Amazon Prime Day first launched in 2015 was promoted as a celebration of Amazon‘s 20th birthday. Since then, it’s morphed into an artificial sales event that boosts Amazon’s sales in the early Summer, a time of year when in the past sales were sluggish compared to Black Friday, Christmas and Easter sales periods. Amazon Prime Day 2018 promises to try and break all the records and again invigorate the quieter time of the year as the Summer Holidays get underway.
There’s no Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day or Halloween to get consumers spending, it didn’t take long for other retailers such as Argos to jump on the Prime day band wagon, although they obviously don’t promote their deals as part of Amazon’s promotions.
When will Amazon Prime Day 2018 take place?
Previous Prime Day Dates
Prime Day 2015 – Wednesday the 15th July
Prime Day 2016 – Tuesday the 12th July
Prime Day 2017 – Tuesday the 11th July
It’s worth noting that in 2017, Prime day ran for 30 hours starting at 6pm on Monday the 10th of July as Amazon expanded their promotion bonanza to attract even more sales.
Amazon Prime Day 2018
All the smart money is on Prime Day starting on the 10th or 11th of July 2018 with sales kicking off on Monday the 9th of July. Having extended the sales period to 30 hours in 2017 we’d expect at least the same in 2018 but it’s possible Amazon could attempt to stretch the period even more.
What to expect from Amazon Prime Day 2018
In 2017 Amazon broke all records and sold more than on any single day in their history and estimated 60% up on the previous year. Electronics, particularly Amazon’s own brand products including their Echo Range and Fire TV are expected to feature heavily. Whilst merchants won’t get a look in here, it’s still good news as we know Echo owners spend significantly more than consumers who don’t own an Amazon Alexa device and they will purchase from 3rd party merchants in the future.
Logistics will be pushed to the limit, Amazon Logistics will have a busy couple of days and doubtless there will be some overflow to outside courier companies. Couriers actually don’t like huge sales days as they simply can’t scale up drivers and trucks just for a couple of days and then drop back to normal parcel volumes the next week.
3rd party merchants invited to participate in Prime Day will undoubtedly have a bumper sales day, but it will be at a cost – to participate Amazon will be demanding deep discounts but if you’ve got the margins then the ongoing benefits can bear fruit. Amazon measure sales success as one of the criteria for winning the Buy Box, along with feedback and reviews. Selling 1,000 or more units in a single day will propel your offering to the top of sales rankings compared to similar products and offers from competitors and these benefits can last long into the future after Prime Day is done and dusted.
