The Evolution and Impact of Amazon Prime Day

The SpaceX crew tasked with bringing home the stranded NASA astronauts arrived safely at the International Space Station. Just five more months and the overly-extended trip for Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will end.

A peek into today’s edition:

The business behind Amazon‘s Prime Day
The Oura Ring 4 is on the way
Kerry Washington makes a big investment in Spill

Amazon‘s renowned Prime Big Deal Days event returns Oct. 8-9, marking another exclusive two-day sales event for Prime members.

Let’s explore the business behind Prime Day and why it’s evolved into its own retail holiday.

The History

On the eve of Amazon’s 20th birthday in July 2015, the e-commerce giant introduced Prime Day, an exclusive global shopping event for Prime members. Amazon wanted to create a sales event that would generate more revenue than Black Friday, and on July 15, 2015, the inaugural Amazon Prime Day did just that. Prime members ordered more than 34.4 million eligible items. In 2016, 215,000 Instant Pot pressure cookers were sold. Initially lasting for 24 hours, Prime Day was extended to 30 hours in 2017 and then to 48 hours in 2019, reflecting its growing importance and demand in the retail calendar.

It’s unclear if the masterminds behind Amazon Prime Day anticipated its success. Still, the company effortlessly created an annual event that quickly became a global shopping phenomenon, rivaling major retail holidays like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. What sets Amazon Prime Day apart is its exclusivity to Amazon, with no other company successfully replicating the scale and impact of the e-commerce giant’s biggest sales event.

The Impact

Amazon’s Prime Day events have significantly contributed to the growth of Prime memberships. The company reported that it typically attracts millions of new members following its Prime Day events. For instance, after the Prime Day event in July 2024, Amazon reported an 8% growth in Prime memberships globally, bringing the Prime network to over 180 million members.

Amazon introduced a second Prime Day event in 2020 and has since continued hosting two sales events a year. This shift began primarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which delayed the typical mid-year event to October that year. Since then, Amazon has hosted Prime Day sales events in July and October. The October events likely attract many holiday shoppers despite Amazon hosting smaller-scale sales closer to Christmas.

Every year, Amazon continues to generate record revenue from Prime Day events, and the company declared the first day of its July 2023 Prime Day as “the single largest sales day in company history.” While Amazon doesn’t disclose specific revenue figures from Prime Day events, it does share savings for Prime members. During the July 2023 event, Amazon reported that Prime members saved over $2.5 billion on more than 375 million eligible items purchased. The October 2023 event generated over $1 billion in savings, bringing total savings from Prime Day events in 2023 to $3.5 billion for Prime members.

So, what are people buying the most on Prime Days?

Consumers are most interested in purchasing smart homes and tech gadgets. Over the years, Amazon Echo devices, Fire TV Sticks, Instant Pots, iRobot Roomba vacuums, and Apple AirPods have been among the top five items bought on Amazon Prime Days. We may see a shift in trends following Amazon’s insights from the July 2024 Prime Day event, where fashion products emerged as the most popular category among purchases.

For the October 2024 Prime Day event, shoppers can anticipate significant deals on fashion, electronics, and home goods, with Amazon expected to frequently roll out new offers throughout the two-day event.

More news from Amazon this week:

The company is hiring 250,000 full-time, part-time, and seasonal workers in the US ahead of the holiday season.
Former NBC News and MSNBC anchor Brian Williams is close to inking a deal with Prime Video to lead the platform’s election night coverage in November.
The digital retailer topped $1.8 billion in advertising upfront commitments across its video-streaming services in 2024, gearing up to draw in even more in 2025.

The Oura Ring 4 arrives on October 15 with a slimmer design, more sizes, and improved sensors to track sleep, heart health, physical activity, and more. The new smart ring is priced at $349 and comes in six colors.

Spill closed a $2 million funding round with an investment from Kerry Washington, who actively hosts video conversations on the growing platform. Former X employee Alphonzo Terrell founded the Black-owned social media platform after he was laid off during Elon Musk’s takeover.
Speaking of X, Fidelity estimates that the social network is worth nearly 80% less than when Musk purchased it for a reported $44 billion in April 2022. CNN reported that X is now valued at $9.4 billion, likely due to the social platform’s plummeting ad revenue. X currently has 73.5 million monthly active users, down 11% year over year.
Tech and digital culture reporter Taylor Lorenz announced that she’s leaving The Washington Post and legacy media to launch User Mag, an independent project on Substack. Lorenz will report on “the people and movements that are steering tech and internet culture,” her post reads.
OpenAI confirmed the close of a $6.6 billion funding round at a $157 billion valuation, which reportedly includes participation from Thrive Capital and Microsoft and a $500 million investment from SoftBank. The Wall Street Journal also reported that Apple did not participate in the funding round as expected. Elon Musk isn’t too happy about this since OpenAI doesn’t want its investors to financially back its rivals.
Verizon and Madison Square Garden announced an expanded partnership, making Verizon the official mobile wireless partner across all of MSG’s properties. Verizon customers will get exclusive access to experiences at MSG venues, including concerts at Sphere.
Per Meta, Facebook has paid more than $2 billion to creators on the platform in the past year. In light of this, Meta is rolling out a new creator monetization program on Facebook that streamlines its monetization processes and opportunities. The Big Tech giant also released best practices and personalized guidance on Instagram to help creators grow and strengthen their content.

CNN introduced a $3.99-a-month digital paywall for US users, which activates after readers access a set number of free articles. Given the highly competitive digital news environment, I’m going to bet that CNN will drop its subscription model before it fully rolls out. Many readers are likely to turn to cost-free alternatives for similar content.