Today is Amazon Prime Day — the online retailer’s annual one-day sale that, in just three years, has become a major market-moving event for Amazon.com, Inc (ticker: AMZN) and its competitors.
Analysts expect the sales of Amazon Prime Day to be the biggest in the company’s history, and the bar has been set extremely high. Although Amazon doesn’t release official Prime Day sales numbers, the online retailer generated an estimated $500 to $600 million in revenue from last year’s event, according to Morningstar. In a news release, Amazon confirmed that Prime Day 2016 was “the biggest day ever for Amazon.”
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The company said its recorded 20 times more sales than its average day on Prime Day 2016. In addition, Prime Day 2016 sales were up 60 percent globally compared to Prime Day 2015.
This year’s Prime Day will likely be even bigger than last year’s event because it has been extended from 24 hours to 30, starting at 9 p.m. ET Monday.
While Amazon investors are hoping for big sales numbers from this year’s Prime Day, the event is about more than just merchandise sales. Amazon is also looking to boost Amazon Prime membership by promoting free one-month trial subscriptions. It is also pushing many of its own products, including a 50 percent discount on the Amazon Echo, a 25 percent discount on the Kindle Paperwhite E-reader and a 40 percent discount on the Fire 7 Tablet.
“It’s no secret that some of Prime Day’s best deals have been on Amazon products,” said Maya Mikhailov, co-founder of GPShopper. This year, Mikhailov said Amazon may take the opportunity to promote its push into the grocery business. Amazon acquired grocery chain Whole Foods Market, Inc. ( WFM) in June in a high-profile $13.4 billion deal.
Kantar Retail e-commerce analyst Meaghan Werle says Amazon will likely try to capitalize off of the buzz surrounding the Whole Foods deal.
“I think [Amazon] will definitely focus a lot on food [this year], as it becomes more of a staple channel,” Werle said.
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For now, Amazon investors eagerly anticipating Amazon’s Prime Day press release later in the week. In 2015, Amazon stock outperformed the Standard & Poor’s 500 index by 6.5 percent the week of Prime Day. In 2016, however, Amazon stock underperformed the S&P 500 by nearly 3 percent during Prime Day week.
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Amazon.com (AMZN) Has a Lot Riding on Amazon Prime Day originally appeared on usnews.com
