Analysis: Prime Day really was that good

Sequels are rarely better than the original, but the second annual Amazon Prime Day may deserve comparisons to “The Godfather Part II” and “The Empire Strikes Back.”



According to analysis of U.S. Amazon first-party and Marketplace sales from a daily panel of more than 4 million online shoppers from digital commerce research firm Slice Intelligence, sales on July 12, 2016 were up 50% from Amazon’s inaugural Prime Day. It was the biggest U.S. sales day ever, surpassing Cyber Monday 2015 (the previous high water mark) by 19%.



The average shopper spent $112 (up 9% from the previous year), with an average order size of $54 (down 2% from 2015). Amazon is already the dominant e-commerce player in the U.S., with 38% market share across the consumer e-commerce sector year-to-date. On Prime Day 2016, however, Amazon had 74% of all U.S. consumer e-commerce. This happened despite competitors’ efforts to offer their own concurrent online sales.



Amazon Prime Now, which offers a limited array of products to Amazon Prime members in select markets, was heavily promoted to those that lived in Prime Now markets on Prime Day, and analysis shows it paid off. Of all customers that placed a Prime Now order on Prime day, 31% were first-time Prime Now customers.



Other interesting data points include:



·Heavy Amazon shoppers who average more than four purchases per month with Amazon accounted for 50% of Prime Day buyers and 56% of sales, up respectively from 41% and 44% the prior year.



·New shoppers accounted for just 2% of sales in 2016, down from 3% in 2015.



·Despite large sales volumes, only 13.5% of Amazon shoppers shopped on Prime Day 2016, up from 11% in 2015.



·Prime Day represented 2% of year-to-date sales for Amazon.



According to Slice, competitors will never be able to generate their own substantial online sales boosts by individually competing with Prime Day. Instead, the firm advises other e-commerce retailers to consider creating a consortium-based approach (within the bounds of antitrust rules) to create their own joint sales holiday during the summer.



Not surprisingly, based on these figures Slice expects a strong holiday in 2016 from Amazon.