Amazon Prime Day, dubbed “Black Friday in July” by online shoppers, kicks off its 10th annual discount sale at midnight Tuesday, an event that experts say has transformed the way online retailers do business.
The primary goal of Amazon Prime Day was to solve a problem that has plagued retailers for years: getting consumers to shop during a historically slow purchasing season.
During the first event, which took place on July 15, 2015, customers bought more Amazon products than they did on Black Friday the previous year, a research firm said. Timeline Prime Day milestone.
Prime Day sales are now taking place in more than 20 countries, and the event has inspired dozens of other retailers to host similar events in July.
Demand has grown exponentially over the past decade, causing the company’s servers to go down for several hours in 2018. The company claimed at the time that the impact to revenue was minimal.
Prime Day is also aimed at driving sign-ups for Amazon’s Prime membership, which has about 180 million members, according to Consumer Intelligence Research Partners.
When Amazon first launched its service, it ran a 24-hour-only sale in nine countries.
By 2017 the event had expanded to 30 hours and was held in 13 countries, and Amazon Prime expanded the event to 48 hours in 2019.
The pandemic and resulting supply chain disruptions forced Amazon to move Prime Day to October for one year.
However, a new report from market research firm eMarketer says this marks the third consecutive year that Amazon has lost market share to other retailers during Prime Day.
In recent years, retailers large and small have followed Amazon Prime’s lead, first running their own promotions on the same dates as Amazon Prime, and then starting to schedule them a week before the big event.
Amazon will drive the majority of online sales during Prime Day (a whopping 59%), but this year marks the third consecutive year of slowing growth for the retailer.
That’s because the Seattle-based pioneer has a host of imitators eager to catch a foothold and steal market share.
This year, fast-growing Chinese discount store Temu is trying to steal Prime Day’s momentum with its “Temu Week,” in which it is offering select products at 90% off until July 18.
“I think Amazon is pretty much sticking to their tried-and-true Prime Day playbook this year,” said Skye Canaves, principal analyst at eMarketer, which is to drive acquisition of Prime members. Vox.
As a result, some of the biggest discounts this year have been invite-only sales from big brands available only to Prime members, with reports ranging from 30% off Peloton bikes to 55% off Sony headphones.
