This year, Amazon Prime Day will be held from July 12-13, bringing it back to the month Amazon held Prime Day every year from 2015 to 2019 (2020’s was in October, and last year’s took place in June).
With ongoing supply chain issues and growing inflation, a Prime Day event could mean big changes for consumers and businesses alike. We’ll explain what these might be, and how sellers can prepare for a profitable Prime Day.
Over the past two years, U.S. consumers cut their overall spending and largely shifted from in-person to online shopping. Amazon has remained the top shopping destination in the U.S. throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, leading in-store retail giants like Walmart and Target and ecommerce mainstays like eBay and Etsy.
Here are the major factors that could make Prime Day 2022 play out differently from Prime Days past.
In our recent survey of 950 U.S. consumers, many expressed their concerns about inflation, which climbed to 75% over the past year. In response to the increase in prices of essentials such as fuel and groceries, consumers anticipated spending less money in early 2022, and could continue down this path into the year as they try to stick to their household budgets or save for larger purchases.
Many Americans experienced significant financial strain in the past two years, and have changed their spending habits to adapt to fluctuations in income, job loss, and the economic uncertainty caused by COVID-19. This could make Prime Day deals even more attractive than they’ve been in the past.
According to our survey, home improvement and the homebody economy are thriving in 2022. While some consumers have returned back to their pre-pandemic lives, 60% of consumers still plan to spend more time at home in 2022.
Although just because consumers plan to spend more time at home, it does not mean they won’t be purchasing anything:
Sellers: in order to fully reap the rewards of Amazon Prime Day, it’s important to take steps now to get your business ready for the potential uptick in sales. Our seller calendar can help you keep track of important, upcoming dates like Prime Day — we’ll go over the details here.
Amazon has released Prime Day FBA inventory cut-off deadlines for 2022. In order to avoid stockouts when the event comes around, FBA sellers should make sure any new inventory reaches fulfillment centers by June 20th.
In order to entice customers to purchase your products on Prime Day, we and Amazon suggest you create deals, discounts, and promotions on your listings.
Some sellers don’t run Prime Day deals at all and see a bump in sales simply due to the increased traffic. But it’s a good idea to offer customers ways to save. Here are three ways to do it.
This is still a good option to save you from long-term storage fees that unsold inventory can accumulate over time. Plus, it could boost your Best Sellers Ranking (BSR) organically.
Note that customers can use Coupons simultaneously with other promotions like Lightning Deals to save even more money on Prime Day.
Sellers should also focus on listing optimization in advance of Prime Day. While discounted prices are important to today’s shoppers, your product listing needs to be as attractive as possible to clinch those conversions.
Make sure customers find your listings on Prime Day by boosting your brand’s visibility, on and off Amazon. Start now, so by the time Prime Day rolls around, you can entice your broadened audience with incredible deals.
When it comes to private label products, your most important Prime Day consideration is your inventory. There’s still time to stock up so you can meet extra demand on Prime Day, but you’ll need to get moving to make this year’s deadline (June 20th for U.S. marketplace sellers).
To help speed up the process of getting your stock into Amazon’s fulfillment centers, you may want to look for a supplier closer to the U.S. than China — especially since the new China lockdowns may cause major supply chain issues.You can find high-quality manufacturers from all over the world using Jungle Scout’s Supplier Database.
Because Prime Day encourages high-volume traffic, it’s a great opportunity for arbitrage sellers to offer products that don’t normally sell well.
This is also the perfect time to review your current inventory and price old stock to sell. You can also do some research and sourcing of new products now, to build up your inventory for the big event.
In 2015, Amazon introduced Prime Day — a day of deals and sales across Amazon.com — as a way to celebrate their Prime members on Amazon’s 20th birthday. The first iteration of Prime Day happened on July 15 and ran for 24 hours. Now, Prime Day runs for two full days. Initially, Prime Day deals were only available in nine countries, but the list expanded each year, with the number of participating countries reaching 18 in 2019.
The sales event has been a massive success ever since — even the events of 2020 couldn’t stop it.
Amazon raked in even more earnings during Prime Day 2015 than it did during its record-breaking 2014 Black Friday sales event. Additionally, in its first year, FBA sellers worldwide saw a 300% increase in sales, with 34.4 million goods sold.
The following year, in 2016, Prime Day grew. Belgium participated (bringing the total number of participating countries to 10), sales worldwide were 60% higher than in 2015, and 3P sellers offering deals nearly tripled their orders year-over-year.
Prime Day 2017 saw even greater growth, not only in terms of products sold (50% more than in 2016) and participating countries (up from 10 to 12) but in the length of time the deal day lasted as well — from 24 hours to 30.
Then, in 2018 and due to the success of the extended hours, Amazon took it a step further and ran Prime Day for 36 hours. Once again, it paid off.
Prime members worldwide bought over 100 million products, SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) earned over $1.5 billion in revenue, and it was Amazon’s largest day-and-a-half of sales globally.
Finally, Prime Day 2019 ran for 48 hours, and sales eclipsed 2018’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales combined.
During that two-day time frame, shoppers bought more than 175 million items, generating over $2 billion in revenue for third-party sellers. In fact, some sellers reported experiencing an increase in sales anywhere from 23% to 200%.
Amid concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused manufacturing slowdowns and the prioritization of essential goods, Amazon delayed Prime Day 2020 until October 13-14 in the U.S. Despite Americans’ widely reduced consumer spending during that time, Prime Day still charted record-breaking sales, with Prime members saving over $1.4 billion over the course of the event.
In 2021, Prime Day occurred on June 21-22, earlier than any other year. Despite some consumers being more cautious about their spending, it didn’t stop everyone from finding a good deal during this year’s event.
Prime Day 2021 marked another record year for Amazon with total event sales reaching $11.2 billion, compared to $10.4 billion in 2020. Amazon also highlighted Prime Day 2021 as the biggest two-day period ever for third-party sellers.
Between February 4-8, 2022, Jungle Scout conducted an anonymous survey among a panel of 950 U.S. consumers about their buying preferences and behaviors. Respondents represent every U.S. state, all genders, and ages 18 to 75+, as well as all employment types and varying income levels. See our Consumer Trends Report page for more information.
