Will ecommerce shoppers look at Prime Day as a day to hunt for bargains on Amazon alone, or will they surf the entire Internet?
Data from SimilarWeb suggests that Amazon’s Prime Day, which had 179 million combined mobile and desktop visits to ecommerce sites last year, 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. based on an analysis of 25 leading online retailers.
However, direct-to-customer merchants such as Silver Star Brands have said they did not see traffic and sales spikes on their own ecommerce sites last Prime Day, and don’t expect any this time around.
And that’s why eBags has decided to not just participate in Amazon’s July 12 selling holiday, but launch its back to school season the same day on its own ecommerce site.
“Amazon’s Prime customers doesn’t typically leave the site to shop elsewhere,” said eBags CEO Mike Edwards. Conversely, because of all the Prime Day hype, there are shoppers who are going to expect deals across the Internet.”
In a press release issued Friday, eBags said it plans to offer discounts up to 85% off on a limited time “Extreme Deals” section of its ecommerce site.
Edwards said eBags plans to promote Extreme Deals with social and visual campaigns, including Facebook Live giveaways. The merchant will also promote via an email campaign to its rewards members, and site-wide creative will reflect the back to school season campaign, which will run until the end of August.
eBags’ fans and followers will have the chance to win a Lifeboat Quick Charge Portable Battery, a Savvy Laptop Tote, an eTech Mother Lode 25″ Wheeled Duffel, a set of the immensely popular Packing Cubes, and other prizes.
“Prime Day is a nice time to kick off our back to school strategy,” Edwards said. “Back to school and Cyber are our peaks. It’s a little earlier this season for us, but online shoppers are known to buy early for back to school.”
Edwards said eBags will also be a Prime Day participant, and plans to offer discounts via its Amazon channel, though the inventory it manages on Amazon is not the same as it sells on eBags.com. In addition to eBags-branded products, its Amazon offerings will include luggage, travel accessories, and business backpacks, as well as Amazon-exclusive products.
Tim Parry is Multichannel Merchant’s Managing Editor, and the lead programmer for Growing Global.