Salesforce: Prime Big Deal Days falls short outside Amazon

Amazon Prime Big Deal Days may not have been quite so big for other retailers and brands.

According to new data and analysis for the entirety of Prime Big Deal Days (Oct. 8-9) emailed to Chain Store Age by Salesforce, U.S. sales growth outside Amazon declined 5% from the 2023 edition of the event.

Other key findings, based on the activity of 1.5 billion shoppers across Salesforce Commerce Cloud and other Salesforce products, include: 

U.S.

• Web traffic declined 2% year-over-year.
• Discount rates were up 14% year-over-year to an average of 21%. 
• Highest discounted categories were general apparel (average discount of 31%), health and beauty (average discount of 20%, up 27% year-over-year) and food and beverage (average discount of 13%, up 23% year-over-year).

Global

• Sales for non-Amazon retailers were flat year-over-year with 0% sales growth.
• Discount rates were up 9% year-over-year to an average discount rate of 18%
• Highest discounted categories year-over-year were electronics (36%), general apparel (36%) and health & beauty (21%).

In addition, Europe saw year-over-year online sales growth of 9%. The promotion took place in the U.S. and 18 other countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, U.K. and Turkey.

"Amazon Prime Big Deal Days performance was lower than expected this year, most likely due to recent weather events and consumer uncertainty around the upcoming U.S. election," said Caila Schwartz, director of consumer insights at Salesforce, in an emailed statement. "And while discount rates were more enticing than last year, retailers still stayed conservative in preparation for robust Cyber Week deals, contributing to the fall in overall results."