How Amazon Prime's Shopping Surge Affected Retailers
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
The Amazon all-day sale helped produce business for Walmart and other retailers, as well
On July 15, Amazon sponsored Amazon Prime Day, which the online retailer touted as a one-day shopping spree with special, deep-discounted offers reserved for Amazon Prime Members. And merchants participating in the special event experienced an 80 percent rise in U.S. sales form a year earlier, according to early figures from e-commerce researcher ChannelAdvisor.
Amazon Prime Day was created in honor of the 20th anniversary of the e-commerce company, according to USA Today.
But shoppers were not all happy with the event, with some complaining that deals sold out too fast or fell short of their expectations.
The one-day sale also prompted other retailers to launch their own online sales to compete with Amazon. Walmart’s sale offered more than 2,000 online exclusive rollbacks on highlighted products in electronics, home, baby, and toys, with discounted pricing lasting 90 days. Walmart also reduced the minimum order for free shipping from $50 to $35 for at least 30 days.
In particular, Walmart chastised Amazon for only offering the discounts to its paid-membership customers, who pay $99 a year to be Amazon Prime members. In a blog post, Walmart spokesman Ravi Jariwala stated that the company was ‘standing up for our customers and everyone else who sees no rhyme or reason for paying a premium to save. We just don’t believe you should pay a fee to get a better price.”
And it seems that Walmart’s strategy has paid off. According to Daily Finance, sales last week were some of the best ever for its online orders, although the company has not released specific figures. Shoppers also were intent on hastening delivery of ordered items. The company said that Wednesday (which was Amazon Prime Day) reported the highest figures of the year for same-day pickup in stores, with orders increasing triple digits over the same day last year.
Popular items on Wednesday were an Apple iPad Air 2, which sold for $399.99, and Anna and Kristoff Dolls from Disney’s “Frozen,” retailing at $12.35.
Despite some disgruntled shoppers, however, Amazon did report a successful first annual Amazon Prime Day, saying that by 1 p.m. on Wednesday, the speed at which customers were placing orders (398 items per second) had already surpassed 2014 Black Friday. And according to the New York Post, Amazon has announced that Amazon Prime Day will be an annual event. Beyond the sales themselves, Amazon reported that it led to “hundreds of thousands” of new enrollments in the Prime loyalty program.
“Going into this, we weren’t sure whether Prime Day would be a one-time thing or if it would become an annual event,” said Greg Greeley, Amazon Prime vice president. “After yesterday’s results, we’ll definitely be doing this again.”
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