Amazon's Prime Day: 4 Things Grocers Should Look for

As tradition now goes with every July, Prime Day is back. For the fourth year in a row, e-commerce giant Amazon is offering its own unique version of Black Friday during its anniversary month to provide special savings exclusively to Amazon Prime subscribers.

But there’s a difference this year, notes a report from Progressive Grocer: 2018 is the first year in which Amazon, now among the top grocers in the United States, makes its move into consumables. Whole Foods Market stores now figure into the mix, with Prime members able to secure an additional 10% off hundreds of sale items throughout the stores, along with deep discounts on select personal products. Online, Amazon will feature the “lowest prices” on a wide array of packaged private label goods.

While previous Prime Days have always proved to set record sales for Seattle-based Amazon, 2018’s event will be the year that “Amazon makes the value of Prime Day tangible,” said Jordan Rost, VP of consumer insights with Chicago-based market research firm Nielsen.

“With their 10-percent-back offer at Whole Foods stores, Amazon is extending the value of Prime Day and Prime membership to the physical brick-and-mortar retail environment as well,” Rost explained. “Prime Day has always been about proving the value of Prime membership, and with Amazon's ability to extend that to physical stores, other retailers have never had more urgency to up their omnichannel execution.”

What else can both online grocers and brick-and-mortar operators expect from Prime Day 2018? According to Rost, look for: 

AMAZON-WHOLE FOODS LEVERAGING PRIVATE LABEL

Grocers today are “keenly interested” in bolstering sales of their own brands, so it wouldn't be surprising to see Amazon leverage its own private label lines to continue advancing the value of Amazon Prime membership. According to Nielsen’s latest data, across a sampling of five omnichannel retailers that sell salty snacks, store brands garnered five additional points of share online relative to brick-and-mortar operators, while the top five brands garnered five points fewer online versus in-store.

Click here for the remaining of the "4 Things Grocers Should Watch for on Prime Day 2018"  from Progressive Grocer.  

Progressive Grocer and RIS are both properties of EnsembleIQ.