Dive Brief:
- During this year’s Amazon Prime Day, the e-commerce giant on Thursday said it is offering additional discounts of up to 40% off on brands outside of Amazon who use Buy with Prime, a service that allows customers to shop on outside websites and access Prime benefits.
- Amazon is also showcasing discounted products in shoppable videos and photos through Inspire and Shop by Interest deal feeds from influencers, customers and various brands, according to a company announcement. The retailer will also share deals via personalized feeds such as “Deals related to your views” or “Deals from brands you may like.”
- To kick off its sales event, the retailer on Tuesday is hosting a two-hour livestreamed game show on TikTok featuring TikTok stars Alix Earle and Jake Shane. During the livestream, viewers can play along to access exclusive discounts.
Dive Insight:
This year’s Prime Day is critical for the e-commerce behemoth. The company in March announced plans to cut 9,000 positions, primarily within its Amazon Web Services unit. It also earlier in the year laid off more than 18,000 staffers across its stores, and people, experience and technology teams.
Around the same time as the second round of layoffs, the retailer reported modest growth from its retail business in Q1. Its online store sales were flat year over year, but its physical store and product sales saw a 7% and 1% bump, respectively. Meanwhile, its cost of sales increased by 13% and fulfillment costs were up 21%.
During the retailer’s last Prime-focused sale in October, Amazon faced lower consumer interest. Data from Numerator found that shoppers ordered $46.68 worth of merchandise on average during the Prime Early Access sale last October, a 23% drop from Amazon’s Prime Day sale in July 2022.
Amazon also faces competition from other major retailers for its summer sale. While Amazon’s Prime Day sale will take place between July 11 and July 12 this year, Target will host its Circle Week sale from July 9 through July 15. Best Buy and Walmart are also hosting their own sales events around the same time as Amazon’s event.
For this year’s Amazon Prime Day, Amazon is trying a host of ways to offer customers deals. Aside from the TikTok livestream, deal feeds and incentives for Buy with Prime, the company is also offering a “Watch this Deal” feature, which lets shoppers preview items that will be on sale and save them to their watchlists. Amazon also unveiled a new filter for finding Prime deals from small businesses, according to the announcement.
“We’re excited to celebrate our Prime members by offering more Prime Day deals than ever before on brands they love and new launches they’ll be excited to shop,” Jamil Ghani, vice president of Amazon Prime, said in a statement. “They’ll also discover more personalized deals this Prime Day with immersive shopping experiences like Inspire, and new opportunities to shop beyond Amazon with Prime benefits like Buy with Prime.”
