One of the biggest discount battles of the year kicks off today, with Amazon and their Prime Big Deal Days Sale now going head to head with local retailers who are punting on the Black Friday sales to compete with concerns now mounting that the value could be taken out of the Black Friday event after Amazon extended their discount sales days in Australia.

Key to the Amazon event is merchant deals with Amazon management working closely with suppliers, distributors and overseas suppliers in an effort to offer exclusive discounts.

Amazon sellers have seen a large boost in sales during Amazon Prime Day sales in the past and are tipping further increases for the Big Deal Days, which runs from Oct. 8 to Oct. 9th.

A visit to the Prime Big Deals Day site in Australia reveals all the big brands are there including Apple, Miele, Bissell Sennheiser, Roborock, Ecovacs. FujiFilm, Lego, Philips, Oral B, Logitech, Bosch, Samsung with discounts ranging from 10% to 71% on Bosch tool kits. A Samsung Galaxy Watch is discounted 58% while there is 38% off a Dyson Stick Vacs.

Also on the site is a multitude of brands that are not sold in Australian retailers.

Gabe Ray’s firm Evolved Commerce manages around 300 clients a month – from small suppliers to major supplier companies, many of which sell on Amazon.

Across the board, the average Amazon vendor experiences between a 250% to 350% boost in sales during the two-day event, Ray told The New York Post recently.

The October sale has found success, especially as more consumers turned to e-tailers during the pandemic.

“More and more people of older generations are adopting it and accepting online shopping is easier” – especially as Amazon has improved its same-day delivery options, Ray said.

Observers locally claim “The e-commerce boom begs the question, Is Amazon’s October Prime event the new Black Friday?”

“We are uncertain as to whether it will hurt Black Friday retailers” they said.

Local sellers many who are reluctant to talk on the record for fear of upsetting their high street retailers claim that they often see their gross sales spike during the two-day event – but their profits are hit, since customers hold off on making purchases in the periods before and after the sale, he said.

Retailers in Australia have responded by creating November as a Black Friday Month.

Today JB Hi Fi is matching several of the Amazon deals with deals PlayStation consoles, LG LED TV’s HP Notebooks and Apple Beats headphones.

One issue of concern for Amazon suppliers is the fees and the fines they are hit with outside of selling a product.

Jay Kamhi, the creator of top-selling Amazon toys like the fortune-telling Mr. Predicto, said his toy stores saw a spike in gross sales during the two-day event in the past.

He claims that sales from that two-day period can sometimes be enough to make up the difference, however vendors are getting hit with more and more fines from Amazon this year, Kamhi said.

Vendors have always needed to pay a fee to be included in special deals, like Amazon’s Lightning Deals. But Prime-exclusive deals have long been an option for vendors who don’t want to pay the extra charge, Kamhi said.

Now, Amazon is forcing vendors to pay $50 for each product it wants included in the Prime-exclusive deals, he said.

Amazon is creating an environment in which vendors are dependent on the online marketplace before it raises fees and creates additional charges, he claimed.

Most recently, Amazon has offered to help its vendors with distribution costs, he said.

In Australia Amazon is investing millions in new distribution centres with the US online retailers set to be able to deliver large heavy goods such as washing machines and big TV on the same day that they are ordered.

Previously, vendors handled the shipping of goods from factories in China to a third-party warehouse. Then, vendors had to pay to transfer the goods from their warehouse to an Amazon warehouse.

Bain expects US retail sales to reach a record-breaking $75 billion during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday period – representing 5% growth since last year.

About 8% of total holiday sales are expected to come from Black Friday and Cyber Monday – the period’s largest share since 2019, according to Bain.

Though popular in its own right, Big Deal Days likely won’t replace Black Friday and Cyber Monday as far as sales, Ray said.

Bain & Company claim that Amazon is still stealing away a share of Black Friday customers from brick-and-mortar stores.

“I think they do take away some of that chunk of people who don’t want to go fight the crowds or sit and wait overnight,” claimed Ray.