By Isabella Picillo
Black Friday is one of the biggest shopping phenomena, causing consumers to go into a frenzy over low prices and exclusive deals. However, part of that excitement has shifted toward Amazon Prime Day, which is an exclusive event for Prime subscribers that offers some of the lowest prices of the year across different categories of goods on Amazon. Amazon Prime Day has become one of the most successful shopping events in recent history.
To provide context, Amazon began Prime Day in July 2015 in honor of the website’s twentieth anniversary. Part of the reason why this event is so strategic is that the company uses it to build loyalty with Prime subscribers and attract new customers to its Prime service. Amazon’s subscription program, Amazon Prime, is integral to its commerce business, as over sixty percent of its customers have a Prime membership and pay a monthly subscription fee. Although Prime Day only lasts twenty-four to forty-eight hours, the event is immensely successful. In 2019, Prime Days sales surpassed the combined sales of the previous year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and this year, in 2020, Amazon’s sales surpassed more than $3.5 billion during the two-day event.
Typically, Prime Day falls in July, but it was pushed back two months this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Having Prime Day fall in July is so clever because it happens far before most companies have their first major holiday sale. Because Amazon Prime Day is so successful, other companies feel the pressure, causing the retail calendar to shift. Many major retailers, such as Target and Walmart, are now adjusting when their major sales are, offering Black Friday-like prices and deals in the late summer and early fall instead of during Black Friday only. Holiday shopping has become much more accelerated now due to Prime Day. Retailers are also trying to compete with Amazon by matching Amazon’s prices and discounts on major appliances and electronics.
Moreover, Amazon benefits from its Prime Day event because it gets free advertising. Prime Day has become so popular that many major news and media outlets are putting out content about navigating Prime Day, like recommending good deals for both Prime members and non-Prime members.
Part of Amazon Prime Day’s success comes from being differentiated from other major retail events. Prime Day is focused on Amazon’s subscribers, though there are deals for non-Prime members, whereas most other retailers’ events have almost no exclusivity to them. Overall, Amazon’s Prime Day is moving the consumer shopping experience out of the winter months, generating shopping demand throughout the year.