Amazon Prime Day has become one of the most significant shopping events of the year, rivaling Black Friday and Cyber Monday. And once again, Amazon posted record breaking sales for its 2024 Prime Day event. For ecommerce businesses, this means a whirlwind of sales, customer inquiries, and order processing. 

So how do you ensure smooth operations during this frenzy? The answer lies in automation and integration. In this blog post, we’ll share key insights from Celigo on Amazon Prime Day 2024, exploring how automation can help you manage large order volume spikes and ensure a smooth customer experience.

Key observations from Celigo data on Prime Day

Celigo’s data from Amazon Prime Day 2024 offers valuable insights into ecommerce trends and performance. One of the most notable observations was a significant increase in sales order processing.

2.6X daily increase in Amazon order processing

During Prime Day 2024, Celigo customers saw a 260% increase in sales order processing compared to an average day. Customers in the US saw the most increase, followed in order by customers in EMEA, APAC, and Latin America. The surge in sales was propelled by increased customer demand, the allure of Prime Day, and of course, enticing deals on the retailer’s site. Automation played a crucial role in managing this influx, ensuring that orders were processed quickly and accurately.

Prime Day 2 vs. Day 1

Interestingly, Prime Day 2 saw 24% more orders processed than Day 1. This trend highlights the growing importance of sustaining momentum throughout an entire sales event. Ecommerce businesses that leveraged automation were better equipped to handle the prolonged spike in orders, maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction.

The ripple effect of Prime Day

While we see Amazon orders surge during Prime Day, other retailers are starting to compete for market share. Forrester tracked 113 retail and brand websites during this year’s Amazon Prime Day to see how they were competing with Amazon. They found that 67% of those retailers were running some form of promotion, whether it was a sitewide sale, gift with purchase, further deals on their sale sections, or other sale type. 

Moreover, numerous retailers extended their sale period beyond the official two days. It’s easy to say that Amazon Prime Day and its competing sales are reshaping consumer habits and the traditional shopping calendar. In fact, Vox says Amazon invented a new holiday—spreading shopping to other parts of the year rather than spiking only during traditional holiday seasons. Even if you’re not selling on Amazon’s marketplace, this trend is important for retailers to pay attention to. 

How automation can help you manage large order volume spikes

With this in mind, it’s important for retailers to have a strategic approach to managing large order volume spikes. Here are six ways automation can make a difference.

Automate order processing

One of the biggest challenges during Prime Day is processing a high volume of orders quickly and accurately. Automation tools can streamline this process by automatically capturing order details, updating inventory levels across channels, and generating shipping labels. This not only speeds up order fulfillment but also reduces the risk of errors.

Optimize inventory management

Keeping track of inventory levels can be daunting during peak sales periods. Automated inventory management systems can monitor stock levels in real-time, alerting you when items are running low and even reordering products when necessary. This ensures that you always have enough stock to meet customer demand.

Enhance customer service

Customer service is critical during high-volume sales events. Automated customer service tools, such as chatbots and automated email responses, can handle routine inquiries, provide order status updates, and resolve common issues. This frees up your customer service team to focus on more complex queries and ensures that customers receive timely and accurate information.

Improve data analysis and reporting

Data analysis is essential for understanding your performance, making informed decisions, and planning for demand. Automation tools can collect and analyze data from various sources, providing you with real-time insights into sales trends, customer behavior, and operational efficiency. This allows you to identify areas for improvement and optimize your strategies for future sales events.

Streamline returns and refunds

Handling returns and refunds can be time-consuming, especially during peak periods. Automated systems can simplify this process by generating return labels, updating inventory levels, and processing refunds quickly. This ensures a smooth and hassle-free experience for your customers and reduces the burden on your team.

Integrate with other platforms

Integration with other platforms, such as your ecommerce site, CRM, and accounting software, is crucial for seamless operations. Automation tools can facilitate these integrations, ensuring that data flows smoothly between systems and reducing the need for manual data entry.

Automate at scale with Celigo

Celigo provides merchants confidence to handle increasing order volumes with resources at hand during peak sales seasons. With the platform’s proven scalability and robustness to handle large volumes of transactions at all times, growing sales orders are never an operational bottleneck for Celigo customers. By automating the processing of all their Amazon orders through Celigo, merchants ensure accurate, timely processing of all orders while keeping operational costs low.

Amazon Prime Day 2024 once again demonstrated the importance of automation and integration for ecommerce businesses. Next year, will you be ready to compete for a piece of the shopping pie?

Interested in our key findings from Prime Day 2023? Read our insights here.

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