When is Amazon Prime Day not Prime Day, but actually is? When it’s rebranded as Prime Big Deal Days. The ecommerce giant has once again announced a second sales event in October, as it did in 2022, when it was called Prime Early Access Sale. Amazon said only that it will be running in 19 countries. Last year it performed poorly compared to the July event, according to Bank of America.
Prime Day 2023 was a winner, based on data from Adobe Analytics, with an estimated $12.7 billion spent over the two days in the U.S., up 6.7% from $11.9 billion last year, and Amazon called day one on July 11 its single largest sales day ever, with 375 million items sold worldwide. Considering the state of the economy and consumer sentiment, that kind of a result is quite an achievement.
Let the Prime Day show begin! Or rather, make that shows, as Target and Walmart are once again offering up competitive summer bargain events as each tries to shake off the economic doldrums, steal the other’s thunder and stir up consumer interest in a raft of online savings. Amazon could use a win considering all the heat it’s facing, although expectations aren’t set high.
Amazon is relaunching its discounted version of the vaunted Prime subscription, aimed at providing lower-income consumers perks normally reserved for the full offering but at a lower monthly price, during a period of economic hardship for many as inflation continues unabated.
Amazon once again claimed that the latest Prime Day event was the biggest ever, with 300 million items sold and importantly, more than $1.7 billion saved by shoppers, as some observers had said ahead of the fact that deals weren’t all that spectacular compared to everyday offerings.
Prime Day 2021 is in the books with a record $11 billion in sales, according to Adobe’s Digital Economy Index, up 6.1% from $10.4 billion in 2020, when the event was held in October, but was not a winner for retailers not named Amazon, based on data from SalesForce. Wall Street wasn’t impressed with flat growth over the 2020 event.
Prime Day one on Monday saw total online sales in the U.S. surpass $5.6 billion, up 8.7% from 2020, surpassing Thanksgiving Day last year which rung in at $5.1 billion, according to data from the Adobe Digital Economy Index. Toys saw the deepest discounts, while appliances and electronics proved most popular, Adobe reported.
In the peak holiday season like no other, Adobe is calling for a 33% increase in holiday ecommerce sales from Nov. 1 through Dec. 31, hitting a record $189 billion, equal to two years’ growth from a single year, as retailers, carriers and solution providers alike gear up for a blowout.
Another Prime Day is in the books, with Amazon reporting that third-party sellers rang up $3.5 billion in sales over the two days, up 60% from $2.2 billion in 2019, and once again Amazon devices were big winners. eMarketer pegged the worldwide total for Prime Day at a shade under $10 billion, up a hefty 43% from $6.93 billion in 2019.
Walmart and Target didn’t hesitate in responding to Amazon’s announcement of Prime Day on Oct. 13 and 14, an unusual occurrence in an extraordinary year, by rolling out their own deals and offers to try to steal some of the unusually early holiday thunder from the ecommerce leader.