This year’s fall Amazon Prime Day is October 8 – 9, and even if you don’t plan to participate it’s worth paying attention to. Prime Day is at the beginning of holiday season, which makes it a good litmus test on the broader consumer sentiment.

Early holiday shoppers are a sizeable segment, and they’ll be looking for gifts. However these early birds are feeling – flush or frugal – watching what works and doesn’t on Prime Day will give solid insights into the remainder of the holiday season.  

How you make the most of the learnings from this event depends on your business strategy: are you staying away, directing traffic to Amazon, or creating your own program? Read on for tips. 

We Won’t Compete

If you avoid competing with Amazon internally and plan to stay away from Prime Day in your own messaging, this is still an event to learn from. Keep an eye on how steep the deals are and how much product moves. Comparing to the Prime Day week last year will give you solid insight into what you can expect from this holiday season. It’s not too late to use this information to tweak your segmentation and offer strategy for November and December. 

We Push to Amazon

If you plan to embrace Prime Day but send your audience to Amazon for your deals, this is a great opportunity to get that early jump on holiday spending. The Prime Day event is essentially an early Black Friday/Cyber Monday event, just about one day shorter. Capitalize on the press and excitement Amazon is driving around this event by testing the cadence and segmentation you planned to use for Black Friday/Cyber Monday. (See our Holiday Playbook 2023 for a sample calendar). The learnings you get will help you add or nudge things for the November holiday while you reap the revenue from October. 

We Match and Compete

If you plan to compete, we’ve certainly seen that “a rising tide lifts all boats” and competing retailers have typically benefited from Amazon’s Prime Day in the past. Even if you can’t use the words “Amazon” or “Prime” or “Prime Day” for legal reasons, you’ll see a bump from the excitement around this event. October Prime Day is timed well to help identify consumer sentiment that will help you forecast the entire holiday season. As with marketers pushing to Amazon, this is a great opportunity to test the cadence and segmentation you plan for your Black Friday/Cyber Monday week. Ideally, you have competitive sales, loyalty benefits, and some acquisition targeted to take advantage of the buzz. Read our post “Make the Most of Prime Day Buzz” from June for even more ideas. 

News to Watch

There are two more trends that are worth mentioning: 

Alternative payment methods, including “Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) plans like Klarna and Afterpay, are increasingly popular, outpacing traditional credit card use for billions in purchases. In November 2023 alone, $8.3 billion was transacted through BNPL plans, marking a 17% increase from 2022.

If your company has implements a variety of payment options, remind customers of all the ways that they can pay for their holiday purchases, being mindful of impact on margin for some payment services.

Artificial intelligence is reshaping how consumers discover products and resolve shopping queries. AI-powered chatbots, product recommendations and real-time send-time optimization have become pivotal, influencing 17% of online purchases last holiday season.