Hello, SellersAskSellers, and welcome to your 2023 master thread for everything Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, Cyber 5, and/or Cyber Week! All the victories, glitches, queries, and conundrums should be added right here.
Amazon has already decorated:
Be sure to set this topic’s notifications to “tracking” in the “normal” drop down at the bottom of the page.
For bfcm issues, oddities, and occurrences on other platforms, please post in Selling on other Platforms, including:
eBay
Etsy
Walmart
Own website
MakerPlace by Michaels
Others
As always, @Handmade has two other category options:
Handmade
Etsy (private Handmade)
And @Booksellers have Booksellers.
Amazon has indeed decorated and locked their “Partner’s” out of participating early. 
Anyone shocked? Even my SAS manager didn’t know about that. She thought our deals were starting today. Had to correct her and show her the backend of the PED workflow.
No Soup For You if you aren’t 1P/VC
“Come Back, 1 Year!”
Well, 1P/VC vendors get screwed in every which way possible, so I guess Amazon’s gotta throw them a bone somewhere to make the program better than being a 3P in at least some aspects. Earlier access to deals is one of em I guess.
Please explain what you mean here.
Those vendors are some of the biggest brands / sellers on Amazon. Why on earth would they put themselves in a position of mistreatment. They don’t need Amazon, Amazon needs them.
Well, this is based on the smaller VC businesses, some of the chief complaints were the fact that Amazon has 100% control over pricing, they won’t respect the brand’s MAP and also would claw back parts of the payments for various reasons. Amazon also determines when and what to restock, and if you do not fulfill those orders promptly they cut you off. Also Amazon pays slow for the products.
I misspoke, what I said only applies to smaller brands, the big ones have the bargaining power to get a fair deal.
I hear you 100% on the pricing. That issue is presented and known upfront to the brand before an agreement is reached.
Nobody is forced into that type of relationship. It’s a conscious decision.
I see brands in my space that are 1P that have no business being in the search position they are in. Amazon is manipulating it to benefit Amazon with a fringe benefit going to the brand of sales.
The issue isn’t so much Amazon cutting the retail price, but the fact that they’ll pay less for the product they already received if they feel the need to cut the price. Presumably only the smaller brands get this treatment.
This is a common retail practice. When you enter into an agreement with a major player like Amazon or maybe one of the big drug chains or B&M giants (Walmart / Target), there are expectations to be met.
When these deals are made, pitches are made with projections and required support for the deal from the brand. That support includes concessions (chargebacks) if the projected volume is not met.
I’ve been on both sides deals like this over the last 26 years. This is how it works and although I have never dealt directly with Amazon in an agreement like we are talking about, I have to assume that it’s no different.
If your crap doesn’t sell or well enough, it’s not the sellers fault, it’s the brands fault. It’s called “Guaranteed Sale” and every major player in ecommerce and retail operates like this and has for decades.
Brands take the hit on chargebacks (cost reductions), so they don’t have to eat the inventory or go through the trouble of taking it all back.
Wait was BF supposed to start today? I thought it was always after Turkey Day? I didn’t even realize the dates.
I think I’m suffering from deal exhaustion syndrome (des)
Google has you covered …
So not only do we have fall back / spring ahead to deal with … we now need browser support to tell us when Black Friday and Cyber Monday is …
So if Black Friday starts on a Monday, then Cyber Monday must start on a Friday …
Cyber Friday, Black Monday
I’d say that day 1 was a failure. Yes, we sold about 30% more units, dollars were flat. We will not comp last Monday today, down ~4%, up 5% to LY this day.
Hard to compare Monday BF to a Prime Day but units go up 2.5X on those days for us. Do the math on the $.
Then again, you know what’s going on with our reviews from some other thread I’ve been wildly contributing to. I’m surprised we sold anything today.
Also then again…, What we sell, does not align with BF/CM.
Well, at least you won’t get killed by a stampede on Amazon.com
[mod note: This incident is from 2008.]
All the early deals taking away from the excitement of a single big black friday day probably isn’t a bad thing for B&M stores. The incident above isn’t unique (it just got the most attention because someone was actually killed, there’s a ton of these incidents where people get hurt) and every time it happens there’s millions of $ in liability and negative publicity.
This unlikely and hopefully never to happen again.
Walmart and Target aren’t even opening on Thanksgiving evening.
That ship has sailed with BF B&M excitement.
Amazon and ecommerce sunk that like the titanic. Not necessarily a bad thing.
Workers should be home on Thanksgiving celebrating, not putting body armor on to protect themselves from the stampedes of idiots looking for the last cabbage kid or 55" $75 smart TV.
Worst part is they actually tailored the promotions to get the huge crowds to stampede in, by having limited quantity sales that the store sold at a big loss to draw the crowds.
After a few of these stampede incidents (and presumably massive lawsuits that followed) they stopped doing that. People were being so violent that the metal doorframes were getting destroyed (think about how hard people were pushing each other for those to get bent). That behavior doesn’t belong in a retail store.
Believe me, I remember. That incident you posted upthread happened about 15 mins from my house.
That mall has always been a disaster. Held the record for most stolen cars out of a shopping mall for years in the country. A very distinguished honor.
When I was growing up in the 80s and 90s, stores were closed on Thanksgiving. Most gas stations and fast food, too! Black Friday originally started at the regular store opening time like 9 or 10am, then early bird specials at 6am, then crazy deals at 3 or 4am, then midnight madness at (yes) midnight, then “opening late” on Thanksgiving day itself at 8 or 9pm, then…you get this picture. Complete creep to in-store deals all day on Thanksgiving.
But in recent years–probably looking at the consumer monster that retail created and realizing it wasn’t sustainable–there’s been pushback against opening on Thanksgiving (quite rightly!) and more sympathy for the in-person regular everyday retail employees having to suddenly staff the Fyre Fest of consumerism.
Safer and more sustainable for everyone, IMO. Even looking at the below list of stores with some open hours on Thanksgiving, it’s (mostly) for practical reasons (grocery stores), not for gift-getting frenzy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/11/20/thanksgiving-black-friday-stores-open/
