Over the last couple of years, Amazon made a killing on Prime Day, which it held in July. This year we haven’t even reached the end of June and already analysts are offering previews and projections for 2017 Prime Day. Assuming that Amazon continues to build upon the success of the last two years, this year would be the third year, and early indications point to 2017 Prime Day lasting longer than 24 hours.
Prime Day is Amazon’s annual shopping festival which offers discounts that are so deep that they rival or even beat Black Friday deals in some cases. In order to take advantage of the deep discounts, however, shoppers must subscribe to Amazon Prime.
Amazon expected to announce 2017 Prime Day soon
In a note to investors dated June 28, Deutsche Bank analyst Lloyd Walmsley offered predictions and projections for 2017 Prime Day. He expects an announcement about the date to come any day now. The past two years, it has been held in mid-July, with last year’s Prime Day being held on July 12 and 2015 Prime Day being held on July 15.
Media reports have indicated that Amazon will extend this year’s Prime Day to 30 hours from 24 hours in each of the last two years. Further, the online retailer is reportedly requiring third-party sellers to keep more inventory on hand this year so that it will last the whole 30 hours. If Amazon and its third-party sellers are able to successfully make its stock last for the entire event, sales should increase dramatically from last year.
Walmsley notes that global orders were up by more than 60% last year, while U.S. orders were up by more than 50%.
What to expect at this year’s Prime Day
The Deutsche Bank analyst expects 30-day free trial Prime subscriptions to be offered for new users. He believes the free trials will enable the online retailer to promote the other benefits of subscribing to Prime, including Prime Video, Prime Now, Fresh offerings and more.
He added that other retailers may offer their own short promotions to try to compete with Amazon. He said that traditional retailers mostly left Prime Day alone last year, although J.C. Penney, Wal-Mart and Macy’s offered some online promotions. Interestingly, Stefan Weitz told CNBC that other retailers also see a sales boost from Prime Day because online shoppers will check other sites to see if Amazon’s price really is a good idea.
Rally expected in Amazon stock ahead of 2017 Prime Day
Bizrate Insights found in a recent survey that about 70% of online shoppers plan to browse Amazon on Prime Day, and over 75% of respondents with more than $100,000 in annual income plan to buy something during the event.
Wall Street is generally expecting a rally in Amazon shares before this year’s Prime Day. According to CNBC, the stock beat the S&P 500 by 6 percentage points in 2015 between the day CEO Jeff Bezos announced the first Prime Day and the actual event. Shares of Amazon closed up 1.39% at $990.33 on Wednesday.
In the wake of 2017 Prime Day, Walmsley expects Amazon to offer “select disclosure” regarding sales of its own devices. For example, the company said last year that it sold 2.5 times as many Fire TV devices versus the year before. He also expects disclosures around the behaviors of Prime members, like last year’s report that Prime member orders on the company’s mobile app increased by more than two times versus 2015.
He also expects additional details from third-party data providers like ChannelAdvisor and comScore. For example, ChannelAdvisor said in 2015 that Amazon’s same store sales in the U.S. jumped by more than 93% year over year.
