Amazon’s Christmas in October

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Oct 10, 9:40AM EDT

Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

Amazon’s Christmas in October — © Julie Clopper / Getty Images

Amazon has another Prime Day, of sorts, running October 10 to 11. It’s a wonder Amazon would potentially steal from holiday sales, but the move is clever.
[in-text-ad]
Prime Day has become part of Amazon’s success, but it usually is in July. Started in 2015, it is, according to Amazon, its biggest deal day ever. The most recent Prime Day brought in $13 billion. Amazon sold over 300 million items. (The 20 American companies with the worst reputations.)
[nativounit]
Why have a new Amazon Prime Day in October? There may be several reasons. One is that it takes holiday sales away from Walmart, Target, Costco and an army of smaller retailers. Amazon picks up market share, albeit earlier in the year. Amazon has hurt many retailers over the past decade and perhaps has killed some. Walmart and Costco, in particular, have been resilient. Walmart does not break out its e-commerce revenue but says it is the fastest-growing part of its business.
[wallst_email_signup]
As for stealing sales, October Prime Day may actually help Amazon’s holiday sales. Amazon signs up countless new Prime members on Prime Day. Prime brings in $14.99 a month or $139 a year. Amazon Prime members buy 2.5 times more merchandise on Amazon than non-Prime members, according to analysts. If so, Amazon has picked up millions of people more likely to buy during the holidays. It has built-in its success beforehand. Its competitors do not have a similar mechanism.
[recirclink id=1303753]
One thing to remember about Amazon is that its prowess as a retailer has been built over decades of experience in e-commerce. While its revenue growth rate has slowed, it holds a commanding market share lead. (This is the primary reason the government has just sued it.)

If Amazon’s Prime in October is stealing from its holiday sales, it is stealing from the largest retailer in the sector.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.