The curtain has closed on Amazon Prime Day 2024, and while Amazon celebrates a “record-breaking” performance—$14.2 billion in revenue in the U.S. alone, marking an 11.2% year-over-year increase—the real focus is now shifting to Q4 and the holiday shopping season. A recent article by Jon Bird in Forbes.com points out that Prime Day offers a glimpse of what’s to come for ALL retailers during this crucial period.
Key Trends to Watch:
- Discounts Drive Business: Expect deep discounts to continue, as Prime Day’s average discount rate hit 22%. This trend will likely persist through the holidays, with a focus on percentage discounts over dollar savings.
- Rising Popularity of Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL): BNPL options are gaining traction, particularly among Gen Z, with 7.6% of U.S. Prime Day orders using BNPL, up 16.4% from last year. The trend is even stronger in the U.K., where 14.9% of online orders used BNPL.
- Social Media’s Growing Influence: Social platforms, especially TikTok, played a significant role during Prime Day, with social commerce seeing an 11.1% lift in revenue contribution. This trend is expected to expand during the holidays.
- Increased Competition from Chinese Retailers: Platforms like Temu and Shein are becoming major competitors, offering steep discounts and capturing consumer interest. Amazon is responding by creating a dedicated “discount store” featuring items shipped from China.
- Mobile Shopping Dominates: Mobile devices accounted for 49.2% of online purchases during Prime Day, a trend that is likely to continue into the holiday season.
- Emergence of AI in Shopping: Amazon’s AI assistant, Rufus, helped millions of shoppers during Prime Day, and AI is expected to play an even larger role in holiday shopping.
Prime Day has set the stage for the holiday shopping season, with trends like discounts, BNPL, social media, competition from Chinese retailers, mobile shopping, and AI likely to shape consumer behavior. Retailers should prepare for a dynamic Q4 as they gear up for the big show.
