Amazon.com’s inaugural shopping holiday, Prime Day, geared up to be a major cross-border ecommerce event. Multichannel Merchant, the leading source of information on ecommerce, management, marketing and operations, and organizer of the upcoming Growing Global conference, called Prime Day it a strategic competitive move to maintain its market share in the face of new competition.
“It’s pretty clear, based on a series of events since it went public in January, that Alibaba wants to take Amazon’s crown as the world’s top marketplace,” says Tim Parry, Managing Editor of Multichannel Merchant. “Alibaba wants U.S.-based merchants to participate as cross-border sellers to China. And if U.S.-based retailers are selling on the Tmall marketplace in China, they might as well also sell in those 12 countries Alibaba is or plans to do business as well.”
Amazon offered more deals on Prime Day than it does on Black Friday, and cater to cross-border shoppers in the U.K., Spain, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, Canada, and Austria. Though Prime Day just taook place in those countries, Amazon also has country-specific marketplaces in India and Mexico, and U.S.-based sellers can also opt to allow for international shipping.
Parry says that even if your ecommerce site wasn’t ready for foreign buyers on Prime Day, you need to get your site ready for your growing cross-border customer base. “That’s because Singles Day, Alibaba’s $9.3 billion global shopping holiday, is just four months away,” he notes.
Prime Day – as well as a full range of global ecommerce marketing and operations issues, will also be the focus at Multichannel Merchant’s Growing Global conference for ecommerce professionals. The event is designed to provide attendees content to put them on the right path to cross-border success.
The conference will be held July 21-22 at the Loews Hollywood Hotel in Hollywood, CA. Companies including global ecommerce innovators like Gilt, BCBGMaxAzria and Newegg to companies just starting their journey such as Tech Armor, Monoprice and Cooking.com.
Over two days, Growing Global offers sessions and facilitated roundtables geared to provide hands-on examples and strategic guidance to drive direct-to-customer and omnichannel operations to greater efficiency and profitability.
About Growing Global:
Now in it’s second year, Growing Global brings knowledgeable global ecommerce pioneers together to share their knowledge in two intense days. It is the only conference exclusively devoted to direct-to-customer and omnichannel international ecommerce marketing and operations.
About Multichannel Merchant
Multichannel Merchant, producer of the Operations Summit, reaches management, marketing and operations at companies that sell merchandise through multiple channels—including e-commerce and catalog. Multichannel Merchant delivers research, executive summaries, technology and supplier comparisons, tip sheets, news and resource information to help companies sell & deliver products direct-to-customer.