Amazon scores its best-ever Prime Day despite inflation anxiety and political headwinds
Didn’t need the facial steamer… but the influencers ship it. Amazon said its live streaming service, where you can shop along with influencers, helped make Prime Day 2022 its biggest yet. During the two-day event, Amazon Live streams racked up 100M views while shoppers snapped up 300M items — 50M more than last year. That’s nearly 100K items a minute.
- Top sellers: Apple Watch Series 7, Le Creuset cookware, Pampers diapers, LeapFrog toys, and Levi’s.
- Bottom dollar: Households spent $145 on Prime Day, on average, with most items costing less than $20.
- Top ’flation: Consumer prices are up 9% from last year, but price pain may’ve boosted Prime Day because shoppers flocked to discounts.
Post-Prime blues… Yesterday, Amazon tried to settle a years-long European antitrust lawsuit — and avoid billions in fines — by agreeing to stop collecting private merchant data (think: revenue, shipments, and inventory). That third-party data lets Amazon peek at rivals’ sales patterns, which regulators say helps it get ahead of competitors with products like Basics. If accepted, Amazon's settlement would apply only to its EU biz. But it could affect operations elsewhere if the Zon decides to streamline policies for potential data-privacy legislation in the US.
Amazon may be too dominant to fail… The Zon is no stranger to scandal, from worker-treatment controversies to privacy issues. It just disclosed that it shares Ring video footage with police without owners’ permission. And a recent study found that its warehouse workers suffer serious injuries at twice the rate of its rivals. But as Prime Day shows, Amazon seems to have the scale and pricing power to stay on top.