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During July 15th, Prime Day is Amazon’s blowout sale, marketed to be bigger than Black Friday in honor of the company’s 20th anniversary. However, this holiday is exclusively for Amazon Prime members, and includes free 2-day shipping and super special discounts.
The concept of the holiday certainly brought media attention to Amazon on various news websites, which not only increased brand awareness for Amazon and its subscription program of Amazon Prime.
The hype surrounding Amazon’s Prime Day has been loud, but has it been loud enough to replace Black Friday? For a $99 membership a year, the deals had to be fantastic!
Although, the hashtag #PrimeDay is painting a different story to the media:
Searching for deals on #PrimeDay like pic.twitter.com/2mELR70SPg
— Rektifier (@KamikazeCoyote) July 15, 2015
When I die, I want whoever was responsible for #PrimeDay to lower me down into my grave so I can be let down one more time — Liam Barry (@liam_barry_99) July 15, 2015
Folks are NOT impressed by @amazon ‘s deals for #PrimeDay ! You seeing anything you like? I did see granny panties 15 for $15.. Just sayin’ — Lauren Simonetti (@SimonettiLauren) July 15, 2015
Well done Amazon, the only deals I was really interested in were sold out before I woke up. #PrimeDay — Dave Bohnert (@copiedline) July 15, 2015
If we’re supposed to be excited about #PrimeDay, then the dumpster behind my house is packed with amazing deals.
— Mike Morrison (@mikesbloggity) July 15, 2015
It’s really cool that @amazon was able to raid a Rite Aid and an abandoned Circuit City for this #PrimeDay sale! #PrimeDayFail
— Matthew James Morgan (@MattMO2Go) July 15, 2015
Saved a fortune on @amazon during #PrimeDay… ’cause there wasn’t a damn thing for sale I wanted to buy.
— Tara Lipinsky (@TaraLipinsky) July 15, 2015
Raise your hand if you feel like you have been personally victimized by #PrimeDay pic.twitter.com/EvFrCT3iZ3
— Casey Kelley (@policygal) July 15, 2015
Prime Day is greed driven, not need
Amazon seemingly trying to create their own “holiday”, and retailers and consumers alike naturally have some decisions to make as to whether or not they will plan to join it. There is no need driving consumers to buy into this special day, and from the reactions generated from the day so far, many are washing their hands of the entire event.
What makes Black Friday unique is that it surrounds a holiday, the Christmas shopping push, as people panic that they don’t have a specific present or use the sales to buy new electronics for around the house. This same need drives similar buying habits for consumers with smaller holidays such as Mother’s Day and Father’s Day as well.
The negativity surrounding the weird and extremely niche sale items that are popping up for Prime Day has become the news of the day, and has created extreme backlash for the Amazon promotions team.
Amazon feels that the day is young yet
The company might be losing money now, but consider all the new Prime membership signups they received leading up to today. It’s obvious that Prime Day is an attempt to maximize the number of Prime subscribers before the launch of competing services from Walmart and Jet.com.
Prime members spend nearly three times as much on Amazon’s goods as non-members do, and they convert 74% of the time and by 2016, Amazon will have nearly 21% of the ecommerce market share.
An Amazon spokesperson released the following comment on Prime Day at 1:30 p.m. Eastern:
“Prime Day peak order rates have already surpassed 2014 Black Friday. Prime members have bought tens of thousands of Fire TV Sticks, 35,000 Lord of the Rings Blu-Ray sets, 28,000 Rubbermaid sets, and 4,000 Echos in 15 minutes. The Kate Spade purse was gone in less than a minute. The 1.2K of $999 TVs sold out in less than 10 minutes and there are thousands more deals coming. New deals start every ten minutes until late tonight.”
Create hype around your business
If you want to create hype around your business like Amazon,create a marketing campaign that is exclusive, and inform your members of what benefits they will receive by signing up. Even Walmart is competing with Prime Day with summertime price rollbacks to drive customer traffic!
Amazon has had a huge influence on the way consumers over the last 20 years through reviews, the Prime program, and deals like Prime Day. But is this exclusive company holiday going to blow up in their face? I think so.
What do you think about the Prime Day hype? Is this marketing campaign the best or a big bust?
