Prime Day announced, how merchants may fair

Amazon’s Prime Day will span two days this year and is set for July 15 and 16, 2019.

One other reason consumers’ Amazon use continues to increase? Trust. Walker Sands’ sixth annual Future of Retail 2019 report finds that 24% of consumers “are willing to try” products based on an Amazon product recommendation. And, don’t discount the newer trend: Alexa and Echo based shopping. Nearly half (42%) of consumers say they’ve made a purchase using an Amazon voice-activated device over the past year.

What is it that shoppers are after this Prime Day?

“For consumers, Amazon Prime Day is all about finding the best deals, but they’re not necessarily always loyal to the host of the event. In fact, last year 63% of Prime Day shoppers said they visited competing websites to compare prices. This is a huge opportunity for online retailers to capitalize on the spike in traffic and provide consumers personalized and targeted offerings and exclusive deals. However, the key is to not launch promotions on Prime Day, but ahead of the anticipated event. This places the retailer top of mind for consumers looking to do their homework before they make a purchase and puts brands a step ahead of Amazon,” said Tom Caporaso, CEO, Clarus Commerce.

As to how merchants and brands are engaging consumers during big shopping events like Prime Day, Bluecore’s 2019 Mid-Year Email Benchmark Report indicates the granddaddy of online marketing – email – continues to be a big part of merchants’ strategy. Their data also shows that customer retention is more profitable for merchants as a strategy than simple acquisition. Their data shows that first time buyers have a 14% likelihood of making another purchase but that multi-time buyers have a 60% propensity to buy again. Other interesting findings from Bluecore include:

â–ª Cart Abandon emails have a 1.5% conversion rate, the highest for email
â–ª Price decrease emails have the highest click-to-open rate at 30%
â–ª High spenders have a 50% open rate, the highest amongst shoppers

But, shoppers won’t take Amazon’s word that they have the lowest price or best deal. Adlucent researchers polled 1,000 US shoppers and found that most (72%) say they’ll compare prices off Amazon before making a purchase during the Prime Day event. And don’t think only summer items will be purchased. Just over half of those polled say they’ll be looking for back-to-school deals during Prime Day

Researchers with Profitero agree. Their new report shows that while most Prime members will shop Amazon on Prime Day (98%), one-third (34%) say they’ll also check out other merchants’ offers, and just over half (58%) say they’ll price-compare before making purchases. Other interesting findings from Profitero’s 2019 Prime Day Predictions include:

â–ª 71% of those planning to check Prime Day deals say they’ll be looking at electronics purchases
â–ª 56% are likely to try a new product or brand because of a Prime Day discount
â–ª 24% of shoppers say they’ll make a grocery purchase during Prime Day

“For brands, Prime Day is the gift that keeps giving, with benefits lasting well beyond the few short days of the actual event. In fact, 66% of products that saw a traffic spike on Prime Day last year benefited from an ongoing traffic lift lasting at least two weeks after the event,” said Vol Pigrukh, CEO and co-founder of Profitero. “With this year’s event expected to attract more shoppers than ever, brands must have their promotions, advertising campaigns, product content and inventory fully optimized in order to maximize sales on Amazon and other retailer sites.”