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ANALYSIS New insights into how Prime Day went for Amazon – and its competitors

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Amazon has said that this year’s Prime Day saw it outstrip its performance on both Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined. Over the course of the two-day event, which ran from July 15 to 16, members from 18 countries bought more than 175m items through the platform.

Now fresh analysis from Hitwise and AppsFlyer takes a further look at how the day went, both for Amazon and for its competitors.

Amazon around the world

Amazon hasn’t released detailed sales figures for Prime Day, and membership of its Prime subscription scheme is a much-guessed at figure. In a new blog, business intelligence organisation Hitwise says its analysis shows that its online visits, transactions and Prime sign-ups spiked in key markets.

In the US, says Hitwise, Amazon took 86% of all retail transactions over the course of Prime Day, with 193.6m visits (-0.2% year-on-year) and 20.2m transactions (+18%) completed during the course of the event. Its conversion rate rose to 10.5% from 8.8% in 2018, suggesting, says the analysis, that American shoppers took very direct shopping journeys. Some 29.0m (+3.2%) people visited the site each day during the event, and 7.1m (+17.6%) made a purchase each day.

In the UK, it concludes, 84,100 people (+146.6%) signed up to its Prime network during the event, helping Amazon to achieve its target of expanding the members-only club. However, searches for “prime cancel” were also up (+52%), suggesting that some may have signed-up just for the event, possibly on a trial basis. 

Hitwise figures estimate 96.3m (+7.9%) visits to the site, and 8.6m (+24%) total transactions, with a conversion rate of 9% up from 7.8% last year. Some 5.3m visitors (7.7%) made their way to the site, and 1m (+20.8%) made a purchase each day.

And in Amazon’s new Australian market – where it launched an amazon.com.au site in 2017 and Prime in 2018 – Hitwise figures suggest total visits were 72.4% up on last year at 2.7m, with 167,600 total transactions (+50.4%) and a conversion rate of 6.3% (down from 7.2% in 2018). Some 12,600 people signed up to Prime each day. Daily visitors reached 333,500 (+62.3%) and daily buyers reached 41,700 (+59.6%). 

The app effect

Leading retailers felt the effect of Amazon’s Prime Day event through their apps, new research suggests. 

AppsFlyer research analysed the rate at which the top 100 apps were installed, used to make purchases, or used for another in-app event both before – on Monday and Tuesdays for three weeks ahead of Prime Day – and during the course of Prime Day.  It found that 65% of apps were downloaded fewer times during Prime Day than beforehand, with 45% of retailers seeing their rate of app installs fall by more than 10%. More than half of retailers saw a decline both in in-app purchases (53%) and in other in-app events (52%). That suggests, says Apps Flyer, an impact from the Amazon Prime event that was felt well beyond Amazon’s own business.

Paul Wright, managing director, UK, France and MENA, at AppsFlyer, said: “In recent years, Prime Day has become an industry-wide milestone that marks the start of retailers’ summer sales. This year told a different story, as Amazon remained the dominant platform around its awareness day, while other mobile ecommerce players took an evident blow. In order to harness the momentum of large sales events such as Prime day and Black Friday, retailers need to be thinking about how best they can navigate the mobile ecosystem; optimising their app strategy and resonating with bargain-hunting shoppers. Only by understanding and anticipating the needs of consumers will retailers remain competitive with the ecommerce giant and reap the rewards of today’s smartphone savvy consumers.”

Image courtesy of Amazon

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