Small Business News

Amazon Boasts Small Business Benefits of Prime Day

Starting at noon on July 16th and extending through July 17th, Amazon will celebrate its annual Prime Day sale. Billed as a Black Friday equivalent exclusive to members of the site’s Prime service, this will be the fourth iteration of the retail holiday. While past events have proven popular among deal-seeking consumers, Amazon also says they’ve been a boon for small and medium-sized businesses.

According to a press release from the company, “thousands” of small business on Amazon saw sales exceed $50,000 on Prime Day 2017. Additionally Amazon reports that more than 20,000 small businesses ended 2017 with more than a $1 million dollars in sales on the site, which they partially attribute to the Prime Day. In turn Amazon says that more than a million small and medium-sized businesses selling on their platform have been able to create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the U.S.

In a statement about the impact Prime Day has had on small business sellers, Amazon VP of Marketplace Business said, “Prime Day helps SMBs reach more than 100 million paid Prime members around the world, and provides an opportunity for the smallest of businesses to sell right alongside the biggest household brands. In fact, Prime members ordered more than 40 million items from small and medium-sized businesses during Prime Day 2017, generating record-breaking success for those entrepreneurs.” The site also spoke to several entrepreneurs who shared their Prime Day experiences. Among them was Bling Jewelry CEO Elena Castaneda who said, “Prime Day is always a big day for us. Sales generated on Prime Day have helped us expand our team and move into a larger office space in New Jersey. In fact, since moving to our new space, we have already hired 10 new employees.”

These stats and testimonies come as Amazon continues to try to befriend small business owners in a number of ways. This includes launching a Business Prime account offering, announcing an upcoming small business credit card in partnership with American Express, and more. Of course it also comes at a time when several cities in North American are attempting to court Amazon into building a new headquarters there, even as the company and their home city of Seattle have been at odds over the passing of  “head tax” aimed at them (although the bill was later repealed). In other Amazon controversies, it’s also worth noting that the site recently raised the annual price of its Prime membership from $99 to $119.

Like with Black Friday and Small Business Saturday, there are surely pros and cons to small businesses offering Prime Day deals. While they present the opportunity for businesses to move merchandise by slashing their prices, the key is to keep the momentum going by earning repeat orders or at least gaining good reviews that could influence future purchasing decisions. So while Amazon and Prime Day may be a helpful conduit to making sales, it’s really up to the business owners themselves to capitalize on those sales and grow their businesses.

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