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The Attractive Economics of Amazon Prime Day
And how its impact extends beyond the 48 hours
In just five years since its introduction, Amazon Prime Day has become one of the most anticipated sales extravaganzas on the retail calendar, finding its place among long-established shopping events like Labor Day and Black Friday.
Prime Day Over The Years
Amazon introduced Prime Day on the eve of its 20th birthday in 2015 with the goal of offering unmatched discounts to its loyal Prime members. The 24-hour event, spanning nine countries, was an immediate success as the company sold more items than it did during Black Friday 2014. Many sellers saw record-breaking unit sales and the Instant Pot, a multi-functioning pressure cooker, became an unlikely benchmark for the Prime Days to come after selling 24,000 units that day. Amazon’s own device line-up sold hundreds of thousands of devices, making Prime Day 2015 the largest device sales day ever.
In 2016, Amazon beat its own previous best as the second Prime Day eclipsed the first by more than 60%. More than two million toys and one million pairs of shoes were sold. The number of Instant Pots sold rose to a staggering 215,000 and Amazon devices including the Kindle e-reader and Fire TV set new sales records yet again.
