Amazon Prime Day sales: Early estimate shows gain from last year
Early estimates predict Amazon will see a large increase in sales during this year’s Prime Day compared to previous events.
Marketing technology company IgnitionOne is predicting this year’s Prime Day will generate $6.1 billion in sales. That would put Prime Day 2019 $2 billion ahead of last year’s event, they said.
Amazon doesn’t share exact sales totals in dollars for Prime Day, but the company has said that last year’s 36-hour sale was then the largest shopping event it had ever held. At 48 hours, this year’s Prime Day is the longest one yet and Amazon said it will include “more than a million deals worldwide.”
However, the company has given some clues about how much money it makes on Prime Day. Last year, the company said people bought more than 100 million products during the sale. Small- and medium-sized businesses selling on Amazon “far exceeded $1.5 billion in sales” during Prime Day 2018. In its Q1 earnings report, Amazon said third-party sellers brought in $11.1 billion out of $59.7 billion in net sales.
This year’s sales include deals on items like TVs, laptops, fashion, toys and outdoor items.
IgnitionOne COO Chris Hansen said Prime Day is “changing the way consumers shop.”
“You have to think about how many families would wait until Black Friday to purchase holiday gifts,” he said. “Now, Prime Day is there for consumers to see what deals will save them some money ahead of time.”
The majority of back-to-school shoppers plan their purchases around sale events like Prime Day, according to the National Retail Federation. In a recent survey, they found that nearly half of people holding off on their back-to-school shopping were waiting for sales like Prime Day.
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Other retailers are also competing for consumers’ attention. Target’s Deal Days event is overlapping with Prime Day, as is eBay’s Hot Deals for Hot Days sale.
“People are no longer holding off on purchasing, which is substantial for retailers,” Hansen said. “This hype will continue to grow more and more with people planning purchases around Prime Day.”
