June Prime Day opens July opportunities – like these

The shift of Amazon Prime Day from the July calendar leaves a lot of room to capture sales in a traditionally slow month.

Historically, July and January stuck out as two months of the year when retailers and consumers collectively agreed to take it easy. Retailers offered deep discounts on excess stock while shoppers exhaled after the busy holiday season or went on well-deserved vacations.

However, the advent of gift cards and growing popularity of returns and exchanges turned January into an extension of the holidays, while the introduction of Amazon Prime Day made July into a month of omnichannel shopping extravaganzas and the kickoff of the holidays season.

Other than two one-off changes in Prime Day’s July timing that were due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on shopping patterns, Amazon has always hosted the event in July. But this year’s rescheduling to late June seems like it may be more permanent, and Target has already moved its summer sales extravaganza to match the timing.

In a recent column, I gave retailers suggestions on how to effectively compete with Prime Day in its new calendar setting. But retailers should also strategize how to capitalize on the large vacuum being left in the July sales cycle.

[READ MORE: Here’s how retailers should prepare for Prime Day in June]

Following are three ideas for shaking the July retail doldrums in the absence of Prime Day:

Summer isn’t over

It’s no secret retailers like to sell seasonal products well ahead of season. Summer merchandise is already starting to appear on the clearance racks at some stores, and usually by July fall items start appearing.

However, customers don’t always live their lives by the retail calendar. Many shoppers are still actively looking for summer clothing and other warm weather seasonal products in July, and a lot of vacationers don’t plan in advance and need goods to fill their suitcases.

Without Prime Day and the 100-plus competing omnichannel promotions that usually overlap it, July is great time to stand out as a resource to the many customers who are still firmly in summer shopping mode. 

Ho-ho-holiday

Amazon came to position Prime Day as the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season, and the many Prime Day competitors followed suit. However, Amazon is focusing more on the June edition of Prime Day as an opportunity for back-to-school savings, and presumably other retailers will do the same.

Without Prime Day in July, it is likely that many retailers will stick to launching their early holiday shopping promotions between late August and early October (when Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days blockbuster usually takes place).

Consumers are already trained to start making holiday purchases in July, and many retailers will already have a good amount of their holiday merchandise on hand by then. Why not run your own “Holiday in July” sale and get a jump on your competitors with the merriment?

Testing 1,2,3

Finally, the re-emergence of July as a quiet period for retail sales makes it a good time to test out new ideas, as an underperformance or failure will not have as severe an impact as it would during a busier time of year. 

July is a great time of year to run trials of omnichannel fulfillment, gamification promotions, loyalty offerings, and other new features and solutions. If they work with lighter customer traffic, follow-up testing can be scheduled during busier periods. If not, they will most likely fade away like the summer tide.