POV: Amazon Prime Day 2019

Background:

Amazon's Prime Day was back for 2019 bigger, longer and with a relentless drive to change the face of commerce. Stretching across both Monday and Tuesday this week, countless retail sites countered Amazon’s charge, or surfed the wave of retail frenzy it created, by offering 48 hours of deals in response.

Details and Implications:   

Amazon Prime Day expanded its sale window from 36 hours in 2018, to 48 hours in 2019 across 18 countries. According to Amazon, this year’s Prime Day surpassed sales of Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined. Amazon also had its largest sign-up of Prime Members on July 15 and almost broke that record on July 16! That is in the context of Amazon revealing in April that there are over 100 million Prime subscribers worldwide.

Prime Day is Amazon's version of Alibaba’s Singles Day held on 11th November. For comparison, Singles Day delivered over $30 billion in sales in a 24-hour period in 2018, whereas Amazon is projected Amazon to show $5.8 billion in sales in a 48-hour period (Amazon doesn’t release official Prime Day sales figures). Amazon Prime Day is only available to Prime members ($119 a year in the US) but other competitor retail sites jump on the day to offer specific deals with no subscription fee to become part of what has turned into a cultural moment.

Though Amazon is the leader of ecommerce in the U.S., all retailers benefited from the Prime Day halo. According to Adobe Analytics, large retailers saw a 68% sales increase over the 48 hours on Monday and Tuesday.

The implications of Prime Day have yearlong effects. From a brand standpoint, regardless of category, online retail destinations continue to grow in importance in the omni-channel shopper experience and many brands are focusing retail media on a sustain-and-scale approach. Sustain a consistent presence on ecommerce destinations, through search, display, and social, then Scale spend during key seasonality and events through sponsorships and share of voice ownership.

The growing size of Prime Day forces brands to pay more attention to the Amazon platform and understand the retailer’s capabilities in the pre-shop, shop and post shop experience, and how data and media can intercept and convert consumers on that journey (whether that is on Amazon or any retailer taking part on the wider shopping frenzy). The growth of ecommerce and events like Prime Day have also showcased the importance of being retail ready through a simplified and easy to understand consumer friendly product page.

Summary: 

According to Amazon there were 175 million items purchased this year and millions of those items were Alexa-enabled, allowing for consumers to more easily engage and buy from Amazon day in and day out (Amazon and Alexa products were amongst the most heavily discounted). This growth in voice commerce will continue to fuel the importance of enabling your digital assets to allow ease of purchase across all retail and direct-to-consumer platforms – and though voice.

Further Reading:
CNBC | Business Insider | Forbes