As confirmed by Amazon
Like in prior years, there are varied reactions from shoppers during the event. “The deals this year aren’t as good,” and “The biggest discounts are on Amazon’s own products,” are some comments that I saw on social media.
Some of this anecdotal commentary from Prime Day implied that the deals weren’t as deep as in 2021. But data from analytics firm Analytic Index suggests otherwise.
“In 2021 across Amazon as a whole there wasn’t much difference in average price between Prime Day day and the prior period,” says Analytic Index founder Nathan Rigby. “But in 2022 there was about a 3% drop in product prices site-wide for Prime Day.”
The difference is even more dramatic when doing direct comparison on products where there is Prime Day sales data and pre- Prime Day sales data. In 2021, there was an average 1% reduction in price of these items, versus 2022 where there was a 18% average drop in price.
While shoppers and commentators alike were expecting less generous discounts or lower sale uptake, this data refutes that notion.
The most discounted categories
Per Analytic Index data, the product categories with the biggest average price drops compared with 2021’s Prime Day event were:
- Toys and games, down 15%
- Office produce, down 14%
- Video games, down 10%
- Pet supplies, down 4%
The categories with the largest number of deals (each with over 10,000 items discounted through deals like Prime Exclusive Deals and Lightning Deals) were home & kitchen, tools & home improvement, and sports & outdoors.
Analytic Index data for the first day of 2022 Prime Day
Amazon boosts advertising placements for its own products
Its true that Amazon makes the most of Prime Day as an opportunity to promote and sell its own range of products, particularly Alexa-enabled devices that get more consumers into the Alexa ecosystem.
I personally noted Amazon Fire TVs discounted by over 40%.
But what’s really interesting this year is how much Amazon dedicated to advertising these products.
In 2021, Amazon share of ad placements was 1.39% – including the Amazon Basics brand, Amazon brand, and Solimo brand products. Whereas in 2022, 2.18% of ad placements were for all of those Amazon brands, plus Amazon snack brand Happy Belly. This means that Amazon “spent” 50% more on advertising its own private label brand products than in the prior year.
The Amazon brand Happy Belly for example, was not in the top 20 brand advertisers at all in 2021. But in 2022, it was the third most active advertiser for Sponsored ad spend.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kirimasters/2022/07/14/data-show-that-prime-day-prices-were-actually-3-lower-compared-with-2021/