Will ‘Digital Day’ become a mainstay for Amazon?
In another exclusive sales event resembling Prime Day, Amazon.com on December 30 introduced its first-ever “Digital Day” with discounts on “thousands” of digital items across its site.
Among the deals were up to 80 percent discounts for video game titles, 50 percent for TV shows and movies, and 75 percent discounts for digital comics. Prices on top music albums were lowered to $5 and to 99 cents for kids’ mobile games.
Amazon also used the event to promote its own services, including Amazon Music Unlimited, its recently-launched competitive service to Spotify and Apple Music, and Amazon Rapids, its new kids’ reading app. Amazon Music Unlimited was offered at a $10 discount while Amazon Rapids was offered at a 33 percent discount.
Other deals were found on e-books and various subscriptions, like the workout channel, Daily Burn, Qello Concerts and UFC Fight Passes. Microsoft Office Home & Business 2016, TurboTax, Norton and H&R Block were among the software and services receiving discounts.
The promotion was seen as a way to drive a post-holiday boost following a strong holiday season for Amazon with a tie-in to the digital devices many had received as gifts. Wrote Sarah Perez for TechCrunch. “Amazon’s digital items complement those newly acquired smartphones, tablets, computers, gaming consoles, and more, by helping consumers fill them with content.”
The promotional event was seen as similar to Prime Day, held for the second straight year on July 12. For 2016 Prime Day, customers placed 60 percent more orders worldwide and 50 percent more orders in the U.S. compared to the first year. Amazon claims the day drives more sales than Black Friday. While less hyped than Prime Day, the exclusive nature of Digital Day was expected to attract new customers and introduce many to Amazon’s exclusive services.
- Amazon Digital Day – Amazon.com
- Amazon tries to recreate Prime Day magic with the first-ever Digital Day sales event – TechCrunch
- Amazon announces Digital Day promotional event – Business Insider
- Amazon’s Prime Day countdown begins –- RetailWire
- These are the BEST deals from Amazon’s Digital Day – USA Today
Discussion Questions
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: Do you see exclusive sales events such as Digital Day and Prime Day moving the sales needle in significant ways for Amazon? Do you think Amazon will rely on more of these types of events in the years ahead?
Poll
BrainTrust
Tom Dougherty
President and CEO, Stealing Share
Kelly Tackett
Principal, 3E Insights
Just like Prime Day, Lightning Deals and other promotional events, Amazon will use these to build engagement as long as the consumer responds.
The third-party sellers love these events because of the volume they produce in such a short period of time.
Being a customer-centric company, I see Amazon expanding these types of promotions and using them in food and fashion in the coming year.
Retail has invented sales for millennia and Digital Day is just another example. I’ll get more excited about it, though, when Amazon turns a profit.
Amazon is so influential that it can single-handedly declare a national sale and have it be a resounding success. By putting specific areas of its vast inventory on sale, it can move overall sales in that sector while reinforcing its brand image as an innovative, low-price leader. I look for more specialized sale days in the future and expect them to succeed.
Amazon is relentless. They are acting like a market leader and constantly moving the goal line for competitors who watch from behind. This worked. But not everything will work.
I expect Amazon to continue pushing the envelope. It is what a market leader does.
I think these “days” have two simple objectives: drive sales and create customer engagement opportunities. These types of events create the club store equivalent of “treasure hunts” which generate traffic and the feeling that the customer may miss a deal. For these reasons, I think these events and their cousins will continue and expand.
With Amazon’s growing assortment of own-brand digital products plus its heritage in digital content, Digital Day makes sense from a consumer’s perspective. Because of this, Digital Day, like Prime Day, can be own-able for the retailer. That being said, I would caution Amazon against blowing out this promotional concept to other categories as it would lose some of the exclusivity and buzz these once-a-year events generate with consumers and the media.
I am sure there will be a great response initially, but is Amazon just training their customers to wait for the next big event to buy? In the end, if the “events” multiply, they are just moving sales around the calendar and lowering margins.
Kinda sounds familiar.
Retail has always used promotions to boost sales. This is nothing new despite giving them cute names. What about Federated’s old One Day sales? Also, what retailer does not offer good sales and/or promotions after the holidays to pick up some of that spending money people got in their stockings? That’s retail!
But I am with Cathy, I am still asking Amazon, “Where’s the beef?” They still can’t seem to make a profit in their retail business. And all these great ideas set the precedent for other retailers who can’t get away with as much as Amazon. I find it very frustrating. Hey, but it keeps retailers on their toes.
For my 2 cents.
Of course Amazon will push the envelope on digital media events, if for no other reason than that the company is going all-in on producing and owning its own digital media. It has five nominations for its TV content and five for its movie Manchester By the Sea at the Golden Globes next week, and it secured a handful of Emmy nominations last year. For a great assessment of how Amazon is on track to become the first company valued at $1 trillion, listen to the L2 research team on its predictions about the company for 2017 and beyond.
The genius of Amazon has adopted promotional events to goose sales. Wow. Exclusive — not.
Hell yes they will rely upon them. Amazon is a retailer and so it will have a sales spike and now will have to comp it like the rest of the herd. They are now a fully vested member of the “race to the bottom.”
Like Cathy, I too look forward to the day Amazon has to prove a profitable comp in its retail business.
And so it so totally makes sense to say, “retail ain’t for sissies!”
We expect Amazon to remain innovative. The speed at which technology is evolving and in turn driving shopper’s expectations is staggering. In order to remain fresh and relevant, Amazon is continually trying new (and revisiting old) concepts. Customers will cast their financial votes while Amazon keeps optimizing their services.
Yes, Amazon is a thought leader and brilliant at marketing. The company knows that customers love deals, so it will continue to create more opportunities for customers to find them.