Why Amazon Prime Day is more than a tech play

It's that time of year again, on the 11th of July Amazon Prime day is back and its set to be bigger than ever!

The excitement, noise and raft of content before and during the annual deep discounting event reached peak levels last year. There were numerous articles about the best and worst deals available on the day, and speculation about what was selling the most and the fastest.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, unlike Black Friday - the day following Thanksgiving in the US and an equally excitable time for bargain hunters - there were no scenes of consumers fighting over a heavily discounted 85” HD 4K smart TV's at an Asda in Scunthorpe. What did happen was far more interesting and somewhat concerning, particularly for brands.

Amazon heavily discounts consumer electronics, especially its own. The biggest success for the e-commerce giant was its voice-activated smart device the Amazon Echo, and baby version the Amazon Echo Dot. TechCrunch reported it was selling “thousands per minute”, according to a source, and sold more of the device on Tuesday than it did on the previous year’s Prime Day.

While this plays to a growing consumer appetite for the latest in smart technology it also means that Amazon is now inside people’s homes and ahead of its rivals Google and Apple. Those who shop using the Echo’s intelligent personal assistant Alexa will be directed to Amazon’s product by default. For example, if a consumer asks Alexa for batteries, it will suggest Amazon’s in-house brand rather than Duracell.

This has huge implications. It’s obviously bad news for brands that sell via third parties on Amazon as products won’t be promoted when consumer shop in this way.

But it also changes the way that people shop generally, not just a move away from store to online but asking for specific products rather than browsing, and potentially adding other things to their basket.  

Mashable reported that “Amazon also took the promotional day as an opportunity to plug some of its newer apparel and food private labels that customers may not yet be familiar with”.

It’s not just about the technology, it’s about what the technology enables people to do and how Amazon is altering consumer behaviour. 

So how can brands counter Amazons incredible power and ensure they retain brand loyalty online?

Get in touch and find out - thomas.markland@realise.com