Black Friday-like discount day that provides members-only access to special deals has now become a tradition for Amazon. Each year, on Prime Day, Amazon provides Prime members with amazing savings and supports small businesses by helping them connect with more customers and grow their sales.
On July 15, 2015, in honor of the website’s 20th anniversary, Amazon first held Prime Day. Even tho the first event wasn’t that great, it has grown to become one of the company’s most important retail and marketing events. Starting with only a few decent deals back in time, up to an enormous amount of sales and promotions over the following years that show record-setting results. The retailer has touted that the savings event shattered before Black Friday and company sales records.
Prime Day annually occurs each summer on the second Tuesday in July, but, this year, the coronavirus pandemic forced Amazon to push back the marquee event from mid-July to October 13-14. The 2020 two days of incredible deals have marked the “two biggest days ever” for small and medium-sized businesses in Amazon’s stores worldwide. Tens of millions of customers spent more than $900 million by benefiting from the huge deals and discounts.
“We are thrilled that Prime Day was a record-breaking event for small and medium businesses worldwide, with sales surpassing $3.5 billion – an increase of nearly 60% from last year,” said Jeff Wilke, CEO Worldwide Consumer, during the press release on Thursday. “We’re also proud that Prime members saved more than $1.4 billion, and we look forward to providing more opportunities for our selling partners to grow and customers to save throughout the holiday season. I’m incredibly thankful to our employees and partners around the world who helped make Prime Day possible, especially the dedicated front-line teams in our fulfillment centers and delivery operations.”
Amazon also highlighted its ongoing commitment to helping small businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond, by spending more than $100 million on new promotional activities for Prime Day and investing $18 billion for small and medium-sized businesses to “succeed in its store”. It has become one of the most important events of the year for small businesses, not only for its sales boost but also for the way it helps them reach an audience and build awareness of their products.
This year, Amazon greatly expanded its offerings, by adding new categories and promotions while giving tech enthusiasts plenty to throw their cash at. From small businesses to top brands, from Home and Electronics to Nutrition and Wellness, from Arts and Crafts to Home Decor – all at deep discounts for customers to have a wide range of products to choose from. Not only was everything from cables to TVs discounted, but additional promotions like deeply discounted trials for various Amazon services and a ton of other great deals, made the 2020 Prime Day is the best on record since the annual event started in 2015.
Overall, Prime Day is a win-win partnership for sellers, who get to incredibly boost up their sales and get visibility to their products, and for customers, who benefit from the deep discounts and incredible deals over the two-day event. `