After weeks of anticipation and preparation, Amazon Prime Day 2023 met its mammoth expectations with record-shattering sales. Like another circled date on the July calendar (at least in the United States), it came with plenty of fireworks.
Amazon Prime Day 2023 shattered previous records, making it the most successful sales event in the e-commerce giant’s history. The 48-hour shopping spree, exclusively available to Amazon Prime members, saw an unprecedented surge in online traffic as millions of shoppers flocked to the platform to grab the best deals. Sales figures for this year’s event surpassed even Black Friday and Cyber Monday on the platform, solidifying Prime Day’s position as a top-tier shopping extravaganza.
Prime Day Makes History Yet Again
Over the course of 48 hours, Amazon Prime Day 2023 reached a record-high of $12.7 billion, making it the biggest ever from its previous high of $11.9 billion in 2022. The all-time high continues an impressive trend of each passing Prime Day surpassing the previous one. While it shouldn’t come as a surprise as Prime expands to new marketplaces and membership rises, the continued momentum at such a scale stands out as a strong indicator of Amazon’s longstanding e-commerce dominance.
July 11—the first day of the two-day event—kicked off Prime Day with a bang, ranking as the single largest sales day in Amazon history.
“The first day of Prime Day was the largest sales day in Amazon’s history, and Prime members saved more this year than any other Prime Day event.”
Doug Herrington, CEO of Amazon Stores
Amazon Prime Day 2023 Statistics
When you rewrite the record books, it’s bound to come with some head-turning data points! Among the plenty of astonishing figures set, here are a few fun ones that stuck out:
Over the two-day event, Prime members purchased more than 375 million items worldwide and saved more than $2.5 billion due to the deals.
Amazon reports the Amazon Live Prime Day streams exceeded 100 million views in the United States and India. These streams highlighted products in various categories with featured Prime Day discounts to boost visibility. Since its 2016 debut, Amazon Live has grown as its own QVC-style shopping show. While far from must-see TV, it’s slowly grown over the years, especially since the Amazon Live Creator app allowed users to sell via livestream directly from their phone. Depending on your product and ability to market it, going live on camera could be an option worth exploring.
Of course, Amazon’s products crushed it on Prime Day, with Amazon boasting millions of Alexa-enabled devices sold over the 48-hour period. The Fire TV Stick (3rd-Gen) with Alexa Voice Remote, which was the best-selling product across Amazon worldwide.
Off-Amazon Prime Day deals grew by 10 times the offering in 2022, according to Marketplace Pulse data. Available only for the second Prime Day ever, Amazon’s Buy with Prime option allows U.S.-based members to shop directly from participating online stores while receiving the Prime shopping benefits. With this payment option, customers can shop outside of Amazon and still enjoy the quick checkout and shipping benefits of their membership. Nearly 3,000 products had Prime Day discounts this year and 85% of off-Amazon brands were hosted on Shopify.
Buy with Prime remains a relatively small audience, but the significant growth signals Prime growing beyond Amazon and becoming more omnipresent.
Other Top Sellers and Noteworthy Gains
While other top-selling products included Apple AirPods, LANEIGE Lip Glowy Balm, and the Bissell Little Green Portable Deep Cleaner, the sales were not at all limited to household names. Countless third-party sellers who offered deals enjoyed a significant sales boost across the marketplace.
One of the many examples of a third-party seller who took advantage is JLab, a company specializing in audio with cheaper alternatives to AirPods. Below, you can see that Prime Day saw their average daily sales for one particular product quadruple overnight on Prime Day with a slight markdown of their product.
While JLab is no rookie in the Amazon marketplace’s audio scene, they’re a fantastic example of a brand that found their niche and is crushing it on Amazon despite competition from household names.
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A Key Trend To Monitor
More customers are purchasing with Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) options than ever, with $927 million spent in BNPL orders, a 20% increase compared to Prime Day 2022. The rise of BNPL options such as Klarna, Affirm, and Amazon’s own Monthly Payments allows customers to pay in interest-free increments instead of splurging all at once. Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, notes this may be a significant piece of information, saying, “The revenue growth attributed to Buy Now Pay Later is a preview of what we can expect in the months ahead, especially as we near the holiday shopping season.”
Recent Prime Day events provided key data during times of economic stress, with the Coronavirus pandemic, supply chain issues, and rising inflation becoming key stories that created unique challenges to Prime Day’s dominance. While we’ll cross our fingers and knock on wood for smooth sailing for the remainder of the year (and beyond), it’s been reported that Americans’ savings accounts are dwindling.
The interest-free Buy Now, Pay Later option allows financial flexibility, which becomes even more important with diminishing savings. For higher-priced items on Amazon, this can be a huge boon for keeping up with sales as market conditions change. With Amazon and Apple recently getting in on the BNPL market and as Klarna, Affirm, and other BNPL platforms partner with companies and earn consumer trust, the impact of this game-changing payment option could continue its rise into and beyond the upcoming holiday season.
Conclusion
Amazon Prime Day 2023 lived up to its reputation as the biggest shopping event of the year, offering remarkable deals across product categories. The continued success at such a massive scale is just one of the perks of selling on the Amazon marketplace. With a still-growing base of Prime members ready to pounce on deals and logistics that set the industry standard, Amazon remains the place to be for online entrepreneurs.
As we bid adieu to yet another remarkable Prime Day, shoppers and sellers alike eagerly anticipate what Amazon has in store for the next edition.
For now, Amazon sellers can return to normalcy as we await the next major sales event. Black Friday 2023 remains months away from kicking off the traditional holiday shopping season. Will Amazon bring back the Prime Early Access Sale, which debuted in October last year? Only time will tell, so be sure to check back, as we’ll keep you posted with everything Amazon sellers need to know!
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