Amazon Confirms Prime Day Is Set for October 13–14: What’s New for 2020

What’s Notable for Prime Day 2020

• Still a two-day event, but with a long run up: Prime Day remains a 48-hour event, like last year, but between September 28 and Prime Day, Amazon.com will offer daily offers for Prime members.
• A greater role for livestreaming: During Prime Day, the company’s livestreaming platform, Amazon Live, will spotlight deals from small businesses selling on Amazon.com. Amazon says, “Viewers will also have the opportunity to hear directly from business owners, learn more about their products, and shop their Prime Day deals during a reoccurring segment called Small Business Showcase.”
• A push for share in fashion, private labels and grocery: In its daily deals leading up to the event, Amazon is promising discounts of up to 30% on premium fashion brands; up to 40% off Amazon brands including in fashion, pet, food, and health and wellness; and $15 off shoppers’ first order of $50 or more on AmazonFresh.
• Greater prominence for small businesses in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis: A Spend $10, Get $10 promotion will see Amazon offer a $10 credit to use on Prime Day to those who spend $10 on items sold by selected small businesses on Amazon.com from September 28 to October 12. In addition, Amazon has curated collections of products from small businesses, running up to and during Prime Day. Amazon says it will spend more than $100 million on promotional activities to help small firms grow sales and reach new customers.

What We Think

As we discussed in our September 23 report previewing Prime Day:

• An October Prime Day will contribute significantly to the expansion of the holiday season into October this year. In the context of a pandemic-driven surge in online demand, an extended holiday season will be good news to retailers and logistics firms facing bottlenecks in fulfillment of e-commerce orders.
• October 13 falls very shortly after the October 9–11 date of the new 10.10 Shopping Festival, launched by Coresight Research, Shopkick and Fashwire. Retailers can look to preempt Prime Day through participation in the 10.10 Shopping Festival or by offering their own promotional campaigns or events ahead of Prime Day.
• We estimate that Amazon’s global sales during Prime Day 2020 could hit approximately $8 billion, up from an estimated $6 billion in 2019.
• Some 38% of US holiday shoppers in our September survey told us that they expect to shop on an October Amazon Prime Day—well ahead of the more traditional Black Friday (21%) and Cyber Monday (33%) events. And remember, only Prime members can get Amazon’s Prime Day deals. In March, we recorded 54.3% of survey respondents personally having an Amazon Prime membership and a further 27.3% having access to Prime benefits through someone else in their household (while not having a Prime membership themselves).