Despite facing more competition in this year’s Prime Day with Walmart (Walmart+ Week) and Target’s (Circle Week) version of Prime Day, Amazon managed to post record sales from last month’s two-day sales extravaganza with gross sales of over $12.9 billion.
For those who missed out on the biggest online summer sale of the year, don’t worry. The ecommerce giants have decided to give shoppers another chance. Only this time, it will be to give its Prime members a head start for this year’s holiday shopping season.
Why Is Amazon Launching Another Prime Day for 2023?
Recently announced by Worldwide Amazon Stores CEO Doug Herrington on LinkedIn, Amazon has decided to bring back an event that also took place in 2022 by offering a second Prime Day sale this coming October dubbing it as the Prime Big Deal Days.
Amazon has yet to announce the exact dates for the two-day sale, but you can expect it to be around the same dates as last year (October 11 & 12). The end goal for having a second Prime Day is to secure more Prime members, promote Amazon’s products and services, and clear out inventory in some of its warehouses.
Furthermore, it also adds pressure to other retail stores and brands since the sale will occur before Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
“What Amazon is trying to do is to start the holiday shopping season and get a jump on Walmart and Target,” Phil Masiello, Crunchgrowth Revenue Acceleration Agency founder, told Yahoo.
Performance of Amazon’s Second Prime Day Sale of 2022
Last year, Amazon hosted two Prime Day sales events for the first time. There was the usual Prime Day in July 2022 and the Prime Early Access Sale last October 11 to 12.
The second Prime Day sales event failed in comparison to Prime Day in July 2022. Third-party analysts found that Amazon only raked in $5.7 billion in revenue compared to $7.5 billion in July. What’s more, the average spending per order also dipped from $60.29 in July to only $46.68 in October.
One of the reasons for the drop in sales was the lack of awareness among customers. Fortune found that 9% of Amazon shoppers weren’t even aware of the sale before visiting the site since it was only announced during the last week of September. This is an issue Amazon has definitely made up for in 2023.
How Should Sellers Prepare for This Year’s Second Prime Day Sale?
According to CNBC’s latest Supply Chain Survey, retailers are bracing for a ‘downbeat’ holiday shopping season as customers will eagerly seek discounts on products. This makes it vital for sellers to prepare for this year’s second Prime Day since it will come before the other huge sales happening late in the year.
This year’s Prime Day also saw Amazon offer more Prime Day deals on small business products than ever before, with some companies even increasing their average daily sales in Amazon by over 18x during the first day of Prime Day.
In addition, there was an uptick in consumers starting their holiday shopping in October rather than November and December. As per Statista, 56% of consumers in 2022 intended to do their holiday shopping in October, an 11% increase from 2021.
It’s always hard to predict which products will generate the most sales in this type of event. In last year’s Prime Early Access Sale, the top-selling categories were apparel, home, toys, and Amazon devices. Gadgets such as the Macbook Air M1, Bose earbuds and headphones, and Apple Airpods were the top sellers.
This year’s Prime Day found the top-selling categories were from home, fashion, and beauty. Meanwhile a Fire TV Stick and a Bissell Little Green Portable Deep Cleaner were the top sellers.
