In a message to sellers using its Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) service, global conglomerate Amazon has confirmed a deadline of 19 October 2024 for inventory to arrive at one of its fulfilment centres in order to “guarantee it’s Prime badge-ready by Black Friday”.
This deadline is a week earlier than the one set last year – 26 October 2023. Addressing sellers, Amazon said: “We want you to succeed this holiday season, and to ensure you have enough products in stock for peak, we recommend sending your FBA inventory to fulfilment centres in August and September.”
It explained: “Our fulfilment centre teams will be focused on receiving inventory in September and October to ensure your products are placed in the right fulfilment centres ahead of peak.
“In November and December, we’ll shift our focus to processing customer orders as this is our busiest time of year.”
Black Friday, the day after thanksgiving in the US, is known for its sales in the retail sector. Widely considered to mark the beginning of the festive shopping season, this year the day falls on 29 November 2024.
According to Salesforce, Black Friday in 2023 saw US$16.4 billion in sales in the US and $70.9bn globally. While in-store sales increased by 2.2% year-on-year in 2023, online sales grew by 6.3%.
In recent years, this period of increased e-commerce demand has extended beyond Black Friday to the following week, often referred to as Cyber Week. This week, beginning with Cyber Monday, drove $38bn in online spending in the US in 2023, up 7.8% from 2022.
With data from Statista showing that Amazon was the market leader for retail e-commerce in the US in 2023, this period is a busy and crucial time for the company. In the 2023 Black Friday and Cyber Monday holiday shopping period, Amazon confirmed that its customers in the US ordered more than 500 million items from independent sellers.
Planning for peak seasons in the retail and logistics sectors is key, and Amazon will be hoping that bringing forward its inventory deadline this year will allow more time for orders to be processed and fulfilled, to ensure it can meet its customers delivery expectations and maintain the satisfaction of its Prime customers.
For more on customer expectations of last-mile deliveries, check out this feature in the August issue of Logistics Manager, available exclusively online!
