Sources: Amazon
Amazon.com is all about its customers, particularly its Prime members, but the retail and technology giant wants everyone to know (Congress and federal agencies) that its love for the small guy extends to its marketplace sellers.
The company held a press conference yesterday to announce that this year’s Prime Day will take place on June 21 and 22. Amazon isn’t going to wait until those two days, however, to get started. It will be offering special deals to Prime members on products from third-party sellers with the added bonus that purchases made between June 7 and 20 will earn Prime members a $10 credit that can be used on Prime Day.
Amazon ran a promotion two weeks ahead of Prime Day in 2020 that generated over $900 million in sales for third-party sellers on the platform. Marketplace merchants racked up more than $3.5 billion in global sales, a nearly 60 percent year-over-year increase, for the two days that made up the Prime Day promotion.
Star power has been part of Amazon’s past events and this year the company is working with celebrities Kristen Bell, Mindy Kailing and Karama Brown to generate social media buzz around Prime Day.
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Ms. Bell spoke with the founders of two small consumer-direct brands — PawStruck, a natural dog treat company, and Live By Being, an artisan crafter of self-care products — that sell on Amazon and use Fulfillment By Amazon to handle their logistical needs.
Kyle Goguen, founder and president of PawStruck, and Kennedy Lowery, founder of Live By Being, spoke of their experiences over the past year with the pandemic and its effect on their businesses.
Ms. Lowery’s company, in particular, faced some challenges with supply chain interruptions. Both executives said that Amazon’s fulfillment system helped them better manage the demands they faced and ultimately turn in big years. Both company’s product categories were in high demand as consumers bought pets and sought out healthy ways to pamper themselves.
Both Mr. Goguen and Ms. Lowery are looking to set records with this year’s Prime Day as both saw big sales spikes ahead of the 2020 event and even bigger jumps during it.
“Every time someone purchases from a small business, someone does a happy dance,” Ms. Lowery said. “I’d like to say that me and my team are those people doing a happy dance every time we get a sale.”