Prime Day 2021

My favorite season is upon us and while shoppers prepare to snag the best deals, retailers are preparing for their biggest year yet. Amazon’s 48-hour Prime Day event kicks off on June 21 and sales from the promotion are expected to approach $12 billion worldwide. While annual growth will be slower again this year, Prime Day 2021 will still smash last year’s sales record by nearly $2 billion.

Prime Day Sales Worldwide

eMarketer laid out their outlook:

  • In 2021, U.S. ecommerce sales across all retailers during the Prime Day sales event will grow by 17.3% year over year to $12.18 billion, per our estimates. That’s an increase of almost $2 billion in spending compared with 2020.
  • We expect Amazon’s share of U.S. ecommerce sales during Prime Day to stay almost the same this year as last year, despite competition from other retailers.
  • U.S. ecommerce sales on Amazon will account for 60.0% ($7.31 billion) of all U.S. retail ecommerce sales during Prime Day 2021, compared with 59.4% ($6.17 billion) during Prime Day 2020.

What’s Different

As if 2020 and 2021 weren’t upside down already, Prime Day is moving up in the retail calendar from traditional mid-July timing to late-June which is likely to find shoppers in a summer state of mind. As a result, forecasts are estimating higher sales in summer apparel and gear for outdoor activities. However, it could also prompt an earlier start to the back-to-school shopping season with forward-thinking college students and parents getting a jump start on supplies shopping.

While the focus of Prime Day sales might be on an apparel and outdoor goods, “revenge shopping” is likely to enter the equation as well. The newly coined term has been used to describe a rush of post-pandemic discretionary spending and could result in a boost to luxury brands and nonessential product categories. Although the pandemic is still a factor, the impact this year will be from the release of pent-up demand for products not purchased as a result of lockdowns and restrictions.

Amazon is also giving small businesses on the platform a boost by offering additional exclusive promotions. Prime members can now purchase from over 300,000 small business sellers worldwide and get a $10 credit from Amazon to use during Prime Day.

Amazon Domination

A whopping 60.4 percent of U.S. households were Prime users in 2020. After a 15.7 percent increase in membership last year, subscriptions are expected to grow just 4.8 percent in 2021 bringing the total to 81.4 million households.

What’s noteworthy here is the increase in the younger demographic flocking to the ease and allure of Prime membership. According to an April 2021 survey conducted by Insider Intelligence and Bizrate Insights, 79 percent of U.S. consumers ages 18 to 34 said they were Prime members or someone in their household was a Prime member, compared with 69 percent of consumers ages 35 to 54 and 61 percent of consumers 55 and over.

Although competing retailers like Walmart and Target will have deals of their own during the Prime Day window, Amazon will continue to dominate sales. In fact, the ecommerce giant is expected to rake in $7.31 billion or about 60 percent of all U.S. retail ecommerce sales during the Prime Day event.

One thing is clear, Prime Day offers tremendous opportunities for brands and consumers alike. In addition to its ecommerce platform, Amazon has also secured its stronghold in the advertising landscape and is the third-largest ad seller in the country. At Mindstream Media Group, our Amazon Certified Programmatic Traders help clients maximize return on ad spend with programmatic display, audio and video ads placed through the Amazon DSP. Click here to learn more about the platform and how we can help.


Contributed by Meagan Cox, Senior Media Planner. As much a strategic thinker as a certainty to make you laugh, Meagan knows the ins and outs of digital and traditional media, is consistently contributing to client growth and can transform an otherwise business-as-usual discussion into a joyous occasion by adding in her own unique brand of humor.

Amazon Prime Day 2020

In a year of unprecedented circumstances and amid a backdrop of a global pandemic, Amazon Prime Day (October 13-14) is gearing up to be the biggest shopping event of the year. With COVID-19 impacting how shoppers purchase in store it’s not surprising to see forecasts showing the e-commerce giant flourishing from its Prime Day event yet again. Sales in the U.S. are predicted to reach upwards of $6 billion with worldwide sales hitting $9 billion. While Prime Day has historically kicked off mid-summer and back to school shopping, this year will be focused on holiday deals.

Prime Day Planning

With the pandemic throwing our lives for a loop, online retailers are finding planning Prime Day to be more challenging in the face of fluctuating consumer demand. However, according to a survey conducted by Profitero in late March, 56 percent were optimistic that Prime Day would be successful given that consumers were already shopping online due to coronavirus concerns. COVID-19 is still very much a part of our lives, making Prime Day lightning deals and heavily discounted products especially attractive for deal-seeking shoppers. As of August, a poll by Piplsay found about 48 percent of U.S. consumers were budgeting to spend the same or more than last year on Prime Day and 31 percent were planning to spend less.

While consumers are adapting to a new way of shopping, Amazon is adjusting to the new needs created by the pandemic. Once mundane online purchases like household goods, cooking and office equipment have become some of the top demanded products. “Similar to the early days of the COVID-19 crisis, we expect the top performers on Prime Day to be electronics, toys and games, beauty, health and personal care, home, appliances, and other pre-winter categories, as consumers continue to shelter at home during the winter months,” said Dani Nadel, President and COO of marketplace pricing analytics firm Feedvisor.

Amazon Advertising

Although dwarfed by giants like Google and Facebook, Amazon’s newish venture in advertising is a fast-growing pillar of the company. While Prime Day focuses on Amazon’s suite of products, other top name brands are tapping into Sponsored Product Ads. These keyword search-driven product ads are used by millions of sellers leveraging the third-party marketplace to drive sales at a favorable return on ad spend (ROAS).

Amazon ranked the highest (36 percent) among respondents to a December 2019 Feedvisor survey that asked brands which platform drove the highest ROAS. Paid social and Google came in second and third with 29 percent and 27 percent of responses respectively. Among brands selling on Amazon, the disparity was more pronounced, with Amazon commanding a whopping 59 percent of responses. Amazon’s reputation for effectiveness and demonstrable ROAS has lead an increasing number of brands to advertise on the platform. In fact, the percentage of U.S. brands advertising on Amazon jumped from 57 percent in 2018 to 73 percent in 2019. It is no surprise that Amazon’s ads platform has weathered the COVID-19 storm well with an expected 41 percent growth in digital ad revenue YoY.

Prime Day and the Holidays

Prime Day has long been known as “Black Friday in July” but with COVID-19 pushing the event to October, it’s now every brand’s risk and reward to lay a foundation for a successful holiday season. Due to supply chain issues, brands run the risk of depleting inventory with little hope of building it back up before the Cyber 5 (Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Saturday, Cyber Sunday and Cyber Monday).

Brands are leveraging Prime Day to read the room for consumer habits in both online and in-store trends in an effort to forecast the latter half of Q4. It’s more important than ever to stay flexible and quickly adapt media strategy based on real-time data from consumer trends. If your brand needs help keeping pace with the ever-changing media landscape, connect with us to learn how Mindstream Media Group can Fast-Forward Your Business through perspective, capabilities, a CRUSH IT culture and the pricing insight $500 million in scale brings.