The third annual Amazon Prime Day is in the books, and by our analysis, Amazon’s made-up holiday is not so fictional anymore.
Of course, Amazon doesn’t disclose sales figures on Prime Day, but it did say overall sales grew 60% compared with last year’s event and that it was the biggest sales day ever for the company. Taking that into consideration, as well as a host of other data from industry experts, Internet Retailer has come up with estimates of what we believe is the scale of this midsummer event.
We estimate Amazon sold $2.41 billion worth of goods during the 30-hour sales event July 11, this year’s Prime Day, up 58.6% from $1.52 billion from last year’s event. Amazon sold roughly 325% more on Prime Day than it does on an average day, according to our analysis. In other words, it’s a big day, one that Amazon’s competitors, and its marketplace sellers, cannot ignore.
Prime Day adds another hurdle for competitors: Remember that Amazon began this event to grow its loyal Prime customer base. Securities research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) estimates that Amazon, as of the end of June, has about 85 million Prime members in the U.S., up 34.9% from 63 million a year ago. CIRP’s data is based on a survey of 500 U.S. shoppers who bought something on Amazon from April-June. As the number of Prime customers increases, it’ll be even more challenging for competing retailers to attract customers that are used to two-day free shipping and receive other Prime perks like free streaming of music, movies and TV shows.
In five charts, here’s an analysis of Prime Day from various angles. Data from these research and analytics firms helped us in our analysis: Slice Intelligence; Hitwise, a division of Connexity; Adobe Digital Insights; SimilarWeb; Bizrate Insights; 360pi, a division of Market Track; One Click Retail; AdGooroo; and Jumpshot.
1. Total Sales on Amazon Prime Day, 2015-17
There are a couple of notable differences about Prime Day 2017. Amazon this year extended the sale to 30 hours, up from 24 hours the previous two years. Amazon made a more aggressive push to engage Prime members this year by offering Prime Day-like deals in the run-up to July 11. For instance, from July 8-11, Amazon offered discounts on everything from ice cream to alcohol ordered through its Prime Now two-hour delivery service. Starting July 5, Amazon began offering Prime-like deals at its Amazon Books locations, a move designed to get Prime members into its stores.
2. How does Prime Day compare to other online shopping holidays around the world?
Prime Day is not too far behind Cyber Monday or Black Friday, two major U.S. shopping holidays. However, it does have some major catching up to do with Chinese online marketplace giant Alibaba Group Holdings. Alibaba’s 2016 Singles’ Day event, a one-day sale held annually on Nov. 11, generated in nearly $18 billion in sales.
3. Marketplace sales versus Amazon’s own gain
Amazon reported that sales of marketplace sellers’ units doubled to 40 million this year compared with 20 million from Prime Day 2016. Having said that, data suggests more sales on Prime Day come from Amazon’s own inventory as opposed to marketplace sellers’ products. For instance, we know that on Prime Day 2016, 122 of the 123 top products sold were sold by Amazon.
4. Prime Day sales by country
Amazon ran Prime Day promotions in 13 countries, up from 10 last year. The countries are: the U.S., U.K., Spain, Mexico, Japan, Italy, India, Germany, France, China, Canada, Belgium and Austria. China, India and Mexico are new this year. Estimates are based on the percentage of revenue Amazon generates from each country.
5. How many consumers shopped on Prime Day and what did they buy?
Roughly 21.8% of online shoppers made a purchase on Amazon.com on Prime Day, according to an exclusive Internet Retailer and Bizrate Insights survey. That’s up from 19.4% last year, when Internet Retailer conducted the same survey.
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10 Ways Retailers can Prepare for Prime Day—Prime Day doesn’t have to be a win just for Amazon. These 10 tips will help Amazon Marketplace sellers and retailers that don’t sell on Amazon get a mid-summer sales boost from the Amazon sales holiday. Download these tips from the 2017 Prime Day Report for free by filling out the form below, or get $50 off your purchase of the complete report using the code 17PRIME50.