If your company sells its products on Amazon.com, are you prepared for the onslaught of traffic and sales today? What you ask? What’s so special about a random Wednesday in July? If you haven’t heard — and I’m sure most of you have by now — today is the inaugural Amazon Prime Day. The online retailing giant has decided to celebrate its 20th birthday by creating its own Black Friday, hyping it as “one of the biggest deals extravaganzas in the world.”

Today, Wed., July 15, Amazon Prime members in the U.S., U.K., Spain, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, Canada and Austria will be take advantage of discounts that aren’t normally seen except for Black Friday. While consumers will certainly benefit from Prime Day, so too will Amazon. The online retailing giant figures to see record levels of traffic and sales today and, perhaps most importantly, a spike in signups for its Prime program, a service that provides members exclusive options and benefits (e.g., access to Prime Day deals, free shipping) for a $99 fee.

Don’t expect Amazon Prime Day to diminish the popularity of Black Friday, however. In fact, that may be just what Amazon intended by placing this “holiday” smack dab in the middle of the summer, traditionally a slower time for retail sales.

James Brooke, managing director at Rooster PR, told CNBC that while the 20th birthday is a “nice angle,” it won’t steal any limelight away from the biggest shopping day of the year: Black Friday.

“Amazon’s clear focus currently is to drive subscriptions to its Prime service, and this is a clever way of doing exactly that.” Brooke goes on to say that the date of July 15 is far enough away from Black Friday that there’s zero risk of Prime Day cannibalizing one of the biggest shopping days of the year.

“Amazon is taking a page out of Alibaba’s playbook,” notes Scott Heimes, chief marketing officer at Digital River, a provider of global e-commerce, payments and marketing services. “Similar to Alibaba’s Singles Day, Amazon is creating a shopping holiday for consumers.”

What Prime Day Means for Your Business
Whether you sell on Amazon or not, Prime Day figures to have an impact on all online retailers. From pricing strategy to inventory management to order fulfillment to customer experience, nearly all aspects of online retailers’ businesses are impacted by what Amazon does. Prime Day and its promise of never-seen-before deals figures to only exacerbate that situation.

While brands might be eager to jump into the action by offering their own Amazon Prime Day-type deals — Wal-Mart and Target already have — they also need to be cautious,” warns Heimes. “With this new event, Amazon is creating more reasons to take shoppers direct, capturing not only mindshare and wallets but also valuable customer insights and relationships. Brands might discount prices, but they should be careful not to discount the importance of maintaining a direct relationship with their customers. When brands go direct, they have more control over their image, ongoing social connections and lifetime customer strategies.”

Paige O’Neill, chief marketing officer of customer experience technology company SDL, echoed Heimes’ thoughts.

“While sales and promotions are a good way to attract shoppers, many consumers would actually pay more for a better experience. Among the retailers participating in ‘Black Friday in July,’ the one that will win is likely to be the one that not only has the best deals, but offers the best and most personalized experience as well.”

Competing With Amazon 365 Days a Year
Prime Day has garnered a lot of attention lately, but July 15 isn’t the only day that retailers need to be paying attention to what Amazon is doing. It’s a year-round job, but it’s not a useless endeavor. There are things you can do to not only compete with Amazon, but beat it.

“Retailers large and small need to consider how they will effectively compete long term with the retail and supply chain behemoth, and one way is to capitalize on the assets they have that Amazon doesn’t,” says John Pincott, senior vice president, Europe and global marketing, for Shopatron, a SaaS platform for distributed order management. “Retailers with both an online and brick-and-mortar presence need to start using the inventory in their stores to their advantage. Offering items for immediate pickup (without a $99 membership fee) and shipping from stores to customers’ homes rather than letting the inventory sit in a marked-down heap in the store can boost efforts to stack up against Amazon’s perks. By using some of their stores as mini distribution centers, retailers can offer inventory in more places than the online pure-players. This cuts down on both the cost and time taken for deliveries to reach customers, and puts retailers on a stronger footing when competing with the online giant.”

What are your thoughts on Amazon Prime Day? Are you prepared? Do you think it’s more hype than substance? Or do you think it will be bigger than Black Friday? Let us know your thoughts by posting a comment below.