Prime Big Deal Days: A Big Start for Holiday Shopping?

Since its debut in 2015, Amazon’s Prime Day has grown from a one-day celebration to a retail phenomenon that offers exclusive deals and savings to its Prime members. The inaugural event in 2015 lasted just 24 hours but saw sales figures grow by 300% that day for Fulfillment by Amazon sellers.

In 2016, Prime Day exceeded all previous expectations, with sales surging by over 60%. Notably, third-party sellers thrived during this event with “small businesses and sellers on Amazon [seeing] orders nearly triple, year-over-year, on Prime Day.” The following year, 2017, saw Prime Day expanding beyond a 24-hour window and including more countries, exceeding the success of the previous years.

Sales continued to grow for the 2018 and 2019 years and Prime Day became Prime Days, a multi-day event with the 2019 iteration lasting a full 48 hours. When the pandemic hit in early 2020, Amazon moved their Prime Days to October 13-14th, later returning to their usual July dates in 2021 and 2022.

This year, however, things are a little different. While Amazon had their usual Prime Days event in July, resulting in July 11th seeing the largest single day sales in company history at $12.3 billion, Amazon is hoping to take this success further with their “Prime Big Deal Days”, scheduled for October 10-11th. The details of the sales event are being kept under close wraps, but if the Prime Days of the past are any indication the deals will be grand and enticing. Further, a launch date just ahead of the holiday shopping season is sure to boost sales figures significantly.

Looking more closely at the sales figures from this year’s Prime Days, “the average Prime Day order was $54.05, up slightly from $52.26 in 2022.” Further, many consumers placed more than one order with 65% of households placing at least two separate orders, with an average spend of $155.67, and 18% of households placing five or more order.

All of this data, plus the advantageous timing of the event, suggests a similar or even greater sales figure will be achieved from the Prime Big Deal Days. Further, we suspect, given the enormous influence Amazon has on the e-commerce sphere, that many other retailers will follow up with their own version of Amazon’s event. Each year, the holiday shopping season starts just a little bit earlier and this sales event will almost certainly be the catalyst that launches the 2023 holiday shopping season.

Virtually all sellers on Amazon will benefit from this event. Regardless of whether a shop’s products are part of the deals, the increased traffic will act as a high tide and raise all ships. Even for brands not on the platform its certain that Prime Big Deal Days will set off holiday spending, much like how Prime Days in October 2020 did, and advertisers and e-commerce retailers should ensure they are prepared.