Amazon Prime Day is kicking off today. Since its inception in 2015, the event has turned into a 48-hour-long eCommerce extravaganza.
Just five years in existence, Prime Day has grown into a major shopping event, rivaling Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The Prime shopping spree normally takes place in July, ahead of the autumn shopping events, but was pushed out to October this year because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Prime Day revenue has grown significantly over the years, but Amazon has also lengthened the shopping period from initially 24 hours in 2015 and 2016 to 48 hours in 2019 and 2020. This year, revenues of almost $10 billion are projected, according to eMarketer.
Amazon Prime Day is only available to Prime members, creating an incentive for consumers to turn into Prime members. For the everything store, the main purpose behind the two-day sale is to convert those non-members to Prime buyers. Members buy more, come back more, and provide more data than non-members.
This chart shows global Amazon Prime Day sales from 2015 to 2020 (in billion U.S. dollars).
