Amazon Prime Day benefits other retailers - report

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Jun 25, 2021

Amazon Prime Day (or two days, as it was this year) may have driven massive traffic to Amazon itself, but it also had a knock-on effect on other retailers, a new study has shown. And beauty and fashion were key purchase priorities during the event.

Research among 5,420 UK and North American consumers from Bazaarvoice’s Influenster community shows that “consumers were open to other retail platforms when making purchases, despite the prominence of Prime Day”.

Polled on June 21 and 22, 55% of the respondents said they shopped on Prime day. And while 75% of them went to Amazon, the other 25% chose to shop via a combination of Amazon and wider brands and retailers during the global sales event.

Bazaarvoice’s senior VP EMEA, Ed Hill, said that “as Prime Day becomes increasingly popular, especially in Europe, brands and retailers are beginning to follow the retail holiday trend with sales of their own, and they’re really seeing the pay-off. Consumers are very much open to shopping in places other than Amazon. They shop at a combination of Amazon and other brands/retailers during Prime Day and prioritise those that have the most attractive sales.”

It’s clear that consumers have specific sites in mind when shopping Prime Day. But a sizeable minority is still open to being diverted elsewhere. The figures showed that 74% of consumers shopped where they had expected to during the event, “but 10% were swayed to purchase elsewhere by a sale, and 16% experienced a mix of both”.

Consumers are heavily focused on bargains during the event and this year, 77% found what they wanted at lower prices. Their expectations are high with 64% of consumers expecting a discount of 30% or greater before making a Prime Day purchase, while 26% settled for 20% and one in 10 seems happy with a cut of just 10%.

But what were they buying? Beauty was key with 47% seeking beauty deals, even more than electronics (38%) and homewares (37%). Fashion had a part to play too with 33% looking for apparel deals.

And 83% of respondents said they were purchasing for themselves, rather than buying gifts.

As mentioned earlier, discounts were a major driver of sales, but only 12% of consumers were motivated purely by the price cut in front of them. A massive 88% were heavily influenced by reviews to buy a particular products and 74% of consumers relied on photo or video content from other customers to validate their decision before making a purchase.