Knock-on effect of Amazon Prime Day revealed

Wednesday, July 18, 2018 - 10:52 by Graham Miller

This week saw the return of Prime Day; the annual sales event held by Amazon which is exclusively open to subscribers to its Prime service.

What is perhaps most interesting about its arrival is that a report from LovetheSales.com shows that other retailers that offer safe shopping online attempted to cash in on the buzz of the day with deals of their own.

As well as discounts being provided by the likes of Currys PC World and Ebuyer to coincide with Prime Day, there was actually a 30 per cent increase in the number of products available to buy in the first place, providing unrivalled variety for consumers.

Industry analyst, Stuart McClure, told Internet Retailing that rival e-commerce sites are trying to steal a bit of Amazon’s thunder, potentially creating a scenario in which Prime Day could become the second Black Friday-style event of the year, with universal discounting carried out across the board.

Research showed that on Prime Day 2018 there were actually more bargains offered across electronic items than there were during Black Friday 2017, which is a figure that has left many observers mildly surprised.

This is all the more interesting because Amazon has only been running this event for a couple of years, which means it has managed to gain momentum and influence other parts of the market for safe shopping online in a very short span of time.

Of course, Amazon’s dominance of e-commerce in the UK puts it in a great position to change consumer habits and force competing retailers to take action. This is just another demonstration of how powerful it has become, although at least it remains at the head of a packed field of rival companies, rather than having a complete monopoly over online sales.