Amazon’s Prime Day has set the new standard for ecommerce purchases and revenue generated in a two-day span.
Constant Ascension
Amazon’s 2019 Prime Day campaign has once again raised the bar when it comes to ecommerce, with the company reporting that over 175 million items were purchased by its Prime subscribers on July 15th and 16th, setting a new record and becoming the largest digital shopping event in its history.
Prime Day sales generated more revenue for the ecommerce behemoth than Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2018 combined, and more than 18 countries – double the amount since the campaign’s inception in 2015 – participated in the shopping extravaganza this time around.
More American shoppers made purchases than ever before, with millions of items shipping in a day or less, and over a billion dollars in total savings in sales. Additionally, the two-day event also saw more people than ever sign up for the premium ecommerce experience, making it the most significant growth period ever for Prime memberships.
A Big Win for Small Businesses
It wasn’t just consumers who were winning big during the 48-hour event (an increase from the 36-hour time limit last year). Small and medium sized businesses were reported to have generated double the amount of revenue that they brought in last year, jumping from $1 billion in 2018 and hitting the $2 billion mark this year.
Amazon attributes this success to the unique variety and innovation associated with these third-party resellers. As Marketing Land states, from a regulatory perspective right now – it’s in Amazon’s best interested to support SMBs as the digital commerce sphere continues to mature and evolve. Overall, more than 300 retailers participated in this year’s Prime Day.
From a larger industry standpoint, these new statistics are likely to cause Amazon to grab a more significant slice of the overall ecommerce market, as FTI Consulting has projected a 43% market share by the end of the year, an increase from the 41% in 2018. Looking even further, the company is on pace to own over half of the total ecommerce market by 2024.
Advertising Advantages
Amazon has made a variety of big changes to its platform over the past year in an effort try and attract more advertisers and higher spends away from other networks like Google and Facebook. Since March of 2018, the company has introduced a new content program for advertisers, a video format, and channel placements that match similar product ads based on a user’s search (also know as ECA – Ecommerce Channel Advertising).
Leveraging the Insights
There are a couple of things to make note with this report. First and foremost, Amazon is a serious battleground to be serving up your ads. If you’re driving traffic to physical products that can benefit from its online marketplace model, it is now absolutely vital that you take a look at how to get up and running quickly with its advertising program. Advertisers have several different options to choose from ranging from product advertising to brand awareness campaigns. Chances are, there’s a format that will align nicely with your current digital marketing strategy.
Secondly, as a smaller business – there are a couple of key takeaways here. Firstly, leveraging the marketplace seems to be more advantageous than its ever been, as Amazon is facing increasing scrutiny from regulatory bodies that are pressuring the company to do more to support smaller players.
The other lesson smaller companies can learn is that even if you’re ill-equipped to utilize the marketplace for promoting your goods and services, you can still incorporate some of the tactics Amazon has used to increase its success in recent years. Most notably, customer loyalty. By setting aside some resources to develop a loyalty strategy and rewarding those who choose your products over the competition. 65% of a company’s business comes from its existing base, and loyalty members can spend up to 18% more than non-loyalty members. So even if you don’t come remotely close to having Amazon’s resources at your disposal, you can still reverse engineer some of the tricks that got them to where they are today.
Have any questions about the above insights or want to know more about how to maximize your online revenue? Don’t hesitate to contact our performance management team. They’ll point you to some of the best sources of traffic and give you some helpful tips on how to drive more ecommerce sales.