Amazon announces 2nd Prime Big Deal Days! in October

Source: LinkedIn LinkedIn Amazon Stores will hold its second sale event this October

Prime Big Deal Days!, which took place last year for the first time, will be across 19 countries and is exclusive to Prime members.

In the statement, Herrington says,” We’ll share more details soon as we get closer to the event. I can’t wait to give our Prime members access to exclusive early savings this season.”

Undermining the impact of traditional Black Friday

However, not everyone is thrilled.

Quoted in Retail Dive GlobalData managing director Neil Saunders says last year’s October Prime event also had retailers scrambling to initiate markdowns early, undermining the impact of the more traditional Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.

“For the wider retail sector, Amazon’s decision is disruptive as it means spend will be pulled forward and the traditional calendar of discounting will be upended,” he says in the article.

“Amazon knows that to project a value-for-money message and to drive sales growth it has to pull out all of the stops and give consumers an excuse to buy,” he says.

He adds, “Our wider view is that the final quarter will be reasonable for retail. However, volumes will fall and a battle for market share will mean that margins come under a significant amount of pressure.”

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Missed expectations

The article states that last year’s fall Prime deals event missed expectations and was estimated to have fallen short of Prime Day itself.

In an earlier article, Retail Dive quotes consumer data firm Numerator that the average order size during last year’s Prime Early Access sale in October was $46.68, down nearly 23% from Prime Day in July.

Also quoted is Bank of America analyst Justin Post who estimated that Amazon’s October event generated $8bn in gross merchandise volume, a 25% decline from $10.7bn in GMV for the July Prime Day sale.

In revenue terms, that would mean around $5.7bn for Amazon compared to Post’s $7.5bn revenue estimate for Prime Day.

Analysts say that by scheduling the event again is an acknowledgment of consumers’ laser focus on finding good deals. While inflation has eased greatly, consumers will likely stay fixated on finding low prices for the back-to-school and holiday seasons.