Unless you've been blissfully off the grid for the past several days, you've probably heard that Amazon's (AMZN) Prime Day event just took place.
The annual summer savings event, which sees millions of products put on sale for 24 hours, has been an ongoing promotion for the retail giant for about a decade.
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Of course, running annual savings events is nothing unique or original to Amazon. Retailers have known for quite some time that limited-time specials have beckoned customers and tempted them with a sense of scarcity. Participate in this can't miss sale or risk missing out, many seem to say.
This was most clearly demonstrated during the Black Friday mania in the 2000s. Before transacting online became the preferred method of holiday shopping, customers used to line up outside of brick-and-mortar retailers after their Thanksgiving dinners in the hopes of finding a new flat-screen TV, lawn equipment, holiday decor, and more.
Cyber Monday, Presidents' Day, and the week around the Fourth of July quickly followed as recurring seasons for savings.
But perhaps no retailer captures the enthusiasm for a sale better than Amazon. It heavily promotes Prime Day in the weeks leading up to the event, and its success speaks for itself.
Prime Day just keeps getting bigger
In 2023, Amazon announced it had the best Prime Day event yet.
The event, which took place from July 11-12, 2023, brought in a record $12.7 billion in sales. That's up 6.1% compared to 2022, when the event brought in $11.9 billion.
"The first day of Prime Day was the single largest sales day ever on Amazon," Amazon wrote when the event closed, adding, "Prime Day 2023 was also the biggest Prime Day event ever for independent sellers, whose sales growth in Amazon’s store outpaced Amazon's retail business."
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Amazon added that it sold over 375 million products worldwide during the two day sales event, which helped to save customers over $2.5 billion overall.
Its top-selling product in 2023 was the Fire TV Stick with the Alexa-enabled remote control, though Home, Fashion, and Beauty were the top three best-selling categories.
2024 Prime Day was the biggest yet
And Amazon's continued success with its annual promotion just keeps rolling.
The retail giant said 2024 was its biggest Prime Day yet, with the retailer saying a "record number" of new members signed up for Amazon Prime -- which costs $139 per year -- to access savings.
"Prime Day 2024 was a huge success thanks to the millions of Prime members globally who turned to Amazon for fantastic deals, and our much-appreciated employees, delivery partners, and sellers around the world who helped bring the event to life for customers," said Doug Herrington, CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores.
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"We love helping Prime members save money, and Prime Day is the ultimate celebration of the savings, selection, and convenience that Prime membership provides customers looking for shopping, entertainment, food delivery, and more."
Salesforce says it crunched the data on 1.5 billion shoppers to analyze the initial numbers and found that sales were up 8% YoY on day two of Prime Day in the United States alone.
More data is due out on Amazon's bumper event, but Salesforce is confident 2024 will be Amazon's strongest year yet.
"We're seeing real demand coming out of US and Canada during Prime Day thus far with order volumes are up 8% and 11%, respectively," said Caila Schwartz, Director of Consumer Insights at Salesforce. "This is a stark difference to what we have seen over the last couple years and the first half of 2024. The lesson here is pretty simple — if you are competitive on price, consumers will convert; shoppers want a deal."
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