What’s the Story?

Amazon’s Prime Day 2020, which has historically taken place in July but was postponed this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, began in the US at midnight Pacific Daylight Time (3:00 a.m. EDT) on Tuesday, October 13 and ran through Wednesday, October 14. Over the 48-hour period, Amazon offered more than 1 million deals for Prime members, according to the company—including “Lightning Deals,” a promotion in which a limited number of discounts are offered on an item for a short period. Worldwide, this shopping extravaganza was held in 19 countries this year.

Why It Matters

Since its launch in 2015, Prime Day has become an effective way for Amazon to engage new users and deepen its relationship with existing users. The event sold more than 175 million items in 2019, with sales surpassing the combined sales of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, according to Amazon. According to a Coresight Research proprietary survey, roughly seven in 10 US consumers expected to purchase from or browse Amazon’s Prime Day promotions this year. We expected that the postponement of Prime Day from July would pull forward holiday season demand and kickstart a highly promotional final quarter.

Amazon Prime Day 2020 US Insights: In Detail

Amazon’s Offers This Year As it did last year, Amazon’s Prime Day 2020 offered a "Spend $10, Get $10" promotion on purchases at Whole Foods Market, as well as at Amazon Fresh, Amazon Go or Amazon Go Grocery, Amazon Books or Amazon Pop Up. The event also featured price cuts on over 1 million products, including private-label products and Amazon devices. In addition to shopping online, customers could access deals easily by asking their Amazon smart devices, “Alexa, what are my Prime Day deals?” However, this year, Amazon changed some of its offers, such as adjusting the threshold amount of new Amazon Fresh customers to enjoy $15 off their first order to $50 ($35 in 2019), deleting the Prime Pantry offer (save $10 on orders of $40 or more), canceling Treasure Truck offers and offering Holiday Gift Guides. [caption id="attachment_117655" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Amazon offered Holiday Gift Guides as the postponement of Prime Day pulled forward holiday demand
Source: Amazon [/caption]   Meanwhile, Amazon supported small businesses during the event by offering deals featured in the Support Small storefront, Amazon Handmade and Amazon Launchpad. In a new promotion, Prime Day offered $10 credit to use on Prime Day for customers who spent $10 via select small businesses through October 12. This was intended to build on the success of small and medium-sized businesses on Prime Day 2019, which generated sales of more than $2 billion. [caption id="attachment_117659" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Source: Company reports/Coresight Research[/caption]   Amazon leveraged celebrities, influencers and brand ambassadors to promote Prime Day this year. On Amazon Live, a livestreaming offering on the company’s homepage, customers could easily shop the products and brands featured in the session through a clickable carousel that updated in real time as hosts discussed the products. However, unlike 2019, there was no “Star-Studded Deals” page for celebrity-endorsed products this year. [caption id="attachment_117656" align="aligncenter" width="700"] One livestreaming session saw the hosts sell the Garmin Fenix 5S Plus GPS Smartwatch
Source: Amazon [/caption]   Other Retailers Offered Deals Alongside Amazon Prime Day 2020 Other retailers jumped on the Prime Day bandwagon, offering their own promotions to expand their influence and compete with the e-commerce giant. We summarize the deals offered by selected major retailers in Figure 2. [caption id="attachment_117660" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Source: Company reports/Coresight Research[/caption]