Amazon Prime conducted its second annual October Prime Big Deal Days and saw significant sales growth year-over-year. The retailer announced that this was their “biggest October shopping event ever,” with 42% sales growth YoY. This sales event is considered the unofficial kickoff shopping event of the holiday season. The lessons learned could be an indicator of shopping trends as Black Friday, Cyber Monday and other seasonal big hit days approach.
Significant growth for key categories
According to some experts, purchase behavior shifted from the first day of the Amazon Prime Day sale to the second, initially starting with a surge in shopping for household essentials and grocery items. This was attributed to the higher cost of daily goods and more budget-conscious shoppers spending less during the first day of the event. The second day saw more purchases in higher value categories like electronics. These were attributed to the merchant’s heavy promotions toward Amazon’s own electronic brand offerings.
Prime day historically has been a top event for specific category growth on a national and global level. This October’s event further reinforced that trend, according to Digital Commerce 360. Specific categories of note were:
- 36% growth for electronics
- 36% growth for general apparel
- 21% growth for health and beauty
These categories are consistently high performers year after year, especially as the brand and product competition within each category continues to increase. We also expect social commerce to sell well in these categories through social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram this holiday season.
Millennial shopper trends
The millennial shopper has been the highest spending demographic group in previous Amazon Prime events. However, this demographic’s purchase power has declined. The rationale for their reduced spending could be that they are savvy shoppers and therefore take more energy from advertisers and retailers alike to gain trust and establish creditability. While deals can be attractive to these consumers, they rely more heavily on their peers for reviews and word of mouth creditability. As this will be a continued expectation of this generational shopper, it is advised that brands and sellers incorporate story telling into their overall campaigns and messaging to target millennial consumers in future.
Retail media campaign ad type trends
As retail media continues to grow and rely on first-party (1P) audiences for reach and efficiency, it is no surprise that activity within Amazon DSP (demand-side platform) experienced an increase in advertising spending and activity during Prime Day events. Coupling Amazon DSP and AMC (Amazon Marketing Cloud) is a compelling strategy for maximizing ad spend while leveraging the most targeted audiences during sales events. Concurrently, sponsored product and sponsored brand ads saw an increase in advertiser spend but performed less efficiently or received fewer clicks. Brands will continue to diversify campaigns within a retailer ecosystem to maximize reach and exposure.
Applying Prime Day seller strategy to peak season and Cyber 5
With the increased pressure to maximize sales during Prime Days, brands and retailers need to focus on what will serve them best during these high traffic days. During the holiday peak season, sellers can combine refreshed page optimization with product prioritization based on “digital share of shelf” data such as the amount of competitors in the category or the amount of reach a campaign has had.
During peak selling, there is more emphasis on boosting budgets. But it is important to remember that prioritization of products remains a key component of sales strategy.
Retailers and brands use promotions to attract consumers
While Amazon hosts two of the largest e-commerce sales each year, other retailers are deploying their own sales strategies to compete. Walmart hosted a June members-only weekly long sale, quickly followed by a July sale directly competing with the first of the two annual Amazon Prime sales events. Target held Target Circle week from July 7-July 13. Other niche retailers such as Petco, Chewy and others also lowered some prices in a price match effort while Prime events run to offer shoppers compelling discounts. We expect a similar strategy during the holiday shopping season.
Shoppers are comparison price shopping online. 83% of global consumers will visit two or more websites before buying, according to the 2023 Online Consumer Behavior Global Report by Rithum and research firm Dynata.
Apply lessons from Amazon Prime Days in real-time
Rithum’s centralized dashboard provides brands and retailers with a view of operations to track and synchronize fulfillment, inventory and orders across multiple channels. Features like Rithum’s repricer automation, performance monitoring, stock alerts, order routing and management, shipping integration, and returns management help sellers avoid errors on marketplace listings.
For retail media, Rithum’s team creates custom reports that provide data-driven insights. It uses campaign monitoring data, which contains thousands of campaigns, to help achieve optimal performance as well as help prevent incorrect bids or ad pauses. Holiday readiness reports help brands identify what worked during peak events like Amazon Prime Days and what needs improvement before the holiday rush. Rithum’s actionable insights show sellers what to consider when refining strategy for holiday shopping as well as make changes during Black Friday and Cyber Monday peak selling days.
Learn how Rithum’s integrated commerce solution can help you navigate the holiday shopping season on marketplaces by scheduling a demo today.
Meghan Barden is director of global retail media at Rithum.