Amazon (AMZN) Prime Day 2016 Preview

Executive Summary

• Leveraging the success of last year’s Prime Day, a celebration of the company’s 20th year in business, Amazon is celebrating its birthday again this year, promising to offer even bigger and better deals to its Prime members than last year, which saw higher unit sales than on the previous Black Friday.
• Fung Global Retail & Technology conservatively estimates that Amazon could generate $525 million of sales on this year’s Prime Day, up 26% from our $415 million estimate last year, as Amazon leverages the success of last year’s event plus a 33% increase in the number of Prime members, which number nearly 70 million.
• Amazon is offering several pre-event deals, as well as daily deals, in order to grow excitement leading up to the event. Owners of Alexa artificial intelligence devices were initially offered a riddle when inquiring about Prime Day, and they will receive exclusive deals leading up to and including the event.
• Prime Day is a manmade shopping holiday that echoes Alibaba’s Single’s Day (held every Nov. 11), which has generated explosive growth for Alibaba. Last year’s Single’s Day saw a 54% increase in GMV to US $14.3 billion amid increasing international participation.

Coresight has been covering Amazon Prime Day since it was launched in 2015 and additional reports from can be accessed here.