Dive Brief:
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Amazon’s Prime Day sale last month caused a measurable decline in visits to retail stores such as Sears, J.C. Penney, Kohl’s and Target among consumers who have the Amazon app installed on their mobile smartphones, according to post-Prime Day research from Sense360, reported by Forbes.
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Sears experienced the largest decline in store visits by Amazon app users that day, with a 36% drop, while J.C. Penney visits declined 34%, Kohl’s was down 31%, Target was off 28%, Home Depot and Lowe’s were down 24% each, Walmart 23%. Best Buy 19%, Barnes & Noble 11%, and Macy’s by about 9%.
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Overall, store visits that day among mobile users without the app were down by 7%, according to ComputerWorld.
Dive Insight:
Amazon reportedly cleared $1 billion in sales on Prime Day and managed to also negatively impact visits to physical stores, which were sharply down on that day. Sears's problems were compounded by Prime Day with store visits off more than any other major retailer (We're not sure what 36% fewer visits looks like for a retailer already on the ropes, but it could not have been pretty.)
On the somewhat bright side, not every day is Prime Day. Plus, even as Prime Day activity continues to explode for Amazon, it also may also be driving mobile shopping activity across the board, according to a Liftoff study released last week.
Prime Day may be all about Amazon, but the e-commerce giant has planted a heavily promoted Cyber Monday-type of event in a spot on the calendar when people are enjoying some down time on summer vacations or working at a leisurely pace following Independence Day festivities. It's Amazon's event, but the excitement it creates can have a mobile and online shopping payoff for other retailers, provided they offer some discounts of their during that time and employ some smart, subversive marketing to get noticed.
Some analysis of these high-percentage drops in store traffic suggests that Amazon experienced a breakthrough, actually getting people to stop making a trip to a store or mall they normally would have made, and thereby accelerating the whole retail apocalypse. Yet studies such as a recent Mood Media survey, continue to suggest that there are plenty of reasons people still want to visit stores and some are driving Amazon to open its own physical locations.
Prime Day may have kept people indoors shopping, but the rest of the retail sector should learn to leverage that notion, rather than panic about it. Take it for what it is — Cyber Monday in July — and join in the fun.
