Amazon Prime Day 2020 Marked the Two Biggest Days Ever for Small & Medium Businesses in Amazon’s Stores Worldwide

Rhea-AI Summary

Amazon's recent Prime Day event marked record-breaking sales, generating over $3.5 billion for small and medium-sized businesses, a nearly 60% increase from last year. The event spanned 19 countries and resulted in Prime members saving more than $1.4 billion. Amazon is investing $18 billion in support of small businesses, with significant promotions leading to over $900 million in sales prior to Prime Day. Popular categories included Home and Electronics, with top-selling products like Echo Dot and iRobot Roomba. Prime membership continues to grow, enhancing customer savings and shopping experiences.

Positive

• Sales for small and medium businesses on Prime Day surpassed $3.5 billion, up nearly 60% from last year.
• Prime members saved over $1.4 billion during the event.
• Amazon is investing $18 billion this year to support small businesses.
• The pre-Prime Day promotions generated over $900 million in sales for small businesses.

Negative

• None.

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--(NASDAQ:AMZN) – After holding Prime Day in India in August, Amazon just wrapped the two-day event across 19 additional countries, delivering big sales for small businesses and big savings for Prime members in the U.S., U.K., U.A.E., Turkey, Spain, Singapore, Netherlands, Mexico, Luxembourg, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, China, Canada, Brazil, Belgium, Austria, and Australia. Amazon is on track to invest $18 billion this year to help small and medium-sized businesses succeed in its store, and designed this Prime Day to support small businesses even more—including funding a promotion that helped drive over $900 million in sales for small businesses in the two weeks leading up to Prime Day. This Prime Day delivered the two biggest days ever for third-party sellers, nearly all of which are small and medium-sized businesses. Sellers saw record-breaking sales, surpassing $3.5 billion in total across 19 countries. In addition, Prime members around the world saved over $1.4 billion during the epic deals event, securing deep discounts and getting a jump start on their holiday shopping.

“We are thrilled that Prime Day was a record-breaking event for small and medium businesses worldwide, with sales surpassing $3.5 billion—an increase of nearly 60% from last year,” said Jeff Wilke, CEO Worldwide Consumer. “We’re also proud that Prime members saved more than $1.4 billion, and we look forward to providing more opportunities for our selling partners to grow and customers to save throughout the holiday season. I’m incredibly thankful to our employees and partners around the world who helped make Prime Day possible, especially the dedicated front-line teams in our fulfillment centers and delivery operations.”

Members shopped and found great deals across a variety of categories from small businesses to top brands, with Home, Electronics, Nutrition & Wellness, and Arts, Crafts & Sewing as some of the best-selling categories. In addition, Prime members enjoyed deep discounts, snatching up incredible deals with best-selling products globally including, Echo Dot, Fire TV Stick 4K with Alexa Voice Remote, iRobot Roomba Robot Vacuum, LifeStraw Personal Water Filter, and Lego Star Wars Stormtrooper Helmet, among others.

Here are some additional highlights from Prime Day 2020.

Global Highlights from Prime Day 2020

Supporting Small Businesses

Amazon held its biggest small business promotion ever in the lead-up to Prime Day, and had hundreds of thousands of deals from both small and medium-sized businesses available globally over the two-day event.

“2020 has been a rollercoaster for small businesses like mine, but Prime Day helped us sell a whole month’s worth of inventory in two days. In addition, with the Spend $10, Get $10 promotion my business saw sales double on Amazon Handmade even before Prime Day started. The increase in sales will definitely help support operations as we prepare for the rest of the holiday season.” – Kennedy Lowery, Live by Being, a skincare and wellness goods company based in Houston, TX.

"This year's Prime Day exceeded all of our expectations. On day one we saw a 700% lift in units sold, leading to a record sales day for us. Prime Day has become one of the most important events of the year for us as a small business, not only for its sales boost, but also as a way for us to build awareness with new customers. Amazon helps us reach an audience that would be difficult to reach on our own.”— Caron Proschan, Simply Gum, natural chewing gum and mint company based in New York, NY.

• Independent third-party sellers—most of which are small and medium-sized businesses—surpassed $3.5 billion in sales on Prime Day—a nearly 60% increase over Prime Day 2019, growing even more than Amazon’s retail business.
• Top-selling categories for third-party sellers include Bedding, Wireless Accessories, Nutrition & Wellness, Arts, Crafts & Sewing, and Health Care.
• Tens of millions of customers supported small businesses in the two-week lead-up to Prime Day, generating more than $900 million in sales for small businesses included in the Spend $10, Get $10 promotion.
• During the two weeks leading up to Prime Day, customers shopped from small businesses across all 50 U.S. states, with small businesses included in the promotion in Utah, California, and New Jersey seeing the biggest sales per capita.

Prime Member Savings

With early promotions and more than one million deals globally, members had an opportunity to save big this Prime Day.

• Prime members saved more than $1.4 billion on Prime Day 2020.
• Prime members earned tens of millions of dollars in Amazon.com credits from this year’s Spend $10, Get $10 Prime Day promotion while shopping Whole Foods Market, Amazon Fresh, Amazon Go, Amazon Go Grocery, Amazon Books, Amazon Pop Up, and Amazon 4-star stores.

Amazon Devices

Members took advantage of incredible savings on Amazon Devices throughout Prime Day.

• Echo Dot was the most popular item purchased on Prime Day globally.
• Companies building devices with Alexa built-in had a record Prime Day with Bose QuietComfort 35 (Series II) Wireless Headphones and Fitbit Versa 2 Health and Fitness Smartwatch being some of the most popular items during the Prime Day event.
• Customers purchased millions of Alexa compatible devices during the Prime Day event.
• Customers purchased even more Fire TV Edition Smart TVs than during previous Prime Day events, buying a record-setting number of FTVE TVs from brands including Toshiba and Insignia.

Prime Day Best Sellers by Country

Members shopped across a wide selection of products in a variety of categories including electronics, beauty, fashion, grocery, toys, furniture, everyday essentials, school supplies, and more.

Globally:

• Some of the top categories that members shopped and saved globally included Home, Electronics, Nutrition & Wellness, among others.
• Prime members enjoyed deep discounts as they snatched-up incredible deals with best-selling products globally, including Echo Dot, Fire TV Stick 4K with Alexa Voice Remote, iRobot Roomba Robot Vacuum, LifeStraw Personal Water Filter, and Lego Star Wars Stormtrooper Helmet, among others.
• During the two-week lead up to Prime Day, Holiday Favorites was the most popular holiday station and 50 Great Holiday Songs, Christmas Classics and Caroling at Christmas were the most streamed holiday playlists for Amazon Music listeners on the Prime tier in the U.S.

Some of the top-selling deals from around the world, excluding Amazon Devices, included:

• United States: iRobot Roomba Robot Vacuum, MyQ Wireless & WiFi Enabled Smart Garage Door Opener, LifeStraw Personal Water Filter, Goli Apple Cider Vinegar Vitamins, and Kids Against Maturity: Card Game for Kids and Families.
• United Kingdom: Shark Upright Vacuum Cleaner, Celebrations Chocolate Bulk Box, Halloween Party Bag Fillers, Oral-B Smart 6 6000N CrossAction Electric Toothbrush.
• United Arab Emirates: Listerine Cool Mint Mouthwash, Sony Extra Bass Smartphone Headset with Mic Headphone, and Nescafe Dolce Mini Me Coffee Machine.
• Turkey: HP Laptop, Baby Turco Islak Havlu Mendil, and Familia Plus Paper Towels.
• Spain: Finish Powerball All in 1 Max Detergent, L'Oréal Paris Men Expert - 24H Hydra Energetic Daily Moisturizer, BRITA MAXTRA universal cartridge, and Oral B CrossAction Electric Toothbrush.
• Singapore: Cocolife Coconut Water, Learning Resources Sight Word Auditory Learning Game, Wolf Blass Red Label, Australia Cabernet Merlot, LEGO Classic 10698 Large Creative Brick Box.
• Netherlands: Lego Star Wars Stormtrooper Helmet, Dettol Cleaning Wipes Power & Fresh, Oral-B Pro CrossAction Electric Toothbrush.
• Mexico: Lloyd’s WiFi Smart Bulb Compatible with Alexa, iOS, Android and Google Assistant, Lysol Multipurpose Disinfectant, and TECHVIDA Automatic Water Dispenser.
• Luxembourg: Christmas Magic Yankee Candle, SanDisk Extreme microSDXC Memory Card, and Sagrotan Hand Disinfectant Gel with Aloe Vera.
• Japan: SwitchBot, Detergent Wide Hiter, and Water Bottles I Ro Ha Su.
• Italy: FIFA 21 PlayStation 4, includes PS5 upgrade, Borbone Respresso Coffee Capsules, and Protective Face Mask FFP2 by Jiandi.
• Germany and Austria: SanDisk Extreme microSDXC Memory Card (128 GB), Lavazza Coffee Beans - Caffè Crema Classico, and Tefal Jamie Oliver Pan.
• China: L'Oreal Paris Golden Age Repair Cream, Dove Creme Body Scrub, Western Digital Desktop External Hard Drive, Philips Sonicare Genuine Replacement Brush Head.
• Canada: LifeStraw Personal Water Filter, Govee LED Light Strip compatible with Alexa, All Natural Advice Anti-Aging Vitamin C Serum, Instant Pot Duo Nova, and Donut Shop Variety Box Keurig K-Cup Pods.
• Brazil: Positivo Wi-Fi Smart LED Light Bulb Compatible with Alexa, Faber-Castell Highlighter Pen, 6 Pastel Colors, and Lysoform Disinfectant.
• Belgium: SanDisk Extreme microSDXC UHS-I Memory card 128 GB, Sagrotan Hand Disinfectant Gel with Aloe Vera, and Samsung Internal SSD.
• Australia: Philips Hue Smart Lighting, Skin Care from WELEDA and Palmolive.

Operations and Delivery

Every day at Amazon, incredible employees come together to deliver magical experiences for customers. Amazon announced just last month that it is creating an additional 100,000 regular full-time and part-time jobs in its fulfillment and logistics network throughout the U.S. and Canada. With more than 150 new process improvements and safety measures implemented by Amazon over the last several months, hundreds of thousands of employees across Amazon’s network are working to ensure fast and efficient delivery for customers throughout Prime Day, the rest of the year, and beyond.

• On Prime Day, the fastest delivery was delivered in 29 minutes and 54 seconds, and included Febreze Car Air Freshener Vent Clips. In the U.S., of those Prime members who selected Amazon Day as their preferred delivery option on Prime Day, Saturday was the most popular delivery day selected.
• This year, even more Prime members opted to ship items to an Amazon Hub pickup location versus last year. As of the end of October 13, the top ten U.S. cities where Prime members used a Hub Locker or Counter service are Brooklyn, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, Portland, San Jose, and Seattle.

Every Day Made Better with Prime

Prime was designed to make your life better every single day. Over 150 million paid members around the world enjoy the many benefits of Prime, including the best of shopping and entertainment. In the U.S. that includes unlimited access to award-winning movies and TV episodes with Prime Video, ad-free listening of 2 million songs plus thousands of stations and playlists with Amazon Music, unlimited access to more than 1,000 books and magazines with Prime Reading, free in-game content and games with Prime Gaming, as well as incredible deals with Prime Day, and more. Prime members can also get exclusive discounts on select popular products at Whole Foods Market plus an additional 10 percent off hundreds of sale items. Prime was built on the foundation of unlimited fast, free shipping. In addition to more than 10 million items eligible for free One-Day Delivery coast to coast, Prime members in thousands of cities and towns across 47 major metropolitan areas have access to millions of items with free Same-Day Delivery and the option to pick up and return their Amazon packages for free through Amazon Hub, a contactless, click and collect service at no additional cost. Prime members also have access to free and fast grocery delivery from Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market in more than 2,000 cities and towns. Prime is $119 a year or $12.99 a month and new members can start a free trial of Amazon Prime at amazon.com/prime. College students can join Prime Student for 50% off and enjoy the benefits of Prime with a six-month trial at amazon.com/primestudent. Plus, for an additional $0.99 a month, student members can get Amazon Music Unlimited and stream over 60 million songs ad-free. Customers receiving government assistance through EBT can also qualify for a discounted Prime membership of $5.99 a month at amazon.com/qualify. Amazon Business customers—from small businesses to large enterprises, as well as education, government and non-profit organizations—can also take advantage of Prime’s fast, free shipping and exclusive business-relevant benefits with Business Prime, which starts at $69 per year as an add-on for customers with Amazon Prime on their personal account or $179 per year for up to three users at amazon.com/businessprime.

About Amazon

Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.