About 30,000 businesses on the marketplace use Alibaba’s AI tools to increase product exposure in targeted markets. Sellers on the marketplace say the practice helps them grow, even with limited internal staff.

Now Alibaba is rolling out its latest tool: an AI-powered conversational sourcing engine.

Alibaba owns the world’s two largest online marketplaces by gross merchandise value (GMV), Taobao and Tmall. Taobao ranks No. 1 in the Global Online Marketplaces Database, Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of the largest such marketplaces by GMV. Tmall ranks No. 2. Both operate in China.

How Alibaba’s new AI tool for B2B works

Unlike traditional search engines, which rely heavily on simple ranking and indexing, Alibaba’s AI sourcing engine will focus on understanding natural language and transforming it into professional sourcing requests.

It can even predict sourcing needs and provide suggestions. Another feature also allows complex queries or full documents as inputs. The system will distinguish and respond to them in natural language, according to Alibaba.

“Traditional search engines evaluate web page importance through interlinking, credibility and ad spend,” said Alibaba.com president Kuo Zhang. “In this AI era, the B2B sourcing engine offers an intuitive and organic way to query, as well as rapidly and accurately match business buyers and business sellers based on their proven track record.”

The sourcing engine’s features

Alibaba’s sourcing engine includes two significant features:

1. Reconstruction of information.
2. A digital assistant.

First, in reconstructing information, Alibaba looked at how ecommerce has traditionally used product listings with titles, descriptions, keywords and pictures. Business buyers often need to compare multiple suppliers. With that in mind, the sourcing engine will reorganize such information to enable direct, custom-made and side-by-side comparisons, Alibaba said.

Next, the digital assistant will leverage 25 years of expertise in digitalizing various trade aspects — products, payments, logistics, customs and currency exchanges. Alibaba believes its AI technology in this context can now mimic the experience of having a sourcing professional at a buyer’s side.

“This technology can level the playing field and significantly reduce costs, enabling small to medium enterprises (SMEs) to become integral players in the global supply chain,” Alibaba said.

Alibaba’s larger push for B2B AI tools

In November, Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group introduced its generative artificial intelligence (AI) toolkit, branded “Aidge,” which has been adopted by approximately 500,000 merchants, with daily API usage reaching 50 million calls.

Features include a virtual try-on tool for apparel and a 24/7 AI customer service capability.

Since last April, Alibaba International has assembled an AI business team of 100 analysts and developers.

In May, the marketplace company surveyed 500 micro-, small and medium-sized enterprise (MSME) companies that do business on Alibaba.com and range in size from one to 250 employees.

Among the survey’s findings:

• 25% to 35% of respondents use AI daily.
• Using AI tools led to an average 37% increase in product exposure to promote growth in commerce.
• Companies using AI tools accepted 70% of product optimization suggestions.

The survey also found that companies from developing countries accounted for much of the use of the marketplace’s AI tools.

“Among the top 20 countries making the most frequent use of Alibaba.com’s AI tools, approximately 50% are from developing countries,” Alibaba assessed.

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, senior vice president of B2B and Market Research, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com. Follow him on Twitter @markbrohan. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

The post Alibaba rolls out an AI-powered B2B sourcing tool appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

To incentivize signups, Etsy Insider will offer a variety of perks. They range from free shipping and special offers to donation boosts.

Etsy is No. 20 in the Global Online Marketplaces Database. The database is Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of the 100 largest such marketplaces by third-party gross merchandise value (GMV). Etsy’s musical instrument marketplace Reverb is No. 45 and used-clothing marketplace Depop is No. 54. Digital Commerce 360 projects that Etsy’s total GMV will reach $753.7 billion in 2024.

Etsy total GMV by year

What is the Etsy Insider paid membership program?

“In mid-September, we’ll launch a closed-beta version of Etsy Insider to select buyers in the United States,” wrote Simona Shakin, vice president of product and retention marketing at Etsy, in a company blog post on July 31.

Etsy did not specify how much membership fees for the program would be, but Shakin listed the benefits that members would receive as follows:

• Free U.S. domestic shipping on millions of items
• A birthday bonus
• Limited edition annual gift, designed by an Etsy seller
• First access to special discounts and select merchandise
• Double impact with Donate the Change

Donate the Change is an Etsy program that gives shoppers the option to round up order totals to donate to its Uplift Fund for promoting entrepreneurship.

“While Etsy Insider’s benefits deliver great value for buyers, the program comes at no cost to the Etsy seller community,” Shakin explained. “Benefits, including the free shipping, will be funded by Etsy and through the membership fee.”

Why Etsy is launching a paid membership program

Etsy CEO Josh Silverman said when addressing the company’s fiscal first-quarter earnings in 2024 that it was confronting a “challenging environment for consumer discretionary product.” That environment was reflected in a 3.5% year-over-year decline in gross merchandise sales during the quarter, which ended March 31. In addition, Etsy faces fresh competition from rivals such as Michaels, which launched its own MakerPlace marketplace in 2023.

“We’re confident Etsy Insider will make it easier and more joyful than ever for buyers to seamlessly discover pieces they will love from real people they’re proud to support,” Shakin said in her blog post.

Still, as a pure marketplace where all goods are sold by third parties — unlike hybrid marketplaces such as Amazon.com and Walmart Marketplace — Etsy lacks centralized fulfillment, making Etsy Insider an atypical program example among online marketplaces broadly, according to James Risley, research data manager and senior analyst at Digital Commerce 360.

27.8% of Top 1000 retailers have a free loyalty program, while 5.9% have a paid membership, Digital Commerce 360 analysis shows. The Top 1000 Database is Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of North America’s largest online retailers by annual web sales.

Do you rank in our databases? 

Submit your data and we’ll see where you fit in our next ranking update.

Sign up

Stay on top of the latest developments in the online retail industry. Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 Retail News. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Be the first to know when Digital Commerce 360 publishes news content.

The post Etsy preps beta launch for paid Insider membership program appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

The Global Online Marketplaces Report ranks the world’s Top 100 online marketplaces by 2023 third-party GMV by category. With digital marketplaces reaching $3.5 trillion, this Report is your key to unlocking the full potential of this powerful sales channel. It provides an analysis of the strategies and trends driving success behind an online marketplace strategy.

In 2023, fewer retailers participated in online marketplaces, but the Top 1000 retailers who did sell on marketplaces saw higher sales growth compared to those who did not. Mass Merchants dominated the top 24 spots, with other categories like Apparel & Accessories and Housewares & Home Furnishings also making it to the top 30. Total GMV showed an 8.4% growth year over year, rebounding from a 2.5% growth in 2022, indicating a recovery from the challenges faced in recent times.

The 2024 Global Online Marketplaces Report has everything you need to learn the ins and outs of digital marketplaces.

View the table of contents for full details on what’s included in the report.
Published July 2024

 

WHAT’S INCLUDED

25+ Data-Packed Charts

Visualize the power of the Top 100 online marketplaces in over 25 charts and graphs, covering topics like:

• Total GMV and year-over-year growth for Top 100 global marketplaces, 2018-2023
• Total GMV growth distribution for 2023 Top 100 global marketplaces
• Web sales and growth for Top 1000 retailers by marketplace seller status, 2022-2023
• Fastest growing global marketplaces
• The Shopper Speaks: Exclusive Survey Data from Digital Commerce 360 and Bizrate Insights on their findings on why shoppers are embracing online marketplaces in record numbers

Here’s a sample from the report:

The post 2024 Global Online Marketplaces Report appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

Independent sellers, specifically, sold more than 200 million items over the course of the 48-hour Prime Day event. Amazon said most of them are small and medium-sized businesses.

Additionally, Amazon said its new AI-powered conversational assistant — which it calls Rufus — helped millions of customers shop during the event.

“Millions more Prime members shopped the two-day shopping event compared to Prime Day 2023,” Amazon said in a statement.

Amazon is No. 1 in the Top 1000, Digital Commerce 360’s database of North America’s largest online retailers based on web sales. It’s also No. 3 in the Global Online Marketplaces database, which ranks the 100 largest global marketplaces by third-party gross merchandise value (GMV). Digital Commerce 360 projects Amazon’s total web sales in 2024 will reach $469.01 billion.

How much did Amazon make in sales during Prime Day 2024?

Although Amazon didn’t reveal exactly how much it made in Prime Day 2024 sales, third-party data provides insights into how the event went.

The average order value (AOV) during Prime Day 2024 was $57.97, according to data from Numerator. Numerator is a data and technology company that provides market research. Its data is based on a collection of 93,513 unique orders during Amazon’s 48-hour event, from 35,588 households.

More than half (60%) of households that shopped Amazon during the Prime Day 2024 sales event placed two or more orders. This brought the average household spend to about $152, Numerator said. 40% of households made just one order, whereas 24% made two orders.

Additionally, 23% of households for which Numerator has data spent more than $200. 22% of households spent more than $100 but no more than $200. Similarly, 21% of households spent more than $50 but no more than $100.

The average price per item was $28.06, Numerator found. Based on the number of units purchased, the top-selling items were the Amazon Fire TV Stick, premier protein shakes, Liquid I.V. packets, Glad trash bags and COSRX snail mucin serum.

88% of shoppers were Prime members, according to Numerator, and 85% have been Prime members for more than a year. 98% knew it was Prime Day before shopping, and just over half (53%) said Prime Day was their main reason for shopping. Moreover, 54% compared prices from other retailers.

Whereas 41% of consumers Numerator surveyed said they didn’t shop other sales, more than a third shopped other Mass Merchants‘ summer sales promotions. 35% said they shopped Walmart Deals, which ran July 8 to 11. Similarly, 34% shopped Target Circle Week. Just 11% said they shopped from Consumer Electronics retailer Best Buy’s Black Friday in July promotion.

Impact of Amazon Prime Day 2024 on US online retail sales

On the second day of the Amazon Prime Day 2024 event, July 17, consumers spent $7 billion online — and that’s outside of Amazon itself — according to data from Adobe Analytics.

Adobe’s analysis is based on 100 million stock keeping units (SKUs) across 18 product categories and covers more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites. 200 online retailers in the Top 1000 use Adobe Analytics for their web analytics, and 97 use it for site design and development. Top 1000 online retailers also use it for content delivery and management, as an ecommerce platform, a marketing platform, for personalization and more.

That $7 billion is shy of the first 24 hours’ $7.2 billion, which marked a new record, yet it still represents 10.4% year-over-year growth.

However, it brings the total of U.S. online retail sales — excluding Amazon — to $14.2 billion during the full Amazon Prime Day 2024 sales event, according to Adobe. That’s both an 11% year-over-year increase and a new record for online sales during the Prime Day event.

Sales growth by category

Specific categories drove the sales, Adobe data shows. Electronics sales as a whole increased 61% over the two-day event compared to average daily sales in June 2024, Adobe said. Across specific products, tablets had the largest sales growth at 117% over the two-day event, followed by:

• Televisions (up 111%)
• Headphones and Bluetooth speakers (105%)
• Fitness trackers (88%)
• Computers (80%)
• Smartphones (71%)
• Cameras (60%)

Among home, furniture and appliances sales, small kitchen appliances saw the largest growth over the two-day sales period at 76%. Kitchenware and cookware sales grew 25% and mattresses 21%. Meanwhile, Home office furniture sales grew 14% and bedroom furniture 11%.

Within the apparel category, sales of suits grew the most, at 36% across both days. Outerwear (19%), footwear (17%) and accessories (17%) accounted for the next-most sales growth.

“The electronics, apparel, and furniture categories make up nearly half of e-commerce spend but has seen low single digit growth in the first half of 2024,” said Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, in a statement. “It’s clear now that the Prime Day event has been a catalyst across these major categories, with discounts deep enough for consumers to hit the buy button and upgrade items in their homes.”

Trending spending habits

Almost half of that total came from mobile devices. Mobile commerce drove close to half (49.2%) of online purchases on the second of Amazon’s two-day event. For both days combined, consumers spent $7 billion from their mobile devices. That’s 18.6% year-over-year growth.

Buy now, pay later (BNPL) accounted for 7.6% of online orders during the Amazon Prime Day 2024 sales event. BNPL drove $1.08 billion in online spending during Amazon’s Prime Day 2024 sales event. That’s 16.4% year-over-year growth.

Retailers have leaned into discounts to drive growth since the 2023 holiday shopping season, Adobe said. Amazon Prime Day’s sales event drew discounts from other retailers, according to Adobe Analytics, including:

• Electronics peaking at 23% off listed price (vs. 14% in 2023)
• Apparel discounts at 20% (vs. 12% in 2023)
• Home/furniture at 16% (vs. 9%)
• Televisions at 16% (vs. 5%)
• Toys at 15% (vs. 12%)
• Appliances at 14% (vs. 7%)
• Sporting goods at 11% (vs. 6%)
• Computers at 11% (vs. 8%)

Consumers selected curbside pickup for nearly a fifth of U.S. online orders (18.9%) during the two-day sales event (among retailers offering the service). That’s down slight from 20.2% in 2023.

Prime Day’s effect on online retail

Globally, sales growth for retailers other than Amazon was flat year over year during the Prime Day 2024 event, according to ecommerce platform provider Salesforce.

That wasn’t the case in North America, though. As a whole, North American online sales grew 3% year over year during the sales event. The United States led that total growth for the continent, accounting for most of the sales during the period. However, Canada’s online retail sales grew at a faster rate: 8% year over year.

In North America, 76 of the top 2000 online retailers use Salesforce as their ecommerce platform, according to Digital Commerce 360 data. And in 2023, those 76 online retailers combined for more than $136.077 billion in web sales.

Consumers locked in on deals as they become increasingly focused on value, said Rob Garf, vice president and general manager of retail and consumer goods at Salesforce, in a statement. Makeup, skin care, and apparel were the big winners heading into the back-to-school season, he added.

“Amazon’s annual Prime Day gives us a glimpse into what we can expect this holiday season,” Garf said. “And retailers must be smiling. Online traffic and demand were up. And much of the online growth was based on people buying more, not just higher prices.”

In contrast, TikTok’s “Deal for You Days” did not drive the same results as Amazon this year, Salesforce said. Discounts timed to coincide with TikTok’s sales event averaged 18% off product prices. That compares to 22% discounts, on average, during this year’s Prime Day event, according to Salesforce data.

Salesforce also broke out which categories had the largest sales growth and discounts during the full span of the 2024 Prime Day event.

Top-performing verticals by sales growth

1. Health & Beauty (16% increase). Makeup sales, specifically, grew 30%. Skin care sales grew 14%.
2. Active Footwear (12%)
3. General Footwear (12%)

Highest discounts globally by category

1. General Apparel  (average discount of 28%)
2. Beauty & Makeup (26%; was 21% in 2023)
3. Beauty & Skincare (22%)
4. Home & Furniture (22%)

Global discounts grew 8% year over year during the full 48 hours of the Prime Day 2024 sales event, Salesforce said. The average discount rate across categories was 20%.

Highest discounts by category in the US

1. General Apparel (average discount of 33%)
2. Home & Furniture (21%)
3. Health & Beauty (21%)

Discounts from U.S. online retailers grew 10% year over year during the same period, according to Salesforce. The average discount rate across categories was 22%. For online retailers in Canada, those figures are 11% and 27%, respectively.

“For the first time in a long time, we’re seeing order volumes turn positive and discounting is high,” said Caila Schwartz, director of consumer insights at Salesforce, in a statement. “The lesson is a simple one — if retailers deliver on discounting and providing true value, they will release that pressure valve of built-up demand and see incredible success. If they don’t, retailers may risk losing out as shoppers will go elsewhere.”

Here’s last year’s article summarizing Amazon Prime Day sales results.

Do you rank in our databases? 

Submit your data and we’ll see where you fit in our next ranking update.

Sign up

Stay on top of the latest developments in the online retail industry. Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 Retail News. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Be the first to know when Digital Commerce 360 publishes news content.

The post Prime Day 2024 drives record sales for overall US ecommerce appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

Amazon, which is the top retailer in the Top 1000, started its member-only summer shopping holiday back in 2015, and many retailers over the years have joined the ecommerce bonanza by offering their own sales — with many returning again this year. However, two of Amazon’s largest competitors, Walmart Inc. (No. 2) and Target Corp. (No. 5), both held more subdued sales this year.

The Top 1000 ranks North America’s largest online retailers by their annual web sales.

Prime Day competition from Walmart and Target

Last year, Walmart and Target held big, branded sales during the Prime Day sales week, offering members of its loyalty programs discounts on a wide variety of items.

This year, Walmart held a Walmart+ Week in mid-June, and Target’s Circle Week sale took place the week before Prime Day. Both retailers still offered deals on their homepages on Tuesday, the first of the Prime Day sales event, but neither branded their promotions in ways that overtly compete with Amazon.

Still, 77% of the retailers in the Digital Commerce 360 panel ran promotions on Tuesday. That’s up from 69% in early June and even above the 75% running on last year’s first day of the Prime Day sales event — also a Tuesday. However, retailers offered smaller homepage discounts, down to a minimum of 6% compared to a 10% minimum discount during the control period. The median smallest discount on the homepage also shrank, down to 20% from 25% during the control.

Of those running promotions, more offered percentage-off discounts during the first day of the Prime Day sales event compared to the control period — 85.5% of retailers offering promotions discounted by percentages compared to 72.7% during the control. Free shipping, a hallmark of Amazon’s Prime membership, was also touted a lot on Prime Day, with 15.8% of retailers offering promotions mentioning it as part of a sale compared to just 4.5% the month before.

Prime time promotions

Of retailers running promotions in Digital Commerce 360’s panel, 22.1% offered large site-wide promotions to compete with Amazon. Last year, 29.3% of the same panel offered competing promotions. For example, Target was running a simple “2-day deals” promotion, a slight nod to Amazon’s big sale, but with much less fanfare. Similarly, Walmart pushed its membership program, but deals on its front page were much the same as they were during the control period.

Still, other retailers did aim to take on Amazon. The Gap Inc. (No. 20) returned to its Gap Day promotion, which it didn’t run during last year’s Prime Day event, with a blanket 50% off promotion. Designer Brands (No. 72) used its DSW.com to poke fun at Amazon, noting that it was a “Prime time to become a VIP member” to get a 20% discount.

During the first day of the Prime Day event, the Prime-adjacent sales were the most popular framing, but many more retailers were pushing Father’s Day sales during the control period. This holds steady from last year, when many more retailers published 4th of July deals than competed with Prime Day.

Last year’s control period was after Father’s Day and before the 4th. This year’s was before both.

Do you rank in our databases? 

Submit your data and we’ll see where you fit in our next ranking update.

Sign up

Stay on top of the latest developments in the online retail industry. Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 Retail News. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Be the first to know when Digital Commerce 360 publishes news content.

The post Amazon rivals avoid direct competition with Prime Day appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

If the two-day Amazon Prime sale event July 16 and 17 does drive $14 billion in ecommerce activity, that would represent a 10.5% increase year over year. It would also be the highest-ever result recorded during Amazon’s best-known promotion.

Adobe’s analysis is based on 100 million stock keeping units (SKUs) across 18 product categories. 200 online retailers in the Top 1000 use Adobe Analytics for their web analytics, and 97 use it for site design and development. Top 1000 online retailers also use it for content delivery and management, as an ecommerce platform, a marketing platform, for personalization and more. The Top 1000 is Digital Commerce 360’s database of North America’s largest online retailers based on web sales.

Why Prime Day could see ecommerce sales reach $14 billion

“Adobe expects day 1 of the Prime Day event (July 16) to drive $7.1 billion online, up an impressive 11.3 percent year-over-year (YoY),” Vivek Pandya, the director at Adobe Digital Insights, wrote in a July 15 blog post. “Day 2 (July 17) is expected to drive $6.9 billion online, up 9.2 percent YoY.”

In addition, Pandya said Adobe anticipates July 16 will “be the biggest mobile shopping day of the year so far, driving $3.4 billion in online spend, and representing a 48.4 percent share compared to desktop shopping.”

Why the dramatic increase from 2023? Among the factors cited are deeper discounts ranging from 9% to 22% off listed prices, according to Pandya. He also credited back-to-school shopping, where Adobe already saw an 80% increase in spending during the first week of July. With Prime Day occurring closer to the beginning of the new school year after landing on July 11 and 12 in 2023, proximity could fuel more buying activity, Adobe predicts.

Buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) promotions may fuel activity as well.

“Adobe expects a substantial uptick in BNPL usage during the Prime Day event, driving between $1.09 and $1.11 billion in online spend across both days, and representing 18.1 percent and 19.6 percent growth YoY, respectively,” Pandya wrote.

How important is Prime Day for Amazon?

Now in its 10th year, Amazon uses Prime Day to drive paid memberships to its Amazon Prime membership program, in addition to sales of its own products and those of third-party sellers. In 2024, the company announced that Prime members would have “exclusive access to millions” of deals. Some of those deals would be circulated through invitations that only Prime members can request. Examples include 40% discounts for Sony wireless headphones and as much as 30% off Peloton products.

Amazon web sales by year

Amazon is No. 1 in the Top 1000. It’s also No. 3 in the Global Online Marketplaces database, which ranks the 100 largest global marketplaces. Digital Commerce 360 projects Amazon’s total web sales in 2024 will reach $469.01 billion.

Alongside other promotions this year, Amazon is showcasing back-to-school and college shopping deals. The online retailer is offering young adults and college students special “Prime Student” accounts with six-month trials. Those offers will be accompanied by discounted Amazon Basics products for school-related needs.

Do you rank in our databases? 

Submit your data and we’ll see where you fit in our next ranking update.

Sign up

Stay on top of the latest developments in the online retail industry. Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 Retail News. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Be the first to know when Digital Commerce 360 publishes news content.

The post Why Adobe predicts $14 billion in Prime Day sales for 2024 appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

But many sellers do get a moderate to monumental boost in sales from Amazon Prime Day. The two-day online sales event will generate as much as $14 billion in total U.S. sales, according to Adobe Analytics.

“Prime Day can be important to B2B sellers that are correctly leveraging Amazon Business,” says Brian Beck, managing partner of Enceiba, a firm that helps companies sell through Amazon. “If sellers properly leverage Amazon’s B2B selling tools, they can see rather considerable boosts in sales during this period.”

Amazon Business doesn’t break out specific Prime Day sales. However, the Amazon B2B marketplace is hitting social media and elsewhere with plenty of promotions and deals.

Amazon ranks No. 1 in the Top 1000. The database is Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of North America’s largest online retailers. Amazon is also No. 3 in Digital Commerce 360’s Global Online Marketplaces Database, which ranks the 100 largest such marketplaces by third-party gross merchandise value.

Global Online Marketplaces Database

Leading 100 global online marketplaces. Access up to 5 years of third-party (3P) and total GMV, company information, AOVs, conversion rates, # of sellers, and SKUs. Web sales range from $19.8 million to over $ 723.8 billion annually.

View Details

How does Prime Day affect Amazon Business?

A new promotion entices small business owners, qualifying users with a personal Amazon Prime account for Amazon Business Prime Duo. Once they register and verify for a free Amazon Business account, a small business owner can then use their Prime membership for both B2B and B2C online purchases.

“Whether you’re buying for an office of 100 or stocking up for your journey as a small business owner, you won’t want to miss out on a chance to practice smart business buying this Prime Day,” Amazon Business said.

Other Amazon Business promotions for the Prime Day event cater to larger organizations. They may qualify for 30-day to 90-day free-trial memberships. And U.S. members can earn rewards when they purchase specific brands or complete qualifying actions in their account.

“This Prime Day, customers can shop for Amazon private brands products and earn 2% back,” Amazon Business said. “Stack these savings on top of one another, combining 2% back plus returns from completed actions, which can lead to 4%, 6%, or even more.”

First-party and third-party Amazon Business sales during Prime Day

How many sales first-party and third-party Amazon Business sellers can generate from Prime Day varies widely, say ecommerce analysts.

But done correctly, some Amazon sellers generate sales volume during the Prime Day event that is 30% to 75% higher than marketplace sales on an average business day.

“We see a ‘halo effect’ from the B2C side that impacts B2B sellers when they effectively participate in Prime Days,” Beck says. “Remember that B2B buyers on Amazon are also B2C consumers, and Amazon Business is doubling down in 2024 with additional capabilities specifically for B2B buyers. This includes an effort to make it easier for Amazon customers to sign up for business accounts by adding a B2B capability to their personal Prime accounts (called Amazon Duo).

Buy-Rite Beauty is a supplier of furniture and equipment to beauty salons, barber shops and other related businesses. It sells through BuyRiteBeauty.com, Amazon and its physical showrooms. On some Prime Days, sales are lucrative and generate far more transactions than on a typical day, says chief marketing officer Jeff McRitchie.

“Prime Day may not be quite as big for B2B as it is for B2C, but in past years, we have still seen sales spike more than 400% during Prime Day,” McRitchie says. “There are far more buyers in the market, and they are often looking for and expecting deals. Adding additional deals to your items such as coupons or adding a sale price to some of your items can make a huge difference, especially if you can take advantage of the badging opportunities that Amazon provides.”

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, senior vice president of B2B and Market Research, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com. Follow him on Twitter @markbrohan. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

The post Amazon Business sellers get online sales jolt during Prime Day appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

PrimeRx is a pharmacy management systems developer. It also provides automated applications for how pharmacies can research and purchase medications from drug manufacturers and others. The marketplace will enable pharmacies to research prices in real time from a network of 40 suppliers and place orders online.

PrimeRx Market launches as new B2B marketplace

Formerly known as Trxade, PrimeRx Market includes digital tools that enable pharmacies to compare suppliers and pricing for generic drugs, over-the-counter medications and injectables. The company said its marketplace also “represents a significant expansion” in its commitment to enhancing operational efficiency and cost-effectiveness for pharmacies.

“The drug procurement process for pharmacies, a major expense, requires precise contract compliance and inventory management to maintain cash flow and profitability,” said Ketan Mehta, PrimeRx CEO, in a statement. “PrimeRx Market empowers pharmacies to source drugs intelligently and conveniently by integrating purchase and dispensing data, ensuring compliance and market agility.”

PrimeRX has yet to reveal many details of its new marketplace. Users must register for a free account to access pricing and suppliers.

“Our goal is to use data intelligence to streamline purchasing decisions, enabling pharmacies to remain profitable and dedicated to serving their patients,” Mehta said.

More than 4,000 pharmacies nationwide use PrimeRX, based in Uniondale, New York.

The company has been in business since 1990. It has also raised more than $136 million in investment money over time, according to PitchBook.com.

PrimeRX joins an already crowded field for B2B marketplaces linking pharmacies and related providers to manufacturers and distributors.

Existing marketplaces include:

• Medibox
• PipelinePharma
• Pharmaflair
• GXgate
• MedCombo

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, senior vice president of B2B and Market Research, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com. Follow him on Twitter @markbrohan. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

The post A pharmacy software developer launches a B2B marketplace appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

Analysis and Rankings of the Top 1000 Online Retailers

Digital Commerce 360’s Top 1000 Report is the ultimate guide for retailers, and technology providers of ALL sizes to drive growth online

Here’s a sample of the Food & Beverage category data:

Here’s a sample from the report:

The post 2024 Top 1000 Report appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

Now, the retailer has shared the event’s dates. The Amazon Prime Day sales event will be July 16 through July 17, starting at 12:01 a.m. Pacific time, the retailer announced.

In 2023, Amazon customers saved nearly $24 billion via deals and coupons, according to Jamil Ghani, vice president of Amazon Prime. He said Prime members accounted for the “vast majority of those savings.” More than $2.5 billion of those savings were during Prime Day 2023, Ghani said.

Amazon is No. 1 in the Top 1000. The database is Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of the largest North American online retailers. Amazon is also No. 3 in the Global Online Marketplaces database, which ranks the 100 largest global marketplaces.

The most recent Amazon sales event

Most recently, the online retail giant held its inaugural Big Spring Sale from March 20 through 25, its first Prime Day-equivalent sales event of 2024.

The Amazon Big Spring Sale event was open to all customers, and Prime members received access to exclusive deals, Amazon said. Additionally, Amazon said it would release new deals each day of the event. In the U.S., shoppers found deals up to 50% off on beauty products as well as sports and outdoors equipment, according to Amazon. They also saw 40% off some home products, spring apparel and electronics.

“The Big Spring Sale was an opportunity for customers to save on seasonally relevant deals across a wide selection of products, including spring fashion, outdoor furniture, lawn and garden essentials, cleaning and organizing products, and more,” an Amazon spokesperson told Digital Commerce 360.

The Big Spring Sale’s best-selling items included:

• COSRX Snail Mucin
• PRETTYGARDEN Women’s Loose Solid Off Shoulder Romper
• Sunzel Flare Leggings
• YKYI Electric Spin Scrubber
• Bluetooth Headphones Wireless Earbuds
• Coleman Breeze Beach Chair

Amazon said that last year Prime members purchased more than 375 million items during the event, making it the biggest Prime Day ever. The mass merchant also said it had its fastest-ever global shipping speeds for Prime members in 2023, with more than 4 billion units arriving the same or next day for U.S. customers and more than 2 billion for those in Europe.

How many countries will Prime Day take place in?

Amazon Prime Day will take place in 24 countries, including:

• Australia
• Austria
• Belgium
• Brazil 
• Canada
• Egypt
• France 
• Germany 
• India
• Italy 
• Japan 
• Luxembourg
• Mexico
• Netherlands 
• Poland
• Portugal
• Saudi Arabia
• Singapore
• Spain
• Sweden
• Turkey
• The United Arab Emirates
• The United States
• The United Kingdom

How much did Amazon make on Prime Day 2023?

Consumers worldwide spent nearly $13 billion with Amazon.com Inc. during the retail giant’s ninth-annual Prime Day, according to Digital Commerce 360 analysis.

Digital Commerce 360 estimates Amazon’s sales on Prime Day 2023 hit $12.90 billion globally during the manufactured retail holiday, which spanned July 11 and 12. That’s up 6.7% year over year from the same shopping spree in 2022, which ran July 12 and 13.

In 2023, Amazon held a second Prime Day sales event Oct. 10-11, 2023. That fall event was called Prime Big Deal Days, and it was announced in a LinkedIn post from Doug Herrington, CEO of Amazon Worldwide Stores. Amazon sellers previously told Digital Commerce 360 they’d been given an Aug. 11 deadline to submit deals for the event.

Shoppers largely avoided big-ticket items in favor of smaller purchases. 58% of purchases in a period of the sale monitored by research firm Numerator cost less than $20, indicating consumer preference for inexpensive products.

The summer Prime Day sales event in 2023 grew less than in the previous year, up 6.7% to $12.9 billion, according to Digital Commerce 360 Research.

When is Prime Day 2024?

The next major Amazon sale will be held in July 2024. Amazon held its last major sale in March.

Amazon Prime Day 2023 was held Tuesday, July 11, and Wednesday, July 12. We’ll update this page regularly to reflect new information. 

Dates for Amazon Prime Day in the past:

• Ninth: July 11-12, 2023
• Eighth: July 12-13, 2022
• Seventh: June 21-22, 2021
• Sixth: Oct 13-14, 2020
• Fifth: July 15-16, 2019
• Fourth: July 16-17, 2018
• Third: July 11-12, 2017
• Second: July 12, 2016
• First: July 15, 2015

How often is Amazon Prime Day?

Until 2022, Amazon Prime Day was once a year in the summer. In 2022, the retail giant added another Prime Day event in October. So how many times a year is Prime Day? The answer used to be once. Amazon has since established a two-year pattern of two separate sales events. This year, it also hosted the Amazon Big Spring Sale for the first time in 2024.

How do you sign up for a Prime membership?

You can join Prime or start a free trial at Amazon Prime Day. Amazon has recently faced a lawsuit from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission alleging the ecommerce giant duped consumers into signing up for its Prime membership service and deliberately made it hard to cancel. 

How to prepare to find deals on Prime Day 

The value of Prime Day to retailers both small and large is undisputed, as millions of shoppers visit the site in search of once-a-year deals.

• Sign up for the Prime Insider newsletter to hear about Amazon Prime member benefits and find updates on deals and events.
• Create deal alerts for recommendations. As an Amazon Prime Member, you can subscribe to receive deal alert notifications related to recent Amazon searches and recently viewed items. All you have to do is visit the Prime Day event page on the Amazon app before Prime Day to create deal alerts. Once Prime Day arrives, members will receive push notifications on any available deals.
• Get deal notifications from Alexa. Alexa can make sure you don’t miss any Amazon deals. Members can add products to their Wish List, Cart, or Save for Later, and then ask Alexa to notify them about the deal.
• Set a reminder so you don’t miss the multi-day event.
• Check back here to see the latest updates.

What are the Big Spring Sale and Big Deal Days, and how are they different from Prime Days?

Amazon called this year’s inaugural March promotional period its Big Spring Sale. In October 2023, it created a new fall sale event called Big Deal Days. Amazon’s Big Spring Sale is not exclusive to Prime members. The online retailer also held a fall sale in 2022 for the first time, called the Early Access Sale.

Prime Day is now Amazon’s biggest sale of the year. It is usually held during the summer months. In 2023, it was July 12 and July 13. Historically, the annual two-day deals event is for Prime members only. 

Prime Day, which features deals on many products on Amazon.com, began in 2015 as a celebration of Amazon’s 20th year in business. It turned into a summer sales holiday designed to drum up additional business for Amazon — and the retailer’s marketplace sellers — before the holiday shopping season. In recent years, other large retailers have offered promotions on their own websites around Prime Day to take advantage of the additional online shoppers.

Abbas Haleem, Brian Warmoth, Mary Meisenzahl, James Risley and Paul Conley contributed to this report.

Do you rank in our database?

Submit your data and we’ll see where you fit in our next ranking update.

Sign up

Stay on top of the latest developments in the ecommerce industry. Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 Retail News. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Be the first to know when Digital Commerce 360 publishes news content.

The post Amazon announces dates for Prime Day 2024 event appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.