Will Amazon’s second-annual Prime Day shopping event break the Internet? Or will Amazon be the sole beneficiary of Prime Day traffic… and sales?
Both digital market intelligence firm SimilarWeb and performance marketing exchange company HookLogic think that, based on what it saw last year, this Prime Day (July 12) could be a big day for all ecommerce merchants.
Data from SimilarWeb has shown the Amazon-generated sales event has already become the fourth biggest online shopping day in the U.S. retail calendar based on an analysis of 25 leading online retailers.
Based on the SimilarWeb’s numbers, leading retailers saw a high of 179 million combined mobile and desktop visits last year on Prime Day. Prime Day now trails just Thanksgiving (243 million visits) Cyber Monday (261 million visits) and Black Friday (274 million) as the biggest one-day boom for online retail traffic.
Amazon secured 93.1 million combined mobile and desktop visits to its site from the U.S. alone on the day (last year on July 15), recording a one-day traffic jump of 63% on mobile and 45% on desktop on its first Prime Day.
While Amazon saw the most overall visits on Prime Day 2015, according to SimilarWeb, it was not the only ecommerce site to capitalize through offering deals. In fact, Macy’s secured an 81% increase on mobile and 58% desktop increase, and Walmart saw a 64% one-day increase in mobile visits and nearly 62% on desktop during the day. Newegg and Best Buy both saw significant increases of traffic as they hit back with offers.
Meanwhile, HookLogic agreed that Amazon isn’t the only one who saw a significant shopping spike: Last Prime Day, HookLogic analyzed the traffic of mass merchant U.S. ecommerce sites across its Retail Search Exchange Network, and noted that overall traffic was 1.8-times higher, and conversions 16% higher, compared to the July 8 baseline.
HookLogic added that the top traffic winners, by category, were apparel and accessories, electronics, sporting goods, home and garden, and furniture.
Ian MacDonald, Director of Ecommerce at Silver Star Brands, said his company’s seven brands did not have one-day ecommerce spikes on Prime Day 2015, and does not see that happening this Prime Day, either.
But MacDonald did see a huge jump in the number of Prime Day orders via its Amazon channel (up 171%) compared to the days leading up to Prime Day, as well as a 101% lift in revenue.
And MacDonald predicts this year’s traffic and sales via Amazon will be close to Cyber Monday volumes. MacDonald says July 12 won’t only be a good drill for Cyber Weekend preparation, but a great way to ensure orders get out the door on time.
“Amazon is still going to hold us to tight on-time shipping standards, so we need to make sure we are not going to be punished,” MacDonald said.
MacDonald said his team is making sure its Amazon feed is running properly so there won’t be any glitches on Prime Day, but adds that this is something his team does daily as a best-practice.
The biggest thing MacDonald’s team is doing differently: Speeding up the go-live process with new products. For example, new products in-stock last week would not go live on Amazon for about three weeks, and they are expediting the process to get those products live on Amazon before July 12 instead.
Tim Parry is Multichannel Merchant’s Managing Editor, and the lead programmer for Growing Global.