With Amazon reporting Prime Day 2022 as their “biggest ever”, we wanted to share some of the data we’ve seen across our client portfolio and some of the trends we’ve seen emerging over last week’s sale event.
All the data we are providing is on an anonymous and like-for-like basis, comparing the same client pool from this year, with the same base of clients last year. If a client is working with us now, their data from last year is included in the benchmarks. If a client is no longer working with us now, then their data from last year has been removed from the analysis.
For obvious reasons we are not including actual “pounds and pence” values in relation to sales and are instead sharing the trends and shape of the data.
The High Level – Prime Day Growth
OK, so we all expected Prime Day 2022 to drive growth over previous years. But this year’s growth seems to have been pretty significant, with 102% growth over the same calendar days in 2021 and 39% growth over the same days in the previous week.
| Period | Prime Day Variance |
|---|---|
| Same days, previous week | +39% |
| Same days, previous year | +102% |
Whilst +102% looks like a mighty impressive number (which of course it is) this factors in three different growth points that need to be taken into consideration:
- Amazon’s own continued growth through and beyond the pandemic
- The growth these clients are seeing working with Venture Forge over a 12-month period
- Prime Day growth itself
Considering those other factors, we’d suggest that the true measure of Prime Day growth year on year sits somewhere around the 45% mark.
Where our client’s competitors didn’t partake in Prime Day, we have seen disproportionate growth. Some of these competitors are brands that we would have expected to go hard on Prime Day based on their past discounting profile and this lack of discounting handed our clients a distinct advantage.
Which Categories Won on Prime Day 2022
Prime Day saw varying degrees of growth at a client level ranging from 30% up to 350% year on year.
Here are the categories we saw the biggest % growth in, year on year:
- Vitamins / Nutrition
- Homes and Interiors
- Garden and Outdoor
- Skincare and Cosmetics
Paid Ads and CPC
Over Prime Day CPC inflation appears to have been heavy at approximately 25%-30% across the board.
This isn’t as polarising as you may expect as some clients saw a 10% decrease in their category CPC whereas others saw up to a 35% increase.
Prime Day 2 stepped back marginally on costs per click when compared to Day 1.
Further Thoughts
Warm weather looks to have impacted the uptake of Prime Day, with lower sales volumes than expected during the day and up to the evening, and the evening contributing more towards the growth than in previous years.
One client has seen 375% growth from a relatively safe discount, in a highly competitive category, level raising a broader question over the price point of the products and potential price elasticity in their category that could unlock significant long-term growth. Prime Day is not just about selling more but also generating learnings that can inform the future direction of your brand on Amazon.
Good systems and data are essential to trading a great Prime Day. Over Day 1 of the event, one of our platform suppliers seems to have ‘wobbled’ under the load from Prime Day resulting in some of our access to data being hindered. Having alternate systems and backup approaches in place guaranteed us access to our data and the ability to trade well. Having a backup plan and multiple data points for critical events like this is something we’d encourage others to do.
Amazon’s Promotion of Prime Day
Amazon seemed to be a little shy in promoting Prime Day this year via certain channels. Yes, it was all over TV, with lots of brands also advertising themselves and calling out their Prime Day participation, but Amazon seemed to dial back some of its direct marketing to Prime members.
Last year we had email after email, push notifications in the app and SMS messages. This year, from a sample of the Venture Forge team, the communication was much lower profile and in some instances non-existent.
Amazon’s UX Needs to Improve
Amazon has made some user experience improvements this year making it more important for a brand to run Prime Deals. Much more focus was put on Prime Day Deals in search results and filtering options for Prime Day deals were clearly made more prevalent. This made it much more important for brands to run deals in order to gain maximum visibility, and worked very well for consumers on a specific buying mission.
But what about shoppers who are browsing for a bargain or looking for inspiration? There’s a lot of room for improvement here and a trick Amazon seems to be missing out on.
Amazon’s entire UX (not just on Prime Day) is designed for people with a mission in mind – those searching for something specific – and that’s why Amazon has been so successful overall. Know what you want? Amazon has is it.
But what about those that don’t know exactly what they want? Those who shop on a broader mission, perhaps looking for inspiration there than a specific item?
This type of customer becomes more prevalent over sale events – they’re the curious sale shopper, knowing there’s a bargain to be had and excited to browse in a hunt for value. Well on Amazon this doesn’t quite work, driven by the sheer vastness of their product catalogue.
For the customer trying to find a bargain in home and kitchen, they’re presented with deals ranging from a £2 potato masher to an £850 washing machine. For those looking for some outdoor play equipment, there are £4 footballs to £1,500 swings and 5,000 items in between. This experience doesn’t work for the bargain browser – it’s too broad.
Amazon is missing a real trick by better curating their deals to aid the bargain hunter that doesn’t have a specific mission in mind – the TK Maxx shopper!
Come on, we’ve all been out to browse the shops and come home buying things we never really needed. Amazon can do so much more to maximise on this opportunity.
Maximising the Post-Prime Day Opportunity
And to wrap up, what do you do now that Prime Day has passed? There’s a huge wealth of opportunity open to you which we covered in a previous article just over here.
