Prime Day drives record traffic to Amazon’s Australian site

AmazonDespite a rocky start beset by website outages, Amazon has deemed its fourth annual Prime Day a success.

Prime members in 17 countries participated in the online shopping event, including – for the first time – Australia.

Advertising steep discounts on a wide range of products and categories, Amazon drove record traffic to its Australian marketplace, leading to July 16 and 17 being the biggest two days of sales since the e-commerce giant launched its retail and marketplace offering Down Under in December 2017.

“Prime only recently launched in Australia yet we were thrilled to see the number of Australian members visiting amazon.com.au to make the most of the great savings available to them on Prime Day,” said Rocco Braeuniger, Amazon Australia’s country manager.

According to data provided by Amazon, some of the best-selling products include the company’s own Echo Dot device, Kindle Paperwhite, Huggies nappies and Finish dishwasher tablets.

Some of the top-selling brands in fashion included Tommy Hilfiger, Lorna Jane, Calvin Klein and Julius Marlow.

Small and medium businesses, which make up the majority of sellers on Amazon’s global marketplaces, had already exceeded more than $1 billion in sales just 10 hours into the sale.

Making headway

Analysts have noted that Australians were slow to embrace Amazon after it launched last year, citing a large gap between expectation and reality on price, range and delivery costs.

But by June this year, Amazon had narrowed the gap significantly in these areas, according to research from Starcom.

Starcom believes that Amazon Prime will be key to the company’s growth in Australia, since shoppers who pay the annual Prime membership fee tend to spend more and shop more often than non-members.

Following the launch of Prime in Australia last month, Amazon’s app went from the ninth to the sixth most downloaded shopping app in the country.

While Amazon has not said how many Aussies have signed up for Prime so far, Starcom said 52 per cent of visitors to the Australian site said they are likely to join Prime.

“We have been humbled by the reception Prime has had here. It has exceeded our expectations and we look forward to bringing members even greater value and more exciting benefits,” Braeuniger said.

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