Tess Bennet

Editor, Internet Retailing 2016

Speedmaster’s Los Angeles distribution centre is preparing to stay open for 72 hours straight to keep up with orders over Amazon’s Prime Day.

Amazon will run the second instalment of Prime Day (July 12), an annual sales event the e-commerce giant is touting as bigger than its Black Friday sales. 

Offering deals to Amazon’s Prime subscribers, the event is designed to give sellers a sales spike during the North American summer.

Speedmaster CEO, Jason Kencevski, said its Los Angeles DC will be operating around the clock for three days over the sale period.

“We’ve got a 75,000 square foot facility with state-of-the-art technology that gets thousands of orders out at a time but we still do require man power,” Kencevski told Internet Retailing.

Kencevski said Speedmaster is “expecting enormous numbers” which could top the brand’s 2015 Black Friday sales.

But it won’t be all work and no play during the three-day period, during extended opening hours staff are kept motivated with extra breaks, free food and games such as a water balloon fight which took place last year during a shift changeover. 

“It’s fun times actually, they really enjoy it,” Kencevski said.

Apart from sales, the other major benefits of participating in Prime Day is brand awareness and acquiring new customers.

“All brands would like to think they are recognised, but from past experience we found that people have purchased their first Speedmaster item thanks to Amazon Prime Day and events like that in the past,” Kencevski said.

In the US, Speedmaster is bound to a MAP (minimum advertised price) pricing policy which means no discounting current stock. So during Amazon Prime Day, Speedmaster will be offering deals on discontinued and one-off items. 

“For Amazon Prime Day deals, we don’t put anything on discount that is current line or a current stocking item for anyone that has them on the shelf because we have global MAP pricing. We are unable to budge, but we do put discontinued items or one-off items up there for brand recognition and for customers to buy if they missed out on something in the past.”

Heavy discounting around sales is a concern for some sellers, for example Aussie brand Active Creatures has chosen not to get involved in Amazon Prime Day this year, as the young company adjusts its pricing and discount strategy.