PCR Tech and IT retail, distribution and vendor news
This past Tuesday saw Amazon hold it’s third annual Prime Day event and now, with the dust settled, the company has declared it the "biggest global shopping event in Amazon history".
The event, which saw Prime members take advantage of 30 hours of exclusive deals, grew 60 per cent from last year’s Prime Day which was already the biggest day in the company’s history. Though Amazon hasn’t announced how much money was made, analysts have estimated that $2.9 billion worth of goods were sold, equating to 88 million units.
In terms of outstanding performers, Amazon’s own Echo Dot (the little sister of the larger Amazon Echo smart speaker) was, according to the company, "not only the best-selling Amazon device this Prime Day, but also the best-selling product from any manufacturer in any category across Amazon globally". Suffice to say that the day was a fruitful one for Amazon’s own devices, and included "record sales for Echo, Fire tablets and Kindle devices".
Outside of its own products, Amazon has broken down its top sellers for each of the 13 participating countries. UK buyers snapped up TP-Link’s Wi-Fi Smart Plug and Sony Playstation 4 – the latter no doubt thanks to some big bundles – while shoppers around the world were also largely after tech products (save for Japan where shoppers were after SAVAS Whey Protein and Happy Belly pure bottled water).
But it wasn’t just the huge companies like Amazon and Sony seeing profits on Prime Day. Many smaller businesses and entrepreneurs have come out to celebrate the event. "We’re absolutely thrilled – our daily sales increased by over 500 times on Prime Day," said Victor Chang of Furbo Dog Camera.
Ultimately, the day was a success for Amazon, vendors and customers, with tens of millions of Prime members making a purchase on Prime Day 2017 – more than 50 per cent higher than the prior year.
"To those customers who tried Prime for the first time and our long time members, thank you for a great Prime Day," said Greg Greeley, vice president of Amazon Prime. "Our teams around the world will keep working to add more and more to your membership, so Prime continues to make your life better every day. We are already looking forward to our Prime Day celebration next year."
