Amazon Prime Big Deal Days started hot with a strong Day 1, according to data from Momentum Commerce.
Until 2022, Amazon Prime Day was a once-a-year event, usually in the summer. In 2022, the retail giant added another event in October: Prime Big Deal Days. Last year, Amazon held its Big Deal Days event on Oct. 10 and 11, 2023. This year, Amazon Big Deal Days is running Oct. 8 and 9.
Momentum Commerce is a consulting company for online retailers. It says it manages Amazon sales for brands that account for more than $7 billion in annual sales on the marketplace.
Last year, Amazon shoppers largely avoided big-ticket items in favor of smaller purchases during the event. 58% of purchases in a period of the sale monitored by research firm Numerator had cost less than $20.
This year, clients working with Momentum Commerce to sell on Amazon increased sales 41% year over year, according to the consulting company. Among those clients are:
Amazon is No. 1 in the Top 1000 Database. The database is Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of the largest online retailers in North America by annual web sales. Amazon is also No. 3 in Digital Commerce 360’s Global Online Marketplaces Database. It ranks the 100 largest global marketplaces by 2023 third-party gross merchandise value (GMV).
Amazon Prime Big Deal Days: Day 1 results
Momentum Commerce said that based on its clients’ sales, the event is inching closer to sales volumes for Amazon’s summer Prime Day event — the marketplace’s largest sales event of the year.
Across that same-client set, the consultancy said, sales from Day 1 of the Prime Big Deal Day event were 34% below Day 1 of the July 2024 Prime Day event.
“That gap has historically been much larger,” Momentum Commerce said.
Moreover, Momentum Commerce said the buying pattern shifted in 2024 compared to the Prime Big Deal Days event in 2023. Whereas sales peak was in the morning during Day 1 of last year’s event, that was not the case this year. The evening peak, at 8 p.m. Central on Oct. 8, surpassed the morning peak this year, Momentum Commerce said.
Effect of Prime Big Deal Days on sales off Amazon
Data from ecommerce platform provider Salesforce, on the other hand, shows that Day 1 of Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days started “slow with performance ranging widely based on location.” Salesforce says it bases its data on the shopping activity of 1.5 billion consumers across non-Amazon brands and retailers.
In North America, 76 of the top 2000 online retailers use Salesforce as their ecommerce platform, according to Digital Commerce 360 data. And in 2023, those 76 online retailers combined for more than $136.077 billion in web sales.
In the United States, online traffic for Day 1 is down 4% year over year and online orders are down 5%. Salesforce attributes the decrease to weather events including Hurricane Helene that have struck the country’s Southeast region in recent weeks.
“There is evidence that current events in the U.S. are resulting in a quieter than planned Prime Day event,” said Caila Schwartz, director of consumer strategy and insights at Salesforce, in a statement. “As brands continue to prioritize the health and safety of their customers, marketing efforts have been pulled back, contributing to the fall in overall YoY [year over year] results so far this week.”
Meanwhile, in Canada, traffic and orders are both up 2% for Day 1. And in Europe, “retailers who largely sat out of July’s Prime Event seem to be leaning in,” Salesforce said. European retailers’ online traffic volumes increased 10% year over year on Day 1, while order volumes grew 4%.
So far, the top-performing verticals for online order growth during Amazon Prime Big Deal Days are Food & Beverage (a 23% increase), Health & Beauty (up 21%), and General Handbags (up 17%), according to Salesforce data.
Day 2 results so far
According to Momentum Commerce data, Day 2 sales are up 42% year over year so far, as of about 12:30 p.m. Central on Oct. 9.
And at 11:30 a.m. Central, “sales volume hit levels 54% higher than what we observed over the same hour across a same-client set during the 2023 Prime Big Deal Days event,” Momentum Commerce said.
The company added that this may be an indication that Day 2 total sales will be closer to Day 1 figures. Historically, Momentum Commerce said, Day 2 sales are always softer than Day 1.
Prime Big Deal Days: How were the discounts?
Going into Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days event, ecommerce platform provider Salesforce had predicted discounts on the U.S. marketplace to reach 22%. That dipped slightly for Salesforce’s forecast of global Prime Big Deal Days discounts — 20%.
In the U.S., Salesforce forecasted the top discounts by vertical to be:
- General Apparel: 26%
- Health & Beauty: 20%
- Home (Appliances, Furniture, Art and Decor): 19%
Globally, Salesforce forecasted:
- General Apparel: 23%
- Health & Beauty: 19%
- Home (Appliances, Furniture, Art and Decor): 18%
- Luxury Handbags and Apparel: 20%
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