When it comes to shopping events, Black Friday stands out as one of the most anticipated dates for scoring deals. Typically occurring the day after Thanksgiving, the weekend kicks off the holiday shopping season with a frenzy of discounts. But Boxing Day, celebrated on December 26, is also well-known for its post-Christmas clearance sales.
This Black Friday, US eCommerce sales increased by a hefty 14.6% in 2024, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse. While Black Friday leads in overall revenue generation for retailers, Boxing Day presents unique opportunities for clearing post-holiday inventory.
For a consumer, which sale event is likely to offer the most attractive deals?
At DataWeave, we analyzed discounts across retailers and categories to uncover the answer.
Our Methodology
For this analysis, we tracked pricing data across major retailers for Black Friday and Boxing Day. To provide a comprehensive analysis of Black Friday pricing strategies, we explored a matched products dataset, comparing identical 14,000+ SKUs across retailers within key categories.
Categories included: Consumer Electronics, Home & Furniture, Apparel, Health & Beauty, Grocery
Retailers included: Amazon, Target, Walmart, Sephora, Ulta Beauty, Overstock, Home Depot, Best Buy, Saks Fifth Ave, Nordstrom, Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, Neiman Marcus
Timeline: November 26 (Black Friday), December 26 (Boxing Day)
Average Discounts: Black Friday vs Boxing Day
Our analysis reveals that Black Friday generally offered steeper discounts across most categories, although Boxing Day wasn’t far behind. Here’s a breakdown:
While Black Friday led in most categories, Apparel saw a slight edge on Boxing Day, with discounts averaging 40.22% compared to 37.67% on Black Friday. Electronics, Beauty, and Home, however, remained more lucrative during Black Friday.
Top 5 Products Higher Discounts on Black Friday
Diving deeper into specific products, here are our top 5 picks offering better discounts during Black Friday.
Appliances like an Immersion blender set offering a discount of 88.29%, significantly higher than its Boxing Day offer of 86.62%.
High-end electronics like the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 also saw substantial markdowns at 84.60%.
In beauty and fashion, both La Roche Posay’s retinol serum and Vera Bradley’s satchel offered discounts above 80%.
Even everyday essentials like paper towels enjoyed generous discounts, with markdowns reaching 82.35% during Black Friday compared to 76.47% on Boxing Day.
Top 5 Products With Higher Discounts on Boxing Day
Boxing Day revealed some remarkable deals across diverse categories, with certain products offering significantly better value than their Black Friday counterparts.
The JBL Go 2 portable speaker emerged as the standout, with an extraordinary 82% Boxing Day discount compared to just 20% on Black Friday—a dramatic 62% difference.
Home furnishings showed strong Boxing Day performance, with the Costway accent armchair set reaching 80.30% off.
In Conclusion
Black Friday reigns supreme in driving early holiday sales, offering deeper discounts and drawing larger crowds. However, Boxing Day remains critical for retailers to offload surplus inventory and attract post-holiday shoppers.
By combining insights from both events, retailers can refine their strategies to maximize revenue and enhance customer satisfaction. For shoppers, the decision comes down to timing—shop early for better deals or wait to capitalize on clearance markdowns. The products and categories with more attractive offers tend to vary between these two sale events. Hence, as a shopper, it’s a good idea to keep track of prices all through the holiday season to take advantage of the best deals.
For a deeper dive into the world of competitive pricing intelligence and to explore how our solutions can benefit apparel retailers and brands, reach out to us today!
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are major retail events in Canada, with 43% and 29% of the population making purchases during these sales respectively, according to a YouGov report. Consumer electronics continue to lead the Canadian retail market during these events, with 55% of surveyed shoppers choosing to buy tech products on Black Friday. Household appliances come in second, with 25% of shoppers opting for these items, while 18% prefer to shop for furniture deals.
These statistics highlight the importance of delivering value during the Thanksgiving sales week. Retailers must cater to shoppers’ expectations with competitive pricing, attractive deals, and a seamless shopping experience. So, what unique offerings did Canadian retailers present to shoppers this season?
To understand the pricing and discount dynamics during BFCM 2024 in Canada, DataWeave analyzed discounts across leading consumer electronics and home & furniture retailers. Using our AI-powered pricing intelligence platform, we analyzed 37,108 SKUs across these categories for major retailers including Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, Home Depot, and Canadian Tire from the 10th to 29th November. We focused on the top 500 products ranked for each search keyword on each retail site, using targeted terms aligned with categories like “sofa” and “wearables”.
In the following insights, the Absolute Discount represents the reduction of the selling price compared to the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP). The Additional Discount reflects how much lower the selling price is during Black Friday compared to its price a week before the sale. This metric reveals the actual or effective value of the sale event, beyond the standard discounts typically offered.
Consumer electronics saw robust participation from major retailers, with Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart leading the charge. Here’s how they stacked up in terms of discounts:
Best Buy emerged as the frontrunner in absolute discounts at 31.2%, while Amazon impressed with a notable 19.7% additional discount, indicating a strong Black Friday-specific markdown strategy.
Walmart offered steady competition, particularly in audio and video products, which reached an average absolute discount of 37.2%. However, it’s average additional discount was only 3.1%, indicating muted BFCM-specific price reductions in this category.
Subcategory Insights
Diving deeper into consumer electronics subcategories, we observed varied discounting strategies.
Audio & Video stood out as the most discounted subcategory, with Walmart leading at 37.2%.
In Wearables, Walmart again took the top spot with 36.4%, while Amazon offered higher additional discounts (22.4%).
Discounting for computers and gaming was less aggressive, highlighting strategic pricing to maintain profitability in these high-demand segments.
Brand Performance
Brand-level data highlighted how key players used Black Friday to drive visibility and sales.
Dell led in average absolute discounts (36.7%) followed by Samsung at 36.68%
Audio brand JBL offered significant absolute discounts at 35.9%.
Apple and Lenovo offered comparatively fewer discounts but maintained strong visibility, as seen in their increase in the Share of Search during the sale period.
MSI (laptop brand) and Bose (audio and earphone brand) experienced significant increases in visibility, with Share of Search increases of 5% and 3.6%, respectively.
Notably, HP faced a decline (-3.2%) in the Share of Search, suggesting missed opportunities to align promotions with consumer interest.
Home & Furniture
Retailers in Focus
The home and furniture category saw competitive discounting, with Walmart, Canadian Tire, and Home Depot vying for consumer attention.
Walmart took the lead with the highest absolute discounts at 36.8%. The retailer’s additional discounts were more conservative at 3.6%. This is similar to their discount levels in Consumer Electronics.
Canadian Tire offered stiff competition, providing 31.6% absolute discounts and 25% additional discounts.
Home Depot matched its absolute and additional discounts, maintaining consistency at 24.1%.
Subcategory Insights
Home and furniture subcategories revealed targeted discount strategies.
Bedding emerged as the most discounted subcategory at Walmart (50.6%) and Canadian Tire (35.3%).
Kitchenware saw competitive pricing, with Walmart leading at 42.9%, followed by Canadian Tire at 33.9%.
Canadian Tire focused on lighting, offering the highest absolute discounts in this subcategory (38.2%)
Brand Performance
Brand-level analysis revealed stark contrasts in discounting approaches.
Furniture brands Homcom led in absolute discounts (36.4%), while South Shore stood out with the highest additional discounts (30.2%).
Value-oriented brands like furnishings brand Mainstays and mattress and bedding brand Zinus offered more modest discounts, focusing on consistent affordability.
Zinus (mattresses and sofa brand) experienced a significant 7.9% increase in the Share of Search, driven by aggressive promotions.
Home furnishings brands like Costway and Safavieh faced declines, reflecting the importance of aligning promotional strategies with consumer expectations.
Insights for Retailers and Brands
This Black Friday, Canadian retailers effectively balanced deep discounts with category-specific strategies to maximize sales. However, the fluctuating Share of Search highlights the critical need for brands to align promotions with consumer interest.
For brands and retailers looking to stay ahead of the competition, DataWeave’s pricing intelligence platform offers unparalleled insights to refine discounting strategies and boost visibility. Contact us to learn how we can help you stay competitive in this dynamic retail landscape.
Americans spent a whopping total of $10.8 billion online this Black Friday. As Thanksgiving Week 2024 wraps up, one thing is clear: the consumer electronics category continues to dominate seasonal shopping trends. Fueled by a blend of enticing deals and high consumer demand, the sector delivered competitive discounts across subcategories like wearables, gaming, and mobile devices.
At DataWeave, we analyzed discounting trends in the U.S. consumer electronics market during this year’s sales events. Using our AI-powered pricing intelligence platform, we tracked pricing and promotions for 22383 SKUs across Amazon, Walmart, Target, and Best Buy from November 10 to 29. We focused on the top 500 products ranked for each search keyword on each retail site, using targeted terms aligned with categories like “gaming” and “apple.” Here’s what we uncovered.
Retailers Battle It Out with Competitive Discounts
Discount trends reveal clear leaders in terms of markdowns:
Walmart offered the deepest average absolute discounts at 36.9%.
Amazon and Target followed closely, highlighting a diverse range of deals designed to appeal to budget-conscious shoppers
Best Buy, the specialist consumer electronics retailer, offers the lowest discounts this Black Friday at 26.2%.
Note: The Absolute Discount represents the reduction of the selling price compared to the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP). The Additional Discount reflects how much lower the selling price is during Black Friday compared to its price a week before the sale. This metric reveals the actual or effective value of the sale event, beyond the standard discounts typically offered.
Subcategory Spotlight: Where the Best Deals Happened
From audio & video to wearables, each retailer carved out competitive advantages across subcategories.
Both Amazon and Walmart offered high discounts in audio & video and wearables, but Walmart led, with discounts up to 46.3%.
Best Buy, meanwhile, offered high absolute discounts on Mobile Devices(34%) and Storage (31%), followed by high discounts on wearables and Audio & Video.
Amazon maintained a balanced approach, excelling in audio & video and mobile devices.
Brand-Level Insights: HP and Samsung Dominate
The biggest winners this year were brands that strategically leveraged Black Friday discounts to boost visibility and sales:
HP took the top spot with average discounts of 36.9%, followed by Samsung at 31.4%.
Despite its premium reputation, Apple offered an average discount of 29.3%, signaling a shift in strategy to attract deal hunters.
Share of Search: Shifting Consumer Attention
Search trends reveal how discounts shaped brand visibility:
Microsoft saw the largest spike in share of search (+8.6%), thanks to aggressive pricing on gaming consoles and accessories.
Marshall and Amazon also saw significant gains in visibility.
Surprisingly, HP experienced a sharp decline (-9.8%), indicating missed opportunities despite steep discounts.
In the previous analysis, we focused on the top 500 products within each subcategory for each retailer, showcasing the discount strategies for their highlighted or featured items. However, to identify which retailer offered the lowest or highest prices for the same set of products, it’s necessary to match items across retailers. For this, we analyzed a separate dataset of 340 matched products across retailers to compare their pricing during Black Friday. This approach provides a clearer picture of price leadership and competitiveness across categories.
Here are the key takeaways from this analysis.
Category-Level Highlights
Amazon leads with the highest average discount (41.35%), offering the most value to consumers. It is followed by Target (39.37%) and Walmart (36.15%).
Best Buy, the specialist consumer electronics retailer, ranks last with an average discount of 31.53%, emphasizing a less aggressive pricing strategy compared to competitors.
Subcategory Highlights
Wearables: Amazon offers the steepest discounts (55.40%), followed by Best Buy (50.60%) and Walmart (45.75%).
Mobile Devices: Amazon also leads (37.94%), with Walmart (29.30%) in second place and Target trailing at 19.48%.
Gaming: Target takes the lead (37.47%), with Amazon and Best Buy offering similar discounts around 30%.
Computers: Target again emerges as the leader (39.18%), narrowly surpassing Walmart (36.13%).
Brand Highlights
Apple: Amazon dominates with 53.06%, closely followed by Walmart (50.55%), while Target and Best Buy hover around 43%.
Nintendo: Target edges out Amazon (37.62% vs. 36.54%), with Best Buy (33.21%) and Walmart (25.92%) trailing.
Beats by Dr. Dre: Amazon leads (46.07%), with Target (37.14%) as the runner-up. Best Buy and Walmart offer comparatively modest discounts around 25%.
Bose: Walmart emerges as the value leader (23.90%), surpassing Target (16.09%) and Best Buy (15.29%).
Cricut: Amazon sets a high benchmark (54.13%), with Target far behind (36.43%) for this viral portable printer brand. Best Buy (12.32%) and Walmart (10.79%) offer significantly lower discounts.
What This Means for Retailers and Brands
Retailers looking to stay competitive should focus on strategic discounting and enhanced brand visibility. Brands must align with consumer expectations by:
Leveraging platforms like DataWeave to analyze discount trends.
Optimizing pricing and assortment strategies for seasonal demand.
For more insights into consumer electronics pricing, contact DataWeave to discover how our AI-powered solutions can drive success in today’s fast-paced market. Stay tuned for more category-specific analyses in the coming weeks!
Black Friday, once confined to a single weekend, has evolved into a shopping season that now stretches well before Thanksgiving. With inflation hovering around 3% and consumer confidence showing signs of recovery, retailers are adapting their promotional calendars to capture early-bird shoppers and maintain a competitive edge.
Major retailers, including Amazon, Walmart, Target, and Best Buy, have capitalized on this trend by launching promotions weeks in advance, signaling the traditional holiday rush is now a month-long event. At DataWeave, we put these deals under a microscope.
Our Methodology
Using DataWeave’s advanced, AI-powered pricing intelligence platform, we tracked early Black Friday deals across Consumer Electronics, Home & Furniture, Health & Beauty, and Apparel categories. We monitored dedicated Black Friday deal pages on Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, and Sephora to gather and analyze discount data a week prior to Black Friday weekend.
Who’s Offering the Best Deals Across Categories?
Our pre- Black Friday analysis reveals a clear pattern of premium brands offering deeper discounts across categories ahead of the holiday. Here are some key findings around retail players:
Walmart emerges as the most aggressive discounter across categories, leading in Health & Beauty (57.07%), Apparel (48.97%), and Consumer Electronics (43.35%).
Amazon maintains consistent but lower discounts (28-29%) across categories, suggesting potential deeper cuts ahead.
Best Buy and Sephora, both category specialists, play it conservative compared to mass retail players.
Let’s look at each category more closely to get a detailed snapshot of the deals this Thanksgiving week:
Health & Beauty
Our analysis reveals that it’s not electronics, but the health & beauty category that leads with the widest discount range pre Black Friday, making it the category to watch out for.
Walmart takes the lead with an aggressive 57.1% average discount in this category, capitalizing on its value-oriented reputation.
Beauty specialist Sephora holds modest beauty discounts (32.81%) compared to other retailers.
Amazon offers the broadest range of SKUs (571) in the category.
Among the health & beauty brands we analyzed, cosmetics brand Tarte and viral K-Beauty skincare brand COSRX stand out with discounts above 40%, appealing to cost-conscious beauty enthusiasts.
Consumer Electronics
Our pre- Black Friday analysis reveals interesting insights about consumer electronics deals this season.
Walmart, once again, emerges as the frontrunner in the category with 43.4% average discounts.
Best Buy plays it conservative in electronics (30.75%), despite being a category specialist, but offers the most extensive SKU coverage (3030).
Amazon’s consistent 29.7% discount across 1,749 SKUs suggests they’re probably holding back their best deals for Prime members during Black Friday.
Brand-specific data for the category reveals significant deals on Speck (48.07%) and smart TV brand Insignia (39.22%), making accessories and mid-tier electronics attractive for early shoppers. Core computing (HP at 32.14%) and electronics brands maintain more conservative discounts. It remains to be seen if this changes on Black Friday or Cyber Monday.
Apparel
Our analysis of the apparel category reveals several highlights:
In the apparel category too, Walmart dominates with an impressive 49% average discount, effectively targeting price-sensitive shoppers in the fashion segment.
Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus, both known for apparel, offer significant discounts at 43.2% and 37.8% respectively.
Amazon’s expansive SKU coverage (1344) is countered by a modest 29.5% discount, showing its focus on variety over depth of discounts.
Premium fashion brands dominate the highest discounts this Black Friday in the apparel category. Vince Camuto leads with over 45.1% average discount. Notably, Levi and Nike’s aggressive 44.43% and 43.50% discounts suggests significant inventory positions or intent to capture market share.
Home & Furniture
Our analysis reveals an interesting trend across the category.
In the home & furniture category too, Walmart leads at 41.8% average discounts. Target follows closely, but with significantly lesser SKUs on offer.
Amazon’s 28.1% discount, though the lowest among major players, spans a substantial 1,982 SKUs, reinforcing its position as a marketplace for diverse needs.
Top 3 Products With the Highest Discounts Across Retailers
To provide a clearer picture of the early Black Friday landscape, we analyzed the top 3 products with the most substantial discounts in consumer electronics and health & beauty categories. These insights highlight how retailers are leveraging strategic discounts on high-value items to attract early shoppers.
Top Discounted Products in Consumer Electronics
Premium TVs dominate the discount scene, with LG’s 83″ OLED offering up to 44.5% off on Amazon, closely followed by a 44.4% discount on Best Buy, showcasing aggressive competition. The same product has much lower discounting on Walmart, but notably, the product is retailed at $3999.9, at least $1000 less than other retailers, highlighting Walmart’s commitment to offering lowest prices.
Gaming consoles, like the PlayStation 5 Slim Bundle, show moderate discounts (ranging from 15% on Walmart and Target to 25% at Best Buy), appealing to tech-savvy shoppers.
Notable competition is evident in price matching across major retailers, particularly in TVs and high-value electronics like the Nikon Z 8 camera, where Walmart offers the deepest discount at 13.75%, edging past Amazon and Best Buy.
Top Discounted Products in Health & Beauty
Viral skincare staples like Tatcha’s Water Cream show tight discounting consistency, with Walmart offering 19.47% off compared to Amazon’s 20% and Sephora’s 20.83%.
Trending haircare brand Olaplex displays greater disparity, with Walmart leading with a 33.33% discount, surpassing Amazon and Sephora. Luxury brand, Yves Saint Laurent’s Satin Lipstick is one of the highest discounted items across retailers.
Looking Ahead
Our analysis suggests that while some early deals offer genuine value, particularly in premium beauty and high-end electronics, many retailers might be holding their best discounts for Black Friday.
For shoppers, the key is being selective: jump on premium brand discounts now (since they’re likely to remain the same though the weekend), but wait on mid-range electronics and home goods where better deals are likely to emerge on Black Friday or Cyber Monday.
For retailers, the imperative is clear: dynamic pricing intelligence is crucial for maintaining a competitive edge while protecting margins. Competitive insights will be critical as the holiday season progresses to balance market share against profitability.
Stay tuned for our Black Friday Cyber Monday analysis next week, where we’ll track how these early discounts compare to the main event’s deals!
As summer winds down, families across the US have been gearing up for the annual back-to-school shopping season. The back-to-school season has always been a significant event in the retail calendar, but its importance has grown in recent years. With inflation still impacting many households, parents and guardians are more discerning than ever about their purchases, seeking the best value for their money.
The National Retail Federation has forecasted that this season could see one of the highest levels of spending in recent years, reaching up to $86.6 billion. As shoppers eagerly stock up on back-to-school and back-to-college essentials, it’s crucial for retailers and brands to refine their pricing strategies in order to capture a larger share of the market.
To understand how retailers are responding to the back-to-school rush this season, our proprietary analysis delves into pricing trends, discount strategies, and brand visibility across major US retailers, including Amazon, Walmart, Kroger, and Target. By examining 1000 exactly matching products in popular back-to-school categories, our analysis provides valuable insights into the pricing strategies adopted by leading retailers and brands this year.
Price Changes: A Tale of Moderation
The most notable trend in our analysis is the much smaller annual price increases this year, in contrast to last year’s sharp price hikes. This shift is a reaction to growing consumer frustration about rising prices. After enduring persistent inflation and steep price growth, which peaked last year, consumers have become increasingly frustrated. As a result, retailers have had to scale back and implement more moderate price increases this year.
Kroger led the pack with the highest price increases, showing a 5.3% increase this year, which follows a staggering 19.9% rise last year. Walmart’s dramatic price increase of 14.9% is now followed by a muted 3.1% hike. Amazon and Target demonstrated a similar pattern of slowing price hikes, with increases of 2.3% and 2.7% respectively in the latest period. This trend indicates that retailers are still adjusting to increased costs but are also mindful of maintaining customer loyalty in a competitive market.
When examining specific product categories, we observe diverse pricing trends. Electronics and apparel saw the largest price increases between 2022 and 2023, likely due to supply chain disruptions and volatile demand. However, the pace of these increases slowed in 2024, indicating a gradual return to more stable market conditions. Notably, backpacks remain an outlier, with prices continuing to rise sharply by 22%.
Interestingly, some categories, such as office organization and planners, experienced a price decline in 2024. This could signal an oversupply or shifting consumer preferences, presenting potential opportunities for both retailers and shoppers.
Brand Visibility: The Search for Prominence
In the digital age, a brand’s visibility in online searches can significantly impact its success during the back-to-school season. Our analysis of the share of search across major retailers provides valuable insights into brand prominence and marketing effectiveness.
Sharpie and Crayola emerged as the strongest performers overall, with particularly high visibility on Target. This suggests strong consumer recognition and demand for these traditional school supply brands. BIC showed strength on Amazon and Target but lagged on Kroger, while Pilot maintained a more balanced presence across most retailers.
The variation in brand visibility across retailers also hints at potential partnerships or targeted marketing strategies. For instance, Sharpie’s notably high visibility on Target (5.16% share of search) could indicate a specific partnership.
Talk to us to get more insights on the most prominent brands broken down by specific product categories.
Navigating the 2024 Back-to-School Landscape
As we look ahead to the 2024 back-to-school shopping season, several key takeaways emerge for retailers and brands:
Price sensitivity remains high, but the rate of increase is moderating. Retailers should carefully balance the need to cover costs with maintaining competitive pricing.
Strategic discounting can be a powerful tool, especially for lesser-known brands looking to gain market share. However, established brands would need to rely more on quality, visibility, and brand loyalty.
Online visibility is crucial. Brands should invest in strong SEO and retail media strategies, tailored to different retail platforms.
Category-specific strategies are essential. What works for backpacks may not work for writing instruments, so a nuanced approach is key.
Retailers and brands should be prepared for potential shifts in consumer behavior, such as increased demand for value-priced items or changes in category preferences.
By staying attuned to these trends and remaining flexible in their strategies, businesses can position themselves for success in the competitive back-to-school retail landscape of 2024. As always, the key lies in understanding and responding to consumer needs while maintaining a keen eye on market dynamics.
Stay tuned to our blog to know more about how retailers can stay aware of changing pricing trends. Reach out to us today to learn more.
As the retail landscape continues to evolve, events like Amazon Prime Day have become more than just shopping extravaganzas—they’ve transformed into strategic battlegrounds where retailers assert their market positions and brand identities. Prime Day 2024 was no exception, serving as a crucial moment for retailers to showcase their pricing prowess, customer loyalty programs, and category expertise.
In an era where consumer expectations for deals are at an all-time high, the impact of Prime Day extends far beyond Amazon’s ecosystem. Retailers like Walmart, known for its “everyday low prices,” Target with its emphasis on style and value, and Best Buy, the electronics specialist, have all adapted their strategies to compete. These companies didn’t just react to Prime Day; they proactively launched their own pre-emptive sales events, with Target Circle Week, Walmart July Deals and more, effectively extending the shopping bonanza and challenging Amazon’s dominance.
For Prime Day, we analyzed over 47,000 SKUs across major retailers and product categories to publish insights on Amazon’s pricing strategies as well as the performance of leading consumer brands. Here, we go further to delve into the discounts offered (or not offered) by Amazon’s competitors during Prime Day. Our analysis reveals that some retailers chose to compete on price during the sale for certain categories, while others did not.
Below, we highlight our findings for each product category. The Absolute Discount is the total discount offered by each retailer during Prime Day compared to the MSRP. These are the discounts consumers are familiar with, displayed on retail websites prominently during sale events. The Additional Discount, on the other hand, is the reduction in price during Prime Day compared to the week prior to the sale, revealing the level of price markdowns by the retailer specific to a sale event.
Consumer Electronics
In the Consumer Electronics category, Best Buy stood out as a strong competitor, offering an Additional Discount of 5.9%—the highest among all competitors analyzed. This is unsurprising, as Best Buy is well-known for its focus on consumer electronics and is likely aiming to reinforce its reputation for offering attractive deals in order to maintain its strong consumer perception in the category.
Walmart was a close second with a 4.3% Additional Discount while Target reduced its prices by only 2% during the sale.
Apparel
In the Apparel category, Walmart’s Additional Discount was 3.1%, demonstrating its willingness to be priced competitively on a small portion of its assortment during the sale, without compromising much on margins.
Target, on the other hand, opted out of competing with Amazon on price during the sale, choosing instead to maintain its Absolute Discount level of around 11%.
Home & Furniture
The Home & Furniture category showcased diverse strategies from retailers. Specialty furniture retailers such as Overstock and Home Depot provided Additional Discounts of 3.9% and 2.5%, respectively, compared to Amazon’s 6.9%. This indicates a clear intent to maintain market share and remain top-of-mind for consumers despite Amazon’s competitive pricing.
Although Target didn’t significantly lower its prices during the sale, its Absolute Discount remains substantial at 18.9%. This suggests that Target’s markdowns were already steep before the event, which could explain the lack of further reductions during the sale.
Health & Beauty
The Health & Beauty category saw minimal participation from Amazon’s competitors, with the exception of Sephora, which reduced prices by 3.7% during Prime Day.
Ulta Beauty chose not to adjust its prices, likely reflecting its strategy to uphold a premium brand image. Walmart, on the other hand, offered a modest Additional Discount of 2% on select items. Given Walmart’s generally affordable product range, its total discount remained relatively low, around 3.5%.
In Conclusion
During Prime Day, Walmart was the only major retailer that made an effort to compete, albeit modestly. Target, on the other hand, largely chose not to offer any additional markdowns. However, several category-specific retailers, such as Best Buy in Consumer Electronics, Overstock and Home Depot in Furniture, and Sephora in Health & Beauty, aimed to retain market share by providing notable discounts.
What this means for consumers is that even on Amazon’s Prime Day, it’s not a bad idea to compshop to identify the best deal.
For retailers, the key takeaway is the importance of quickly analyzing competitor pricing and making agile, data-driven decisions to improve both revenues and margins. By utilizing advanced pricing intelligence solutions like DataWeave, retailers can optimize their discount strategies, better navigate pricing complexities, and drive revenue growth — all while staying prepared for major shopping events and beyond.
As the dust settles on Amazon’s 8th Prime Day extravaganza in India, held on July 20-21, 2024, the eCommerce giant has once again shattered records. This year’s event saw unprecedented engagement, with 24% more Prime members participating compared to 2023, marking the highest-ever Prime member involvement in the sale’s history.
At DataWeave, we’ve conducted an extensive analysis of this landmark event, examining over 47,000 SKUs across major categories for Flipkart and Amazon to uncover compelling insights into pricing strategies, competitive positioning, and emerging trends in the Indian eCommerce space. This follows our comprehensive analysis of Prime Day in the USA across categories and brands, which readers can explore for a global perspective on Amazon’s strategies.
Key Highlights:
Tier-2 Cities Drive Growth: This year’s exponential growth was notably fueled by orders from tier-2 cities, highlighting the expanding reach of eCommerce in India.
Swift Deliveries: Most Prime members’ orders from metros were delivered the same day or the next, while tier-2 cities saw deliveries in less than 2 days, highlighting the importance of delivery time when it comes to purchase decisions.
Brand Participation: Over 450 top Indian and global brands participated, including Intel, Samsung, OnePlus, and Puma, alongside 3,200 new product launches from small and medium Indian businesses. This highlights Amazon’s policy to promote small, local businesses globally in 2024.
Premium Products in Demand: Despite modest discounts across electronics and similar offerings, consumers chose to purchase premium products during Prime Day. With financial flexibility and no-cost EMI options, Indian consumers, especially Gen Z and millennials, are now ready to invest in premium products and experiences.
Our analysis focused on both the Additional Discounts offered during Prime Day (calculated relative to prices the week prior to the event), highlighting the event’s genuine benefits, and the Absolute Discounts offered during Prime Day, representing the total markdown relative to the MRP.
Cross-Category Discount Strategy
Our analysis this year reveals that the Consumer Electronics category saw the highest Absolute Discounts with an average of 48.9%, closely followed by Apparel at 46.9%. The Health & Beauty category had the lowest Absolute Discount at 32.1%.
However, Amazon offered the highest Additional Discount in Health & Beauty at 9.3%. Electronics and Apparel had additional discounts of 8.6% and 7.7% respectively.
Overall, Flipkart chose to not compete aggressively with Amazon during Prime Day this year. Only in Electronics did Flipkart offer an additional discount of 3.2% during the sale. Price changes in Apparel and Health & Beauty were negligible.
Category Deep Dive
Consumer Electronics
In Electronics, Earbuds (14.7%) and Wireless Headphones (12.5%) saw the highest Additional Discounts on Amazon, likely due to high demand for personal audio devices. Smartwatches followed closely at 12.5%, indicating a strong push in the wearable technology sector.
Larger electronic appliances like TVs saw more modest Additional Discounts (5.2%), despite a significant Absolute Discount (42.3%).
Smartphones, interestingly, had the lowest Additional Discount (2.8%) among the subcategories, potentially due to their already competitive pricing or brand-specific strategies.
Brand-level Insights in Consumer Electronics
During the sale event, Soundcore (headphone and earphone brand from Anker) led with the highest Additional Discount of 10.3%, followed closely by OnePlus at 9.3%. These brands clearly leveraged Prime Day to drive sales and potentially gain market share.
Sennheiser and Sony also offered significant additional discounts, indicating aggressive promotional strategies during the event.
Notably, some well-known brands like Apple and HP offered more conservative discounts, possibly due to their established market positions or differing promotional strategies.
Despite modest discounts though, Amazon revealed that the iPhone 13 and OnePlus 12R were among the top premium smartphones customers bought this Prime Day. Prime members shopped from top brands such as LG, IFB, Bosch, and Haier and upgraded to premium appliances through affordability options of no cost EMI, Bank discounts and exchange offers, claims Amazon.
These learnings offer valuable insight into the mindset of the modern Indian consumer, who is ready to purchase premium products. Brands can leverage more detailed market intelligence to drive their positioning in India.
Share of Search Analysis
The Share of Search (SoS) for a brand represents the number of its products in the top 20 search results for relevant search keywords on Amazon, relative to that of its competitors. It provides insights into a brand’s visibility during the sale event.
HP saw the most significant improvement in its Share of Search during Prime Day, gaining 9.2%, with strong growth in both organic (7.5%) and sponsored (1.7%) listings. LG also made substantial gains of 8.2% and 5.3% respectively. Both brands offered significant markdowns on laptops and accessories.
Surprisingly, some popular brands like Apple (-0.6%) and Acer (-1.0%) experienced slight decreases in their SoS. Lenovo notably lost 7.2% of its visibility share, with a significant decline in organic listings (-7.6%). Samsung maintained its strong position with an increase in SoS (3.7%).
Key Takeaways:
While some brands like Soundcore and OnePlus used aggressive discounting to drive sales, others like HP and LG focused on improving their search visibility. The data suggests that a combination of attractive discounts and improved search visibility was key to success during the event. Brands that managed to balance these factors effectively, like HP and Samsung, seemed to perform particularly well. Interestingly, some brands with lower discounts (like HP) still managed to significantly increase their SoS, indicating that factors beyond pricing played a role in visibility during the event.
Apparel
Within the subcategories analyzed, Women’s Shoes (13.4%) and Men’s Shoes (11.6%) saw the highest Additional Discounts on Amazon, indicating a strong focus on footwear during the event. Men’s Shirts followed closely at 11.1%
Women’s Tops had a more modest Additional Discount of 7.9% despite a high Absolute Discount before the event. Similarly, Women’s Dresses showed substantial Additional Discounts (10.4%).
Swimwear for both men and women saw low Additional Discounts (3.7% and 3.0% respectively). Innerwear categories for both men and women had more conservative discounts, with Men’s Innerwear showing the lowest Absolute Discount (19.9%) among all subcategories.
Brand-level Insights in Apparel
During the sale event, Sangani (innerwear brand) led with the highest Additional Discount of 41%, followed by Louis Philippe at 25%. These brands clearly leveraged Prime Day to drive sales and gain market share.
Puma offered the highest Absolute Discount at 60% with a significant Additional Discount of 20%, indicating a consistently aggressive promotional strategy. Chromozome (men’s innerwear brand) and Bacca Bucci (homegrown shoe brand of Shark Tank India fame) also offered substantial Absolute Discounts (57% and 56% respectively), but their Additional Discounts varied significantly (16% and 6% respectively).
Again, some well-known brands like Adidas, and Pepe Jeans offered more moderate Additional Discounts, possibly due to their established market positions.
Share of Search Analysis
Biba (women’s ethnic wear brand) saw the most significant improvement in its SoS, gaining 3.60%, entirely through investments in sponsored listings. Allen Solly and New Balance (shoe brand) also made substantial gains of 3.3% and 3.2% respectively.
Surprisingly, some popular brands like Louis Philippe (-2.00%) and Sangani (-2.10%) experienced decreases in their SoS. Louis Philippe lost its share due to a roll back of its sponsored listings, while Sangini lost ground organically.
Key Takeaways:
While some brands like Sangani and Louis Philippe used aggressive discounting to drive sales, others like Biba and Allen Solly focused on improving their search visibility through sponsored listings.
Some brands with high discounts (like Sangani) saw a decrease in SoS, while others with more modest discounts (like Biba) significantly increased their visibility. This indicates that factors beyond pricing played a crucial role in brand performance during the event.
The significant use of sponsored listings by some brands highlights the importance of paid advertising in gaining visibility during competitive events like Prime Day.
Health & Beauty
Health & Beauty emerged as a standout category during Amazon Prime Day India 2024, with significant discounts and competitive strategies at play.
Within the subcategories we analyzed, Moisturizer (11.9%) and Sunscreen (11.8%) saw the highest additional price reductions on Amazon, likely due to seasonal demand during Prime Days. Make-up followed closely at 10.6%.
Electric Toothbrushes had the highest Absolute Discount at 47.1%, but a lower Additional Discount of 6.0%, highlighting that these products were already significantly discounted before the event. Similarly, Beard Care products showed high Absolute Discounts (43.7%) but lower Additional Discounts (5.7%) during Prime Day.
Everyday essentials like Toothpaste saw more modest discounts (19.9% Absolute, 8.4% Additional), reflecting steady demand for these products.
Brand-level Insights in Health & Beauty
Vaseline led with the highest Additional Discount of 13.1%, followed by Maybelline at 9.5%. These brands clearly leveraged Prime Day to drive sales and potentially gain market share.
Honest Amish (beard care brand) and Nivea also offered substantial Absolute Discounts (15.6% and 8.2% respectively), but their Additional Discounts were lower, indicating pre-existing promotional strategies.
Once again, some well-known brands like Colgate, Dove, and Neutrogena offered more conservative discounts, possibly due to their established market positions or differing promotional strategies.
Share of Search Analysis
Maybelline saw the most significant improvement, gaining 5.6% in SoS, all through organic listings. The brand has been aggressively increasing market share with several new product launches and influencer campaigns. Nivea and Vaseline also made substantial gains of 5.2% and 3.8% respectively.
In this category as well, some popular brands like Dove (-0.4%), Pond’s (-0.8%), and Honest Amish (-0.8%) experienced slight decreases in their SoS. Parodontax (toothpaste brand) notably lost 1.3% SoS, with most of the decline in sponsored listings. Colgate maintained its strong position with a slight increase in SoS (0.2%), reflecting its dominant market presence.
Key Takeaways:
While some brands like Vaseline and Maybelline used aggressive discounting and improved visibility to drive sales, others like Colgate and Dove relied more on their established market positions.
None of the brands made any significant strides in sponsored listings, revealing that brands in this category are not yet fully leveraging retail media to help manage and boost their visibility on online marketplaces.
Final Thoughts
Amazon Prime Day 2024 has redefined the eCommerce landscape in India, yet again, showcasing diverse strategies employed by brands to maximize their impact. By understanding and leveraging these insights, brands and retailers can better navigate future sales events, optimizing their eCommerce strategies to achieve sustained growth and success.
Stay tuned to our blog for more in-depth analyses of brand and retailer performance across various retail events.
Reach out to us today to learn how you can leverage data-driven insights to optimize your eCommerce strategy.
Amazon Prime Day 2024 saw U.S. shoppers spending a staggering $14.2 billion online during the two-day event—an 11% increase from last year. This surge in spending reflects a significant shift in consumer behavior and presents a wealth of insights for brands and retailers alike.
Unlike last year’s focus on essentials, Prime Day 2024 saw Americans enthusiastically embracing both necessities and discretionary purchases. The Consumer Electronics and Health & Beauty categories, for example, experienced a notable uptick in interest, driven by major retailers slashing prices across CPG and Grocery segments, amid other reasons. Check out our first article in the Prime Day series 2024, analyzing retail insights across categories during the event.
This year, small businesses gained unprecedented visibility on Amazon, pushing relatively new brands into visibility.
At DataWeave, we recognize the critical importance of understanding these market dynamics for brands navigating the competitive eCommerce landscape. To provide actionable insights, we conducted an extensive analysis of over 47,000 SKUs across key categories before and during Amazon during Prime Day 2024. Our study delves into:
Pricing strategies: How did brands adjust their discounts to capitalize on the Prime Day frenzy?
Share of Search: Which brands achieved the highest visibility for major search keywords?
Dive into these insights below to uncover how brands performed during Amazon Prime Day 2024, and learn how you can leverage these findings to enhance your brand’s digital shelf performance.
Our Findings
Most brands offered substantial discounts before Prime Day, then added smaller discounts during the event. This strategy creates a perception of value while still allowing room for Prime Day-specific deals. To understand the real value offered by brands, we conducted an extensive analysis of brand performance, examining both pricing strategies and visibility on the platform. Our approach focuses on two key metrics:
Discounts: We analyzed both the Absolute Discount (total markdown relative to MSRP a week before Prime Day) and the Additional Discount (the price reduction during Prime Day compared to the week before).
Share of Search (SoS): We examined the visibility of brands in the top 20 search results. We also separately tracked this metric for organic and sponsored search results.
Let’s dive into the category and brand specific insights:
Consumer Electronics
Once again, in 2024, the Consumer Electronics category dominated discounts. Amazon’s own brands lead with the highest average Absolute Discount (44.2%) and a significant Additional Discount (12.5%), showcasing its aggressive push for Prime Day.
In a surprising twist, Amazon’s homepage wasn’t dominated by its own brands. Instead, tech giants like Apple and Samsung took centre stage. Despite this, Amazon’s own brands offered significant discounts across electronics products, including Amazon Kindle, Fire TVs, Fire TV Sticks, Echo Dot, and more, aiming to capture market share via markdowns.
Soundcore (earphone audio products brand) offered the highest discount during Prime Day, at 30.10%. Other headphone, earbuds, and wireless headphone brands including Sony, Beats, JBL, and more also offered significant discounts.
Premium brands like Apple (17.90% Absolute, 9.00% Additional) and Bose (23.10% Absolute, 16.00% Additional) offered relatively modest discounts, aligning with their brand positioning, but also taking advantage of the Prime Day frenzy.
Share of Search Insights in Consumer Electronics
JBL emerged as the standout performer, with the most significant increase in SoS, jumping from 14.3% pre-event to 25.8% during Prime Day, driven entirely by organic growth. Beats also saw a remarkable rise, increasing from 2.8% to 12.8%, again through organic listings only. Samsung maintained its strong presence, growing from 18.6% to 26.8%, with most of its growth influenced by increased ad spend.
Apple, despite already having a high pre-event SoS, managed to increase its share further from 23.0% to 31.0%, with some contribution via sponsored ads. LG saw a substantial increase from 1.3% to 6.9%, primarily through sponsored listings, opting for an inorganic approach to drive visibility during the sale.
Amazon and its AmazonBasics brand both saw notable increases in SoS, relying solely on organic growth. This is, of course, not surprising since Amazon controls its organic ranking algorithm.
Interestingly, some brands experienced decreases in SoS. Sony, Motorola, and Hisense all saw reductions in their share, with Hisense’s decline coming entirely from a reduction in sponsored listings.
Key Takeaway: Prime Day 2024 saw a significant reshuffling of brand visibility in the Consumer Electronics category. While some established brands like JBL, Beats, Samsung, and Apple strengthened their positions through a mix of organic and sponsored growth, others faced increased competition for consumer attention. The event highlighted the importance of a balanced approach to visibility, with successful brands leveraging both organic search optimization and strategic use of sponsored listings to maximize their presence during this high-traffic period.
Apparel
In the Apparel category, Adidas led with the highest Absolute Discount (27.2%) and a significant Additional Discount (9.8%). Value brands like Hanes (innerwear brand) and Anrabess offered substantial discounts, while Amazon Essentials maintained high discounts across the board (16.5% Absolute, 15.3% Additional).
Some brands like Cupshe (swimwear and vacation apparel brand) offered relatively lower additional markdowns. Meanwhile CRZ Yoga (athleisure brand) did not offer additional markdowns on Prime Day.
Share of Search Insights in Apparel
Gildan (activewear brand) emerged as the top performer in terms of SoS growth, increasing from 8.1% pre-event to 12.1% during Prime Day, driven entirely by organic growth. CRZ Yoga (an athleisure apparel brand) and Dokotoo (women’s casualwear brand) also saw significant increases in their SoS, rising by 2.8 and 2.3 percentage points respectively, again through organic listings only.
Amazon Essentials continued to perform well, increasing its visibility from 7.0% to 9.1%, aligning with its competitive pricing strategy. Coofandy also saw a notable increase, growing from 7.8% to 9.9%.
Interestingly, some brands that were previously highlighted for growth actually experienced decreases in SoS. Automet (clothing & accessories brand) saw a slight decline from 12.5% to 12.1%, while Anrabess (women’s fashion brand) dropped from 15.8% to 14.5%. Cupshe (swimwear brand) experienced the most significant decrease, falling from 10.6% to 5.5%.
Adidas, despite leading in discounts, saw only a modest increase in SoS from 7.0% to 8.0%. Notably, none of the brands visible in the top search results utilized sponsored listings, with all changes in SoS coming from organic growth or decline. This indicates a lack of maturity in this category in leveraging retail media.
Key Takeaway: Prime Day 2024 in the apparel category showcased the importance of organic search optimization. While some brands like Gildan and CRZ Yoga significantly improved their visibility, others faced challenges in maintaining their pre-event positions. The absence of sponsored listings across all brands highlights a unique dynamic in the apparel category, where organic search performance appears to be the primary driver of visibility during high-traffic events like Prime Day.
This suggests that Apparel brands may need to focus more on SEO strategies and organic content optimization to maximize their presence during major shopping events, rather than relying on paid promotions. On the other hand, smartly leveraging retail media to boost visibility can give apparel brands a competitive edge.
Health & Beauty
The Health & Beauty category this year got a push thanks to Amazon’s subscription offering. Prime members who subscribed for regular usage products like toothpaste and health aids or medicines availed higher discounts.
Amid Health & Beauty brands, Neutrogena led with the highest Absolute Discount (32.7%) and a significant Additional Discount (11.7%). Sun Bum moisturizers & sunscreen (23.3%) and Viking Revolution (23.1%) offered the highest Additional Discounts, indicating a strong Prime Day focus.
Premium brands like L’Oreal Paris and Philips Sonicare offered moderate discounts, balancing promotions with their intended brand image.
Share of Search Insights in Health & Beauty
Banana Boat (sunscreen brand) emerged as the standout performer, seeing the largest increase in SoS from 6.5% to 13.4%, achieved entirely through organic growth. Nyx Professional Makeup also saw a significant jump, rising from 3.9% to 8.9%, again solely through organic listings.
Contrary to previous analysis, e.l.f. actually experienced substantial growth, increasing from 9.0% to 13.1% SoS, with a strong focus on organic growth (4.4%) slightly offset by a minor decrease in sponsored listings (-0.2%).
Neutrogena maintained its strong performance, aligning with its aggressive discounting strategy, as its SoS increased from 14.6% to 18.5% through organic growth. Colgate also saw a notable increase from 11.0% to 13.7% SoS.
Interestingly, some brands employed a mixed strategy. Dove and Garnier saw overall increases in SoS, but achieved this through different means. Dove relied heavily on sponsored growth, while Garnier offset a decrease in organic listings with strong sponsored content growth.
Contrary to previous observations, Oral-B experienced a decrease in SoS from 18.5% to 15.3%, entirely in organic listings. Without any additional spend on sponsored listings to compensate, it lost significant ground in its visibility. Other brands facing significant declines include Tresemme, OGX, Philips Sonicare, and most notably, Viking Revolution, which dropped from 17.2% to 10.7% in its SoS.
Key Takeaway: The Health & Beauty category during Prime Day 2024 showcased a diverse range of strategies and outcomes. While some brands like Banana Boat and Nyx Professional Makeup achieved significant visibility gains through organic growth, others like Dove and Garnier relied more on sponsored content.
The success of e.l.f. and Neutrogena in aligning discounting strategies with increased visibility stands in contrast to the challenges faced by previously strong performers like Oral-B and Viking Revolution. This varied landscape shows the fierce competition in the category and the need for brands to employ multi-faceted strategies that balance organic optimization, sponsored content, and competitive pricing to succeed in high-stakes events like Prime Day.
Brand Strategies and Future Implications
Our analysis reveals several key trends:
Brand Positioning Matters: Premium brands like Apple and Bose maintained their positioning with modest discounts, while value-oriented brands like Soundcore and Hanes offered deeper cuts to attract price-sensitive shoppers.
Visibility vs. Discounting: Some brands, particularly in the Consumer Electronics category, prioritized increasing their visibility (Share of Search) over offering steep discounts. This strategy suggests a focus on long-term visibility and brand perception rather than short-term sales boosts.
Category-Specific Approaches: Apparel brands uniquely relied on organic search visibility, eschewing sponsored listings entirely. In contrast, several Health & Beauty brands leveraged sponsored content significantly to boost their presence.
Emerging Brand Opportunities: Lesser-known brands, especially in the Apparel and Health & Beauty categories, used Prime Day as a launchpad to increase their visibility, often outpacing established names in Share of Search growth.
Amazon’s Dual Strategy: As both a platform and a brand, Amazon showcased its ability to offer deep discounts on its own products while also providing a stage for other brands to shine.
Stay tuned to our blog for more in-depth analyses of brand and retailer performance and strategies across various retail events. Reach out to us today to learn how you can leverage data-driven insights to optimize your brand’s eCommerce strategy and performance.
Amazon Prime Day 2024 has once again shattered records, with more items sold during the two-day event than any previous Prime Day. Prime members worldwide saved billions across all categories, while independent sellers moved an impressive 200 million items.
At DataWeave, we conducted an extensive analysis of the discounts offered by Amazon across major categories. By examining over 47,000 SKUs, we’ve uncovered compelling insights into pricing strategies, competitive positioning, and emerging trends in the eCommerce space.
Since products on Amazon and other eCommerce websites are often sold at discounts even on normal days not linked to a sale event, we delved into the real value that Prime Day offers to shoppers by focusing on price reductions or the Additional Discount during the sale compared to the week before. As a result, our approach highlights the genuine benefits of the event for shoppers who count on lower prices during the sale. At the same time, our report also includes the Absolute Discounts offered during Prime Day, which represents the total markdown relative to the MSRP.
Amazon’s Cross-Category Discount Strategy
Our analysis reveals that the Electronics category saw the highest discounts with an average absolute discount of 20.4% and additional discounts on Prime Day amounting to 10.4%. Meanwhile the Home & Furniture had the lowest discount at 13.1%.
The Health & Beauty category saw significant additional discounts during Prime Day, at 9.26%. The Apparel category offered attractive absolute (16.10%) and additional (8.90%) discounts.
Category Deep Dive
Consumer Electronics
Still the star of the show, the electronics category saw the highest markdowns this Prime Day with absolute discounts at 20.40% and across 14.61% of their inventory.
Across Electronics subcategories, Earbuds had the highest markdowns at 34.80%, followed closely by Wireless Headphones at 30.60% and Headphones at 29.00%, with steep additional discounts during Prime Day as well. Apple AirPods Pro, for example, retailed at $168 (down from $249) at a 32% discount.
Meanwhile, smartphones had the lowest markdowns at 9.30%, followed by Laptops at 10.50%. Laptops also had the lowest additional discount during Prime Day at just 1.28%, significantly lower than other subcategories. Speakers (20.80%), Drones (19.10%), and Smartwatches (25.00%) offered moderate to high markdowns.
Notably, all Amazon products including Kindle, Echo, Echo Earbuds, Alexa, Fire TV, Fire TV Stick, and Fire Tablets, were aggressively discounted upwards of 30% this Prime Day. These products also came with the label “Climate Pledge Friendly.”
These aspects indicate Amazon’s push to promote its own ecosystem of products to the top, as well as cater to changing consumer preferences.
Apparel
Discounts offered this Prime Day increased from 13.2% in 2023 to 16.1% in 2024.
Amid apparel subcategories, Amazon appears to be pushing Women’s apparel categories more aggressively, particularly in Tops, Shoes, and Athleisure.
Women’s Shoes lead with the highest discounts at 26.50%, followed by Women’s Tops at 22.50% and Men’s Shoes at 22.80%. Women’s Tops also maintained the highest additional discount at 15.27%, followed by Women’s Athleisure at 13.03% and Men’s Swimwear at 12.44%.
Similar to 2023, Men’s Innerwear offered significantly lower discounts, with only 1% absolute discount and 0.72% additional discount. Women’s Innerwear also shows low discounts at 3.20% absolute and 2.23% additional.
Health & Beauty
Amid health & beauty subcategories, Moisturizes witnessed the highest markdowns at 20.10%, followed by Make Up at 18.90%. The Moisturizer subcategory also offers highest additional discounts at 12.20%, followed closely by Sunscreen at 10.25% and Beard Care at 10.22%.
The Toothpaste subcategory has the lowest discounts, at 10.90%. The lower discounts on everyday essentials like this might indicate a steady demand or an attempt to maintain margins on frequently purchased items.
Most Health & Beauty subcategories fall in the 15-18% range for actual discounts and 8-10% range for additional discounts. Electric Toothbrush (16.90% actual, 9.91% additional) and Shampoo (16.50% actual, 8.78% additional) represent the middle of the pack. There were a few highly attractive deals though, such as the Philips Sonicare toothbrush retailing at $122.96 (down from $199.99), with a 39% discount.
Amazon also offered significant discounts on Open Box products (products that are returned, but unused, out of mint condition boxes) to Prime members.
Home & Furniture
This category saw the lowest discounts for this Prime Day event at 13.1%. Across subcategories, Rugs lead with the highest average discount at 21.50%, closely followed by Luggage at 20.90%. Amazon seems to be pushing decorative and organizational items (Rugs, Bookcases) more aggressively, possibly due to higher margins. Rugs also stood out as the subcategory with the highest additional discount of 11.54%.
Sofas have the lowest additional discount at 2.76%, followed by Dining Tables at 3.21%. Items like Cabinets (15.80% absolute, 6.66% additional) and Coffee Tables (14.40% absolute, 6.25% additional) represent the middle range of discounts.
Watch Out For More
As the holiday season approaches, it’s clear that the retail landscape continues to evolve. While Amazon remains a formidable force, there are opportunities for savvy competitors to carve out their niches and attract deal-hungry shoppers. By analyzing these trends and adjusting strategies accordingly, retailers can position themselves for success in the high-stakes world of summer sales events.
Stay tuned to our blog for more insights on how Amazon’s competitors reacted to Prime Day, and how leading brands across categories fared in terms of their pricing and their visibility during the sale event. Reach out to us today to learn more.
Consumer brands around the world increasingly recognize the vital role of tracking and optimizing their digital shelf KPIs, such as Content Quality, Share of Search, Availability, etc. These metrics play a crucial role in boosting eCommerce sales and securing a larger online market share. With the escalating requirements of brands, the sophistication of top Digital Shelf Analytics providers is also on the rise. Consequently, the adoption of digital shelf solutions has become an essential prerequisite for today’s leading brands.
As brands and vendors continue to delve further and deeper into the world of Digital Shelf Analytics, a significant and often overlooked aspect is the analysis of digital shelf data on mobile apps. The ability of solution providers to effectively track and analyze this mobile-specific data is crucial.
Why is this emphasis on mobile apps important?
Today, the battle for consumer attention unfolds not only on desktop web platforms but also within the palm of our hands – on mobile devices. As highlighted in a recent Insider Intelligence report, customers will buy more on mobile, exceeding 4 in 10 retail eCommerce dollars for the first time.
Moreover, thanks to the growth of delivery intermediaries like Instacart, DoorDash, Uber Eats, etc., shopping on mobile apps has received a tremendous organic boost. According to an eMarketer report, US grocery delivery intermediary sales are expected to reach $68.2 billion in 2025, from only $8.8 billion in 2019.
In essence, mobile is increasingly gaining share as the form factor of choice for consumers, especially in CPG. In fact, one of our customers, a leading multinational CPG company, revealed to us that it sees up to 70% of its online sales come through mobile apps. That’s a staggering number!
The surge in app usage reflects a fundamental change in consumer behavior, emphasizing the need for brands to adapt their digital shelf strategies accordingly.
Why Brands Need To Look at Apps and Desktop Data Differently
Conventionally, brands that leverage digital shelf analytics rely on data harnessed from desktop sites of online marketplaces. This is because capturing data reliably and accurately from mobile apps is inherently complex. Data aggregation systems designed to scrape data from web applications cannot easily be repurposed to capture data on mobile apps. It requires dedicated effort and exceptional tech prowess to pull off in a meaningful and consistent way.
In reality, it is extremely important for brands to track and optimize their mobile digital shelf. Several digital shelf metrics vary significantly between desktop sites and mobile apps. These differences are natural outcomes of differences in user behavior between the two form factors.
One of these metrics that has a huge impact on a brand’s performance on retail mobile apps is their search discoverability. Ecommerce teams are well aware of the adverse impact of the loss of even a few ranks on search results.
Anyone can easily test this. Searching something as simple as “running shoes” on the Amazon website and doing the same on its mobile app shows at least a few differences in product listings among the top 20-25 ranks. There are other variances too, such as the number of sponsored listings at the top, as well as the products being sponsored. These variations often result in significant differences in a brand’s Share of Search between desktop and mobile.
Share of Search is the share of a brand’s products among the top 20 ranked products in a category or subcategory, providing insight into a brand’s visibility on online marketplaces.
Picture a scenario in which a brand heavily depends on desktop digital shelf data, confidently assuming it holds a robust Share of Search based on reports from its Digital Shelf Analytics partner. However, unbeknownst to the team, the Share of Search on mobile is notably lower, causing a detrimental effect on sales.
To fully understand the scale of these differences, we decided to run a small experiment using our proprietary data analysis and aggregation platform. We restricted our analysis to just Amazon.com and Amazon’s mobile app. However, we did cover over 13,000 SKUs across several shopping categories to ensure the sample size is strong.
Below, we provide details of our key findings.
Share of Search on The Digital Shelf – App Versus Desktop
Our analysis focused on three popular consumer categories – Electronics, CPG, and Health & Beauty.
In the electronics category, brands like Apple, Motorola, and Samsung, known for their mobile phones, earbuds, headphones, and more, have a higher Share of Search on the Amazon mobile app compared to the desktop.
Meanwhile, Laptop brands like Dell, Acer, and Lenovo, as well as other leading brands like Google have a higher Share of Search on the desktop site compared to the app. This is the scenario that brands need to be careful about. When their Share of Search on mobile apps is lower, they might miss the chance to take corrective measures since they lack the necessary data from their provider.
In the CPG category, Ramen brand Samyang, with a lot of popularity on Tiktok and Instagram, shows a higher Share of Search on Amazon’s mobile app. Speciality brands like 365 By Whole Foods, pasta and Italian food brands La Moderna, Divinia, and Bauducco too have a significantly higher Share of Search on the app.
Cheese and dessert brands like Happy Belly, Atlanta Cheesecake Company, among others, have a lower Share of Search on the mobile app. Ramen brand Sapporo is also more easily discovered on Amazon’s desktop site. Here, we see a difference of more than 5% in the Share of Search of some brands, which is likely to have a huge impact on the brand’s mobile eCommerce sales levels and overall performance.
Lastly, in the Health & Beauty category, Shampoos and hair care brands like Olaplex, Dove, and Tresemme exhibited a higher Share of Search on the mobile app compared to the desktop.
On the other hand, body care brands like Neutrogena and Hawaiian Tropic, as well as Beardcare brand Viking Revolution displayed a higher Share of Search on Amazon’s desktop site.
Based on our data, it is clear that there are several examples of brands that do better in either one of Amazon’s desktop sites or mobile apps. In many cases, the difference is stark.
So What Must Brands Do?
Our findings emphasize the imperative for brands to move beyond a one-size-fits-all approach to digital shelf analytics. The striking variations in Share of Search between mobile apps and desktops conclusively demonstrate that relying solely on desktop data for digital shelf optimization is inadequate.
If brands see that they’re falling behind on the mobile digital shelf, there are a few things they can do to help boost their performance:
If a brand’s Share of Search is lower on the mobile app, they can divert their retail spend to mobile in order to inorganically compensate for this difference. This way, any short-term impact due to lower discoverability is mitigated. This is also likely to result in optimized budget allocation and ROAS.
Brands also need to ensure their content is optimized for the mobile form factor, with images that are easy to view on smaller screens, and tailored product titles that are shorter than on desktops, highlighting the most important product attributes from the consumer’s perspective. Not only will this help brands gain more clicks from mobile shoppers, but this will also gradually lead to a boost in their organic Share of Search on mobile.
CPG brands, specifically, need to optimize their digital shelf for delivery intermediary apps (along with marketplaces). The grocery delivery ecosystem is booming with companies like DoorDash, Delivery Hero, Uber Eats, Swiggy, etc. leading the way. Using Digital Shelf Analytics to optimize performance on delivery apps is quite an involved process with a lot of bells and whistles to consider. Read our recently published whitepaper that specifically details how brands can successfully boost their visibility and conversions on delivery apps.
But first, brands need to identify and work with a Digital Shelf Analytics partner that is able to capture and analyze mobile app data, enabling tailored optimization approaches for all eCommerce platforms.
DataWeave leads the way here, providing the world’s most comprehensive and sophisticated digital shelf analytics solution, rising above all other providers to provide digital shelf insights for both web applications and mobile apps. Our data aggregation platform successfully navigates the intricacies of capturing public data accurately and reliably from mobile apps, thereby delivering a comprehensive cross-device view of digital shelf KPIs to our brand customers.
So reach out to us today to find out more about our digital shelf solutions for mobile apps!
India’s homegrown eCommerce giant Flipkart, now backed by Walmart, reported a record 1.4 Billion customer visits during the early access phase and throughout the seven days of its premier shopping event, the Big Billion Days, launched on 8th October 2023. Competing with Flipkart, Amazon’s Great Indian Festival sale event started on October 8th as well and saw a whopping 95 Million customer visits to the website within the first 48 hours of the event.
For consumers, the most pressing question was, “Who offered more attractive deals and lower prices during these sale events?”
To answer this question, we leveraged our proprietary data aggregation and analysis platform and analyzed the prices and discounts on Amazon and Flipkart across key product categories..
The details of our sample are mentioned below:
Number of SKUs Analyzed: 30,000+
Websites: Amazon.com and Flipkart.com
Categories: Apparel, Home & Furniture, Electronics, Health & Beauty
Dates: 7th Oct 2023 to 22nd Oct 2023
Key Findings
Based on our analysis, the Big Billion Days by Flipkart showcased relatively higher price reductions across categories compared to the Great Indian Festival sale by Amazon. The Apparel category on Flipkart saw the highest average discount at 50.6%. The Health & Beauty category had the lowest discount across Flipkart at 39.4% and Amazon at 33%.
Overall, Flipkart offered higher discounts in each product category. It is clear that the retailer invested heavily in leveraging its supplier partnerships with key brands or sellers to enable them to offer higher discounts, thereby attracting more customers.
Next, let’s take a closer look at each product category.
Apparel
While a majority of retailers expected demand for apparel and clothing to dip this festive season in India, eCommerce giants like Amazon and Flipkart are likely to recognize the strong consumer inclination towards apparel during this period.
In the detailed assessment of Apparel sub-categories, Women’s Dresses, Women’s Tops, Men’s Shirts, Men’s Shoes, and Women’s Innerwear emerged as the segments showcasing the most substantial discounts during the sale events. While Flipkart offered higher average discounts across all sub-categories, Amazon offered competitive discounts as well.
We observed significant differences in the average discounts across brands between Flipkart’s Big Billion Days and Amazon’s Great Indian Festival. Reinforcing the significant discounts on the Shoes subcategory, brands like Red Tape, Arrow, Adidas, Reebok, Nike, and more offered extensive discounts on both Flipkart and Amazon. Notably, Adidas and Reebok offered better deals on Amazon’s Great Indian Festival as compared to Flipkart.
One8 by Virat Kohli had a significantly lower discount on Amazon compared to Flipkart, indicating an exclusive partnership.
For brands, however, reducing prices is just one approach to entice shoppers. They must also guarantee their prominent presence and easy discoverability within Amazon and Flipkart search results. To gain insight into this, we monitored brands’ Share of Search across various frequently used search terms in addition to the discounts they provided. The Share of Search denotes the portion of a brand’s products within the top 20 search results for a specific search query.
Our data indicates that Jockey and Speedo gained in Share of Search on Flipkart, but reduced discoverability on Amazon. Van Heusen fell behind in search results on Flipkart but showed a higher Share of Search on Amazon.
Discounts on both Amazon and Flipkart hovered around 50%. Across a few subcategories, Flipkart offered slightly lower discounts compared to Amazon. Only Luggage, Rugs, Sofas, and Entertainment Units saw lower markdowns on Flipkart during the Big Billion Days.
Dishwashers and Washer/ Dryers saw higher discounts on Amazon compared to Flipkart. The significant discounts on these products on Amazon possibly point to changing consumer preferences, as demand for these products is traditionally low in India, but seems to be growing.
When it comes to Home & Furniture brands, Nasher Miles, Safari, Aristocrat, VIP, and American Tourister, luggage brands mostly, offered higher discounts on Flipkart, followed closely by Amazon.
In terms of Share of Search, Skybags had high discoverability on both Flipkart and Amazon. The brand leveraged a strategy of offering big discounts this festive season as well as ensuring prominent placement in search results. Wildcraft lost out on its discoverability on Flipkart in contrast to its prominence on Amazon. Duroflex saw lower searchability on Amazon compared to Flipkart’s Big Billion Days.
Consumer Electronics
The Consumer Electronics and Appliances Manufacturers Association (CEAMA) expected an uptick in sales of consumer electronics products this festive season in India. With more consumers buying premium products using credit cards and EMIs, demand for expensive, high-end electronics was expected to increase.
Again, average discounts in this category hovered around 50% on Flipkart and Amazon.
Across electronics subcategories, Smartwatches, Earbuds, and Drones had the highest markdowns with Flipkart leading the pack during the Big Billion Days. Amazon offered relatively higher discounts at 44.9% on the TV subcategory, compared to Flipkart’s 40.6%.
Speakers, Laptops, Smartphones, and Tablets also saw lower markdowns on Amazon compared to Flipkart. Amazon was the official partner for the launch of many high-level smartphones and products in September-October, contributing to the higher markdowns in the subcategory.
Across brands, Lenovo’s discounts were the most differentiated between the two sites, with the brand offering higher discounts on Amazon (45.4%) compared to Flipkart (24.7%). Noise offered the highest discounts at 72.5% on Amazon and 52.8% on Flipkart. Brands like Boat and Zebronics, also saw lower discounts on Flipkart.
Mi and JBL offered deeper discounts on Flipkart’s Big Billion Days. Apple meanwhile stands out with only 11.83% discounts on Amazon, but the brand offered impressive 31.4% discounts on Flipkart.
Samsung dominated the Share of Search on Amazon at 15.7%, compared to only 2.6% on Flipkart. Apple and Lenovo also saw higher discoverability on Amazon. On Flipkart, JBL and Skullcandy stand out as brands with high search visibility.
Health & Beauty
The Health & Beauty category saw the lowest markdowns with only 39.4% discounts on Flipkart and 33% on Amazon.
In the subcategories analyzed, Electric Toothbrushes had relatively high markdowns across both sites. Staple and lower priced subcategories like Toothpaste had the lowest markdowns across both sale events, with Amazon offering only 17.4% average discounts.
Across brands, Beardo, a leading beard care brand, offered significantly higher discounts on Amazon compared to Flipkart. Most other well-known brands, including Nivea and Vaseline, saw higher discounts on Amazon compared to Flipkart. Only Tresmme and Dove were exceptions with higher discounts on Flipkart.
In terms of Share of Search, once again, Beardo was the most discoverable brand in this category. Brands like Dove, Pond’s, Swiss Beauty, and Tresemme saw a lower Share of Search on Flipkart compared to Amazon.
Navigating the Competitive Landscape: How To Thrive During Sale Events
Amazon and Flipkart’s strategic pricing during the Big Billion Days and the Great Indian Festival Sale reflects a balance of profitability, inventory, and competition. Competitive pricing insights empower retailers to make informed decisions, optimize strategies, and thrive during high-stakes sale events with timely and relevant insights at a massive scale.
To learn more about how you can leverage competitive pricing insights to stay ahead of the game during sale events, reach out to us today!
As the highly anticipated shopping season approached, industry analysts, including Deloitte, had forewarned consumer spending caution owing to persistent inflationary pressures tightening budgets. Despite these concerns, the holiday spirit was buoyed by sensational deals that delighted bargain-hunting shoppers.
According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), over 200 million consumers participated in both in-store and online shopping activities over the Thanksgiving weekend. This marked an almost 2% uptick from the previous year, surpassing the NRF’s initial estimates of 182 million and showcasing a robust start to the holiday shopping season.
So what was all the hype about this Black Friday and Cyber Monday? How did top retailers react to reports of possibly decreased consumer spending? At DataWeave, we harnessed the power of our proprietary data aggregation and analysis platform to track and analyze the prices and deals of products across prominent retailers and categories to uncover unique insights into their price competitiveness this BFCM, as well as understand how pricing strategies varied across diverse subcategories and brands.
In this article, we focus on the pricing and discounting strategies of Amazon, Walmart, and Target in the Apparel category.
Stay tuned to our blog for insights on other shopping categories like Home & Furniture, and Health & Beauty!
Our Methodology
For this analysis, we tracked the average discounts of apparel products among leading US retailers during the Thanksgiving weekend sale, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday. We noticed prices and discounts didn’t change significantly over the course of the weekend, and hence the average prices of products between the 24th and 27th of November are being reported. Our sample was chosen to encompass the top 500 ranked products in each product subcategory across during the sale.
Amazon offered the most attractive deals, showcasing an average discount of 19.5%, applying to a substantial 61% of their apparel inventory.
Trailing closely behind was Target, offering an average discount of 14.8% across 52% of the products analyzed. Walmart, however, took a more conservative approach, providing an average discount of 8.5%, applicable to 29% of its products.
The contrast in discounting strategies highlights the diverse tactics employed by retailers to entice Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers within the Apparel category. Amazon remains the forerunner, balancing competitive discounts with a significant coverage of discounted items.
Target follows suit with a competitive stance, while Walmart opts for a more reserved markdown approach, given that the retailer tends to carry a large number of products in the affordable price ranges.
Average Discounts: Subcategories
Examining the Black Friday and Cyber Monday discount landscape within the Apparel category reveals intriguing patterns among major retailers. Amazon led the charge, boasting an impressive 24.9% average discount on Women’s Tops, covering a substantial 76.5% of its products. In the same subcategory, Target competed fiercely with a 25.1% average discount, covering 87.5% of its products. Walmart, taking a measured approach, presented a 14.6% average discount across 45.1% of its Women’s Tops inventory.
Notably, Men’s Swimwear at Target has no discounts. Meanwhile, Amazon remained aggressive across various subcategories, particularly in Women’s Shoes and Women’s Tops, aiming to capture a significant market share through both competitive pricing and a broad coverage of discounted items.
Average Discounts: Brands
Across brands, Tommy Hilfiger and Jockey took the lead on Amazon with an enticing average discount of 28.3% and 24.6% respectively, appealing to savvy shoppers. Calvin Klein followed closely with a 17.3% discount, offering a balance of style and affordability.
In Walmart, Crocs stood out with a 39.9% average discount, followed by Reebok (15.7%) and Hanes (14.9%) Xhilaration, Target’s in-house brand, stole the spotlight on the retailer platform with an impressive 50% average discount. Reebok (32.3%) and Levi’s (22.9%) maintained competitive discounts, appealing to diverse tastes.
Our analysis sheds light on the dynamic landscape of apparel discounts, showcasing how brands adopt varying pricing strategies to position themselves competitively for Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers.
Share of Search For Apparel Brands Across Subcategories
The dynamics of Black Friday and Cyber Monday extend beyond price reductions, with brands strategically vying for increased visibility through Share of Search metrics. This metric signifies a brand’s prominence among the top 20 ranked products in a given subcategory, offering valuable insights into their online marketplace visibility.
Among the standout performers in the Apparel category, Jockey experienced a significant surge in Share of Search, leaping from 1.70% before the event to an impressive 13.30% during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. Speedo, in the Women’s Swimwear subcategory, demonstrated a substantial increase from 4.40% to 13.30%, solidifying its presence and gaining an 8.90% boost in Share of Search.
Tommy Hilfiger and Adidas also exhibited notable gains in Share of Search, increasing by 5.30% and 5.60%, respectively. However, some brands experienced a slight dip, with Speedo in the Men’s Swimwear subcategory seeing a 2.50% dip in their search visibility, and Reebok in Men’s Shoes witnessing a 3.3% decrease.
These fluctuations highlight the dynamic nature of brand strategies during Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the Apparel category, where gaining visibility also proves to be crucial alongside offering competitive discounts.
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For a deeper dive into the world of competitive pricing intelligence and to explore how our solutions can benefit apparel retailers and brands, reach out to us today!
Stay tuned to our blog for forthcoming analyses on pricing and discounting trends across a spectrum of shopping categories, as we continue to unravel the intricacies of consumer behavior and market dynamics.
As Black Friday and Cyber Monday unfolded across the globe, there was a noticeable subdued atmosphere compared to previous years. TD Cowen brokerage adjusted its forecast for US holiday spending, revising it down from an initial 4-5% growth to a more conservative estimate of 2-3%.
Compounded by persistent inflation and elevated interest rates, many consumers find themselves financially strained, leading to the projection of the slowest growth in US holiday spending in five years.
In this context, it would be relevant to investigate whether this restrained reaction from consumers had an influence on the extent of attractive deals and discounts provided by top retailers and brands during the sale event.
At DataWeave, we harnessed the power of our proprietary data aggregation and analysis platform to track and analyze the prices and deals of consumer electronics products across prominent retailers to uncover unique insights into their price competitiveness this BFCM, as well as understand how pricing strategies varied across diverse subcategories and brands.
Keep an eye on our blog for insights on other shopping categories like Apparel, Home & Furniture, and Health & Beauty!
Our Methodology
For this analysis, we tracked the average discounts among leading US electronics retailers during the Thanksgiving weekend sale, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday. We noticed prices and discounts didn’t change significantly over the course of the weekend, and hence the average prices of products between the 24th and 27th of November are being reported. Our sample was chosen to encompass the top 500 ranked products in each product subcategory across leading retailers during the sale.
Sample size: 23,505 SKUs
Retailers tracked: Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy
The observed Black Friday and Cyber Monday discount strategies reveal a distinct competitive landscape among major retailers. Amazon emerged as the frontrunner, offering the highest average discounts at 23.30%, spanning a significant 74% of their consumer electronics inventory. Best Buy closely followed, with an average discount of 19.40% across 76% of their products.
On the other hand, Target and Walmart adopted a more conservative stance, providing lower average discounts at 14.8% and 12%, respectively, with Target discounting 51% of its products and Walmart discounting 41%. This variation in discounting strategies highlights the diverse approaches retailers take to attract and retain Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers, balancing competitiveness with profit margins.
Average Discounts: Subcategories
In the Headphones subcategory, Amazon stands out with a substantial 31.40% average discount, targeting 84.69% of SKUs, showcasing an aggressive discounting strategy. Best Buy follows closely, demonstrating competitive pricing with a 21.80% average discount on 67.03% of products.
Meanwhile, in TVs, Best Buy offered a significant 17.9% average discount across 89% of its products, signaling a targeted effort to capture a broad market share in this subcategory.
In the Laptop subcategory, Target was highly conservative, with only a 4.1% average discount covering 14.3% of its products, while Walmart positioned itself with a moderate 9.5% average discount, targeting 39.8% of its inventory.
Among Smartphones, Amazon (14.7%) was third to Best Buy and Target, which offered average discounts of 20.5% and 18.1%, respectively. Walmart, with an average discount of only 9.9% in the subcategory opted for a relatively muted approach.
Average Discounts: Brands
The discount strategies across top electronics brands during Black Friday unveil distinct approaches. Samsung emerges as a focal point across Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, and Target. The brand was most attractively priced on Best Buy, with an average discount of 25.3%, followed by Target (18.3%) and Amazon (17.9%).
Apple’s discounts were quite consistent across Amazon (17.6%), Best Buy (16.1%), and Target (17.8%), with the exception of Walmart (8.1%). JBL, interestingly, opted to discount very heavily on Best Buy, at an average of 38.8%, resulting in several attractive deals for shoppers on the website. Sony, too, offered impressive discounts at over 23% on Amazon and Best Buy, followed by 16% on Walmart. On Amazon, Amazon Renewed (13.9%) was among the most aggressively discounted products, highlighting an effort to further appeal to cost-conscious consumers.
Overall, our analysis throws light on the nuanced strategies employed by leading brands on Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, and Target, reflecting a delicate interplay between brand positioning, pricing competitiveness, and customer appeal.
Share of Search For Consumer Electronics Brands Across Subcategories
The Share of Search data reflects intriguing shifts in brand strategies during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday events. During sale events, brands looking to entice shoppers don’t rely only on price but also on search visibility to help drive awareness and conversion. Share of Search is defined as the share of a brand’s products among the top 20 ranked products in a subcategory, thereby providing insight into a brand’s visibility on online marketplaces.
Some of the brands that improved their Share of Search the most include LG, Skullcandy, Asus, JBL, and Samsung. On the other hand, prominent brands like Sony and Apple actually lost ground on this metric by 0.4% and 2% respectively.
At DataWeave, our commitment to empowering retailers and brands with actionable competitive and digital shelf insights remains unwavering. Our AI-powered platform provides a comprehensive view of market dynamics for our customers, enabling informed decision-making. As a partner in your journey, we offer tailored solutions to enhance your competitive edge, drive sales, and elevate your brand presence. To find out more about our solution, reach out to us today!
To learn more about pricing and discounting trends during Black Friday and Cyber Monday across various other shopping categories, stay tuned to our blog!
Amazon reported a record-breaking Prime Day this July, marking it as the biggest sales event in the company’s history. So when the eCommerce giant announced the Prime Big Deal Days this fall, we were curious to find out how big a deal it really is.
The Prime Big Deal Days, similar in magnitude to the Summer Prime Day, promised to present substantial savings across a diverse range of categories, including electronics, toys, home, fashion, beauty, and Amazon products.
However, for a shopper, an important question is: Does the Prime Big Deal Days in October offer lower prices than Amazon’s mega Prime Day event in July?
To answer this question, we turned our data aggregation and analysis platform to focus on these two sale events and analyzed which event offered better deals across key categories and brands.
TL;DR: Surprisingly, the Prime Big Deal Days in October offered, on average, 2.02% higher discounts than its counterpart event in July.
Read on for details on how we went about our analysis and how discounts vary across categories, sub-categories, and brands.
Our Methodology
We tracked the prices and discounts of a large sample of products during both Prime Day events. The following are some relevant details about our sample:
Number of products analyzed: 1500+
Categories: Apparel, Consumer Electronics, Home & Furniture, Health & Beauty
Prime Day Sale Analysis: 11-12 July 2023
Prime Big Deal Days Analysis: 10-11 Oct 2023
Website: Amazon.com
Our analysis focused on the differences in the prices and discount levels of products between the two sale events.
Our Key Findings
The average discount during the Prime Big Deal Days in October was 29.44%, which was 2.02% higher than the average discount during the Prime Day sale in July (27.42%). Interestingly, the October event offered better deals across each product category analyzed, albeit at slightly varying levels.
By offering deeper discounts in October, Amazon may have aimed to encourage early holiday shopping, thereby capturing a larger share of the consumer wallet before competitors intensify their promotional activities closer to the festive season.
As other retailers and online marketplaces gear up for their own holiday promotional events, Amazon’s decision to provide heightened discounts in October could serve as a preemptive move to secure customer loyalty and drive sales momentum before the onset of the peak shopping period.
Additionally, Amazon’s strategic push to amplify the visibility of its diverse product offerings, including exclusive launches and partnerships during the October event might have contributed to the higher discounts.
Next, let’s take a closer look at each product category.
Apparel
During October’s Prime Big Deal Days, the Apparel category experienced a notable uptick, boasting a 2.29% increase in discounts compared to the earlier Prime Day event in July.
In the detailed assessment of Apparel sub-categories, Men’s and Women’s Swimwear, alongside Men’s Shoes, Innerwear, and Athleisure, emerged as the segments showcasing the most substantial average discounts during October. Fall also brought about more affordable prices for Women’s Innerwear and Men’s Shirts. However, Women’s Athleisure, Dresses, and Tops displayed diminished average discounts during this Prime Big Deal Days event.
Delving into brand-specific analyses revealed intriguing trends. Athleisure brands such as Ibkul, Esprlia, and Ryka notably escalated their discounts in October after minimal markdowns during the Summer Prime Day sale.
Steve Madden, witnessing heightened discounts in October, hinted at a growing demand for boots and footwear in the Autumn and Winter seasons. For instance, the Steve Madden Men’s Fenta Fashion Sneaker was priced at $46 during the Summer Prime Day, and only at $35 during the Prime Big Deal Days in October.
Conversely, brands like PGA Tour, Land’s End, Roxy, and Anrabess offered more substantial discounts during the Summer compared to the October event.
Consumer Electronics
The Consumer Electronics segment during October’s Prime Big Deal Days showcased an average price decrease of 1.98% compared to the Prime Day event in July.
Nearly all scrutinized subcategories experienced heightened discounts during the Fall Prime Big Deal Days in October. Tablets, Speakers, Drones, and Smartwatches notably presented higher discounts of 4.06%, 3.51%, 2.99%, and 2.69%, respectively, in October. However, more enticing deals were found on Earbuds and TVs during July’s event.
Examining consumer electronics brands, Google stood out by offering the most compelling deals in October, boasting an average discount of 23.35%, marking an 8.94% increase from the Summer Prime Days’ 14.41%. Psier, Sony, and OnePlus also featured significantly reduced prices during the Fall. For example, the OnePlus 10 Pro | 8GB+128GB was $500 during the sale in July and only $440 during the Prime Big Deal Days in October.
Conversely, prominent brands such as Bose, Sennheiser, Samsung, LG, and Asus opted to offer heavier discounts in July. Notably, the Samsung All-in-One Soundbar w/Dolby 5.1 was priced at $218 in October but only $168 in July.
Home & Furniture
During October’s Prime Big Deal Days, the Home & Furniture category experienced a notable 1.59% increase in average discounts compared to the Prime Day event held in July.
Notably, Entertainment Units, Rugs, and Coffee Tables emerged as standout sub-categories that were more attractively priced in October, exhibiting price differences of 7.73%, 5.33%, and 4.80%, respectively.
Interestingly, among the scrutinized sub-categories, only Luggage showed a lower price during the Prime Day sale in July compared to the October event. This shift likely reflects evolving consumer demand as the holiday season approaches, with items like rugs and entertainment units becoming increasingly sought-after categories for purchase.
If you’re keen to explore how these trends vary across brands within this category, reach out to us for more insights.
Health & Beauty
During October’s Prime Big Deal Days, the Health & Beauty category showcased products at an average of 1.99% lower prices compared to the Prime Day event held in July.
Our analysis of Health & Beauty reveals that a majority of the subcategories presented higher discounts during the October Big Deal Days event. Essential items such as Toothpaste, Sunscreen, and Electric Toothbrushes notably stood out as significantly more affordable during the Fall event, reflecting not only consistent demand but also a seasonal emphasis on these products. For instance, the Oral B iO Series 3 Limited Edition Electric Toothbrush, priced at $140 during the summer Prime Days, was further discounted to $120 in the fall event.
Interestingly, Beard Care emerged as an exception, displaying higher discounts during the Prime Day sale in Summer compared to Fall’s Prime Big Deal Days.
Examining brands within the category, Babyganics, Thinkbaby, and Vaseline showcased substantial increases in average additional discounts during October’s Prime Big Deal Days.
Conversely, prominent brands like Maybelline, Neutrogena, and Cetaphil offered lower discounts during the fall event.
Competitive Insights to Drive Optimized Sale Event Pricing
At DataWeave, we understand the pivotal role of competitive pricing insights in empowering retailers and brands to gain a competitive edge, especially during significant events like Prime Day. Our commitment lies in providing retailers with precise and extensive competitor price tracking on a large scale. This empowers them to devise impactful pricing strategies and consistently uphold a competitive stance in the market. To learn more about how this can be done, talk to us today!
Amazon’s Prime Day this year proved to be a record-breaking success, becoming the largest Prime Day event in the company’s history. Over the two-day extravaganza, shoppers in the US spent a staggering $12.7 billion, a 6.1% increase from the previous year. Amid inflationary pressures and supply chain disruptions, Amazon adopted a bold discounting strategy, offering steeper discounts compared to Prime Day 2022.
An interesting aspect of Amazon’s approach is their loyalty based offerings. In the weeks leading to Prime Day on July 11-12, members of the loyalty program were given access to “invite-only deals” where shoppers could request invites to specific products that they were looking to purchase on deals. Overall, Amazon’s pricing and discount strategies during Prime Day were carefully designed to create a buzz among shoppers, generate increased sales, and maintain a competitive advantage in the market.
While Prime Day is Amazon’s showstopper, it’s interesting to also see how other leading retailers respond to such a massive sale by their biggest competitor. Do they also lower their prices during the event, or are they happy to take a backseat? To answer these questions, we leveraged our proprietary data aggregation and analysis platform to analyze the prices and discounts of Amazon and its leading competitors across key product categories – Apparel, Home & Furniture, Consumer Electronics, and Health & Beauty – during Prime Day.
Since products on Amazon and other eCommerce websites are often sold at discounts even on normal days not linked to a sale event, we delved into the real value that Prime Day offers to shoppers by focusing on price reductions or additional discounts during the sale compared to the week before. As a result, our approach highlights the genuine benefits of the event for shoppers who count on lower prices during the sale.
Research & Methodology
For our analysis, we tracked the prices of a large number of products across several leading retailers during Prime Day as well as the week prior to the event. The details of our sample are mentioned below:
Number of SKUs: 110,000+
Websites: Amazon, Walmart, Target, Overstock, The Home Depot, Wayfair, Ulta Beauty, Sephora
Categories: Apparel, Home & Furniture, Electronics, Health & Beauty
Pre-event Analysis: 4-10 July 2023
Prime Day Analysis: 11-12 July 2023
Our Key Findings
Our data reveals that Amazon’s price reductions were most aggressive in the Consumer Electronics category, with an average price reduction of 10.4% on Prime Day, due to the category’s popularity and high demand.
The Health & Beauty (6.7%), Apparel (5.9%), and Home & Furniture (4.8%) categories offered relatively modest deals during the sale event.
Below, we delve deeper into our analysis of each category to better understand how price reductions were distributed across key subcategories on Amazon as well as the discounting strategies of Amazon’s leading competitors.
Apparel
As Amazon grappled with surplus inventory, heightened storage costs, and reduced profit margins in apparel (like most other retailers), its average discount before Prime Day was already as high as 13.3%. Then, on Prime Day, Amazon’s apparel deals were tempered at around 5.9% across an impressive 33.1% of its assortment, while Target and Walmart chose not to compete in a meaningful way.
Unlike Prime Day 2022, when Target competed with Amazon with high discounts, the retailer offered only 0.8% additional discount across 4.4% of its assortment in this category. Walmart, too, reduced its prices by only 1.4% on 8.5% of its assortment during Prime Day.
Across all the apparel subcategories we analyzed, Women’s Athleisure (8.7%), Men’s Swimwear (8%), and Women’s Tops (7.6%) were among the ones with the highest price reductions. On the other hand, Men’s Athleisure (2.5%), Women’s Shoes (3.5%), and Men’s Innerwear (4.1%) had conservative markdowns.
Pricing decisions across the various subcategories are likely to have been influenced by several factors like inventory levels, demand patterns, and the need to balance competitive offers with maintaining reasonable profit margins, as Amazon tried to cater to a more price-sensitive consumer.
Across all apparel subcategories, leading brands that offered the highest markdowns were Tommy Hilfiger (11.5%), Amazon Essentials (9.4%), Adidas (8.6%), and Calvin Klein (8.6%).
For brands, however, lowering prices is only one lever to attract and convert shoppers. They also need to ensure they’re highly visible and discoverable on Amazon’s search listings. This exponentially improves their chances of driving more clicks and conversions. In our analysis, we tracked the Share of Search of brands across several popular search keywords. Share of Search for a brand is defined as the proportion of the brand’s products in the top 20 search results for a search query.
Our data indicates that several brands gained impressive ground in their discoverability during Prime Day, while others fell behind. Gildan in Men’s Innerwear, Adidas in Men’s and Women’s Shoes, Anrabess in Women’s Athleisure, and Lululemon in Men’s Athleisure, among others, improved their Share of Search by significant levels during Prime Day.
On the other hand, brands like Hanes in Men’s and Women’s Innerwear, Kanu Surf in Men’s Swimwear, Cupshe in Women’s Swimwear, and others lost around 10% in their Share of Search during the event. This is likely to have impacted their sales volumes adversely.
Home & Furniture
The Home & Furniture industry has been challenged with reduced demand due to inflationary pressures over the past year or so. Leading retailers in the category overestimated the demand, leading to overstocking of inventory. As a result, Home & Furniture is one of the few categories that saw Amazon’s competitors participate at a significant level on Prime Day in order to ensure they don’t fall behind on liquidating their stock.
Amazon’s additional discounts averaged 4.8% across 30.2% of its assortment. Wayfair and Overstock too reduced their prices by 4.8% and 4.3% on around 44% of their respective assortments. Wayfair’s move is likely a part of their strategy to attract new customers and expand their market share, in response to a decline in their consumer base. Last year, Wayfair experienced a loss of 5 million out of its 1.3 billion consumers due to weakening demand.
Target and Walmart did offer additional discounts, but they were not at a competitive level. The Home Depot effectively opted not to compete at all during the sale event. Overall, the pricing actions of these retailers are in stark contrast to the highly conservative pricing strategies observed on Prime Day last year.
Our recent pricing analysis of the Home & Furniture category revealed more interesting insights and pricing dynamics over the past year.
Across all the subcategories we analyzed, Bookcases (8.2%), Rugs (7.8%), Mattresses (6.5%), and Luggage (6.2%) were among the ones with high price reductions.
Meanwhile, Sofas (2.4%), Washer / Dryers (2.4%), and Entertainment Units (2.7%) had lower markdowns. These are large and substantial purchases, making retailers more cautious about deeply discounting them while still ensuring profitability.
The brands that stepped up and offered the highest markdowns in this category include Zinus (20.2%), Comfee (10.8%), Sauder (9.9%), and Best Choice Products (8.7%).
In terms of Share of Search, Rockland in Luggage gained the highest (21%), followed by Farberware in Dishwasher, Olee Sleep in Mattresses, and Homeguave in Mattresses gained significant ground in their respective categories as shown in the image below.
Brands like Best Choice Products in Coffee Tables, Molblly in Mattresses, and Black+Decker in Washer/Dryers and Dishwashers lost a good portion of their Share of Search during the event. Due to high competition for visibility during sale events, brands that fail to keep an eye on their Share of Search stand to take a hit in their sales, especially in categories like Home & Furniture that tend to have low brand loyalty.
Consumer Electronics
2023 was the year of consumer electronics on Amazon Prime Day. Amazon’s price reduction during the sale averaged 10.4% across 54.5% of its assortment in the category. Target and Walmart, on the other hand, offered significantly lower additional discounts of 1.9% and 2.7% on 10.4% and 19.1% of their assortment, respectively.
The consumer electronics category often witnesses aggressive price reductions during Prime Day and other sale events due to its popularity and high demand. In addition, since retailer margins are usually low in this category, shoppers often have to wait for sale events like Prime Day (when brands markdown their wholesale rates) to have several attractive deals to choose from.
Across all the subcategories we analyzed, Smartwatches (15.4%), Wireless Headphones (15.4%), Earbuds (14.9%), Headphones (12.5%), and Tablets (12.0%), were among the ones with the highest price reductions. All of these subcategories are quite popular that tend to sell in large volumes during sale events.
Meanwhile, Laptops (2.1%), TVs (3.1%), and Smartphones (7.6%) had lower markdowns. A lower markdown on smartphones may reflect steady demand throughout the year, reducing the urgency to offer significant discounts during the short Prime Day window.
Amazon (22%), Tozo (12.5%), Lenovo (10.8%), JBL (8.3%), and Apple (5%) offered the highest price reductions in Consumer Electronics as a whole. Clearly, Amazon didn’t hold back on offering attractive deals on its own private label products in this category.
Consumer Electronics as a category tends to have a brand loyal shopper base. However, Share of Search generic search keywords are still very important for keywords like earbuds, headphones, and tablets that result in relatively lower priced products. HP in Laptops, Samsung in Tablets and TVs, and Oneplus in Smartphones all made strong strides in building their discoverability on Amazon during Prime Day. Beyond just driving more sales, this also has the intended effect of boosting brand awareness among high-intent shoppers.
Sony in Headphones, Asus in Laptops, and Insignia in TVs lost out to other brands in terms of their discoverability during the sale. Sony and Asus, especially would be hurting as they are prominent brands in their respective categories.
Health & Beauty
The Health & Beauty category is a favorite among consumers during Prime Day, as it encompasses a wide range of products like skincare, cosmetics, and grooming items. As shoppers often tend to stock up during the sale, brands and retailers are willing to offer competitive discounts and gain an edge over their competitors.
Our data reveals that the average additional discount on Amazon was 6.7%, offered on a little over a third of its assortment. Walmart reduced its prices sizably as well, by an average of 3.1% on 13.4% of its assortment.
Interestingly, Sephora and Ulta Beauty, leading retailers in the Health & Beauty category did not compete on price at all this Prime Day. It is likely they are confident their loyal customer base will not be influenced by Amazon’s Prime Day deals and be driven away merely by lower prices. In addition, keeping their prices steady during Prime Day might have been a strategic choice to protect their brand reputation and premium positioning.
Relatively premium subcategories like Electric Toothbrushes (10%), Moisturizer (8.3%), Beardcare (7.3%), and Make Up (6.7%) saw the highest price reductions on Amazon.
In contrast, staple items like Toothpaste (3.7%), Shampoos (5.4%), and Conditioners (5.7%) had lower markdowns.
Among the leading brands in this category, Oral-B (10.3%), Philips Sonicare (8.7%), Neutrogena (8.4%), and Colgate (5.6%) offered the most attractive deals during the sale event.
In terms of significant gains in Share of Search for brands, Oral-B in Electric Toothbrushes led the pack again. Neutrogena in Sunscreens and Somall in Toothpastes also gained more than 10% in their Share of Search during the sale event, followed by Tresemme in Shampoos and Airspun in Make-Up products.
Other popular brands like Crest in Toothpastes, e.l.f in Make-Up, Philips Sonicare in Electric Toothbrushes, and Sheamoisture in Beradcare surprisingly had reduced visibility among the top search results for relevant subcategories.
Staying Ahead of the Curve During Sale Events
This Prime Day, Amazon leveraged its scale to offer aggressive discounts across key product categories, while several competing retailers chose to sit back and let the sale play out. Others chose a selective discounting strategy that focused their modest price reductions on a small set of items.
At DataWeave, we understand the pivotal role competitive pricing insights play in empowering retailers and brands to gain a competitive edge, especially during crucial events like Prime Day. For retailers, the ability to track competitor prices accurately, at scale, in a timely manner is essential to plotting and acting on impactful pricing strategies and staying ahead of the curve.
Contrary to popular speculation of lukewarm online sales owing to the weak economy, high inflation, and stretched wallets, Black Friday this year recorded a whopping $9 billion in e-commerce sales. Despite the lull in online shopping across many retailers in the months preceding Thanksgiving and weakened consumer sentiment, US online merchants saw a sizable boost in sales during and after Thanksgiving, albeit at a slower growth of 2.3%, as reported by Adobe Analytics.
This article looks closely at the Black Friday data to understand which brands, retailers, and product categories were key players. Through DataWeave’s innovative Digital Shelf Analytics product, we deep dive into the availability, discount, and share-of-search data to deduce why some product categories and retailers fared better than others.
Who: Retailers and Brands that had the Highest Presence
Black Friday sales this year were driven by consumers grabbing the biggest and best deals to make the most of their already stretched wallets. Many shoppers opted for flexible payment schemes, and Buy Now Pay Later (BPNL) payments rose by 78% compared to the week before Thanksgiving. Surprisingly, Amazon, which was the most searched retailer during Black Friday last year, came only fourth this year, as reported by the Search Intelligence company, Captify.
According to Captify, Walmart was the most searched retailer for Black Friday deals, followed by Target, Kohls, and Amazon in that order. Amazon, however, has reported its biggest Thanksgiving sale this year, with independent retailers selling through Amazon seeing a total sales of $1 billion. With the economic slowdown and thin wallets looming large, discount rates greatly influenced consumer spending. Mobile shopping accounted for 55% of digital sales, 8.5% more than the previous year.
As told by Adobe, Electronics were the significant sales driver, reporting 221% higher sales than in October this year, with smart home items and audio equipment playing an important role with 271% and 230% higher sales. Toys ( popular purchases were Fortnite, Roblox, Bluey, Funko Pop!, and Disney Encanto) and exercise equipment also registered a substantial growth of 285% and 218%, respectively.
Other top-selling items included gaming consoles (Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 devices, games including FIFA 23, NBA 2k23, and Pokemon Scarlet & Violet), drones, Apple MacBooks, and Dyson products (airwrap and vacuum). Amazon’s most popular items were reported to be Apple Airpods, Nintendo Switches, Echo Dot smart speakers, and Fire TV sticks.
What: Top Selling Product Categories
Electronics, closely followed by home appliances (robotic vacuum cleaners), toys, and exercise equipment, were popular product categories in demand during Black Friday this year. Several retailers, including Amazon, Walmart, Target, Kohls, BestBuy, and Home Depot, offered lucrative pre-Black Friday discounts to trigger early sales kick-off.
Amazon carried an early discount of 50% on its Echo smart speaker, Target offered 30% off on Dyson vacuum cleaners, Walmart offered 25-35% off on Apple ipads and watches, and Kohls offered 51% off on the iRobot Roomba.
Amazon’s top ten best-selling products ranged from Amazon devices like Echo Dot speakers, Fire TV sticks, and Echo Show to Apple AirPods, Nintendo Switches, New Balance sneakers, Champion Apparel, and Burt’s Bees Lotions. The popular product categories were home, fashion, toys, beauty & health, and Amazon devices. Consumers heavily supported small businesses, contributing to $1 billion in sales. Top sellers from small businesses included card and board games.
Briefly correlating the discounts offered with the best-selling product categories, one can notice that the deals have largely influenced Black Friday sales this year. Popular categories are those that have had deep discounts, reflecting the consumer’s tendency to wait and grab the best deals.
How: Role of Digital Shelf Analytics – Key Performance Indicators
DataWeave’s Analysis Methodology
We have seen a summary of the Black Friday 2022 statistics – sales recorded, top-selling products, product categories, and retailers. Using DataWeave’s e-commerce analytics product, we track and study the variations in digital shelf KPIs across retailers before Thanksgiving and during Thanksgiving to understand how these influence sales.
Availability scores, discount rates, and share of search data are analyzed for top retailers in the US for key product categories. Data is tracked and analyzed across two time periods – before Thanksgiving (Nov 10 – Nov 21) and during Thanksgiving (Nov 21 – Nov 25).
Methodology
Retailers tracked: Amazon, Best Buy, Sephora, Target, Ulta, Walmart
Product Categories tracked: Electronics, Home Improvement, Beauty, Furniture
Digital Shelf KPIs tracked: Availability, Discount rates, Share of Search
Location: USA
Amazon maintained good availability across all product categories – Beauty ranks the highest.
Salient Insights
Amazon maintained good overall availability – an improvement of 3% over Prime day.
Beauty had the highest availability of 95%, with none and Lotion & Brushes reporting 97% and 95% availability, respectively. Shampoo reported the lowest availability at 92%
Home Improvement had the least availability at 87%, with dishwashers (68%) and washers and dryers (78%) having the lowest availability.
Unlike Furniture and Home Improvement, most categories maintained similar availability scores before and during Black Friday.
Furniture improved its availability during Black Friday by 4%, while Home Improvement reported a decrease in availability during Black Friday by 4%.
Electronics, which was a major sales driver, had an availability of > 90% across all sub-categories except for Television, which had a low availability of 70%
Tables and chairs registered 99% availability under Furniture
The above data indicates that Amazon ensured the high availability of utility products that consumers would buy even during a slow economy. Other retailers showed similar availability trends, with scores being similar prior to and during the event.
Discounts Drove Sales – Best Buy offered the Highest Discounts
Highlights
Best Buy offered the highest early Black Friday discount of 30%, followed by an additional 9% discount around Black Friday. Walmart followed next with 21% early discounts and an extra 4.5% discount during the event. Amazon came next with 17% early discounts and a 5% discount during Black Friday. Discount rates seem to strongly correlate with online searches, with Walmart beating Amazon this year as the most searched retailer for Black Friday deals.
Electronics was the most discounted category across Amazon, Best Buy, and Target, with an average discount of 21%. Walmart gave lower deals on electronics (12%). Electronics also had heavy early discounts of 12%, with most retailers giving an additional discount of 7-8% closer to Thanksgiving.
Best Buy offered early discounts of 10% and further upped their discounts by another 12% closer to Thanksgiving. Being the most discounted category, electronics was also a significant sales driver this Black Friday.
Amazon offered the highest discounts for Beauty products (18%), followed by Ulta at 10% and Walmart at 8%. Sephora and Target gave minimal discounts on beauty products (3%)
Best Buy gave the maximum discounts on Home Improvement products (16%), followed by Amazon at 14%. Walmart gave much lower discounts of 7% on Home Improvement products.
Furniture is another category with 12-13% discounts at both Amazon and Walmart.
Best Buy’s strategy this year has been to offer heavily discounted early deals to boost their sales.
Airpods and headphones were the most discounted item under Electronics, with Amazon and Target offering a whopping 27-29% discount. This clearly resulted in heavy sales of AirPods this Thanksgiving.
Best Buy and Target had good discounts on all electronic items, while Amazon gave heavier discounts on AirPods, headphones, and smartwatches.
Walmart did not offer hefty discounts on laptops and headphones, instead focused on Smartwatches, smartphones, and television.
In Home improvement, Best Buy offered the biggest discounts for refrigerators, washers and dryers, and dishwashers, while Amazon focussed more on Tools.
Walmart did not offer many discounts in this category.
Amazon topped the discount charts for maximum combined discounts for makeup and hair brushes on the day of the event.
All retailers offered better discounts for utility products like tables, chairs, and cots (~15-17%), while dressers and couches carried lower discounts (~6-10%).
Highlights
Different companies had different discount strategies based on price buckets.
Amazon gave heavier discounts in the lower price buckets (< 200$) and lower discounts for products priced higher than 200$.
Best Buy offered the heaviest early discounts of >25% on products priced under 20$ but provided a few additional discounts during the event. For products priced higher than 20$, Best Buy uniformly offered substantial early discounts as well as further discounts during the event.
On the other hand, Target focussed on mid and high-priced items, offering heavy early discounts of 16-18% on products priced higher than 100$ and early discounts of ~7% for middle and lower-priced items. For middle-priced products (40-100$), it offered heavier discounts of 10-12% during the event.
Walmart focussed on mid-priced products, offering the highest discounts (both early (~12%) and additional discounts (5%)). It offered the least discounts (~8-9%) on products priced higher than 200$.
Share of Search – Amazon is the only retailer with sponsored searches; Apple AirPods rule the roost.
Salient Insights
Amazon is the only retailer with sponsored searches, with HP, Lenovo laptops, and Apple AirPods occupying the highest share. This correlates with AirPods being one of the most sold products.
HP laptops had the highest share on Amazon pre-Event but gave the spot to Lenovo during Thanksgiving.
Tracphone and Motorola smartphones, Insignia Televisions, and JBL headphones had a good SoS on Amazon.
On Best Buy, HP and Dell laptops featured most in searches, with HP ruling the roost during the event. Lenovo had a small presence.
Samsung smartwatches, televisions, and Apple AirPods have a big chunk of the search at Best Buy.
On Target, pop sockets, smartphones, Apple smartwatches, headphones, and AirPods have the most prominent presence. Apple was the most featured brand in this segment.
Note: The share of search percentage reported here is the average score across all subcategories (makeup, lotion, shampoo, hair dryers and hair brushes) of Beauty.
Salient Insights
Amazon, Target, Sephora, and Ulta sold beauty products, with Amazon being the only retailer with sponsored products.
Ogx, bs-mall, conair, hywestger were popular brands on Amazon, with interest-based ads occupying a substantial part of the search results, especially in Lotions (~40-50%)
Tresemme, Scotch Brite, Revlon and Cerave were popular brands in Target
Dyson products (brushes and hair dryers) are featured at Ulta’s top of the search, followed by Pureology shampoos.
Sephora’s own collection of brushes featured prominently on their website both before and during the event, followed by Dyson and T3 brushes and hair dryers.
Note: The share of search percentage reported here is the average score across all subcategories (refrigerator, washers/dryers, dishwashers, tools and coolers) of Home Improvements.
Salient Insights
In Amazon, Frigidaire and RCA had the highest SoS amongst Refrigerators, and LG occupied the highest share among washers and dryers, Coleman in Coolers, Dewalt in Tools, and Comfee in Dishwashers, both before and during Black Friday.
In contrast, on Best Buy, Samsung had the highest share of SoS amongst Refrigerators, package deals were most prominent in washers and dryers, LG among dishwashers, ifixit in Tools, and Corsair in Coolers.
Note: The share of search percentage reported here is the average score across all subcategories (bed, chair, couch, dresser, and table) of Furniture.
Salient Insights
Interest-based ads occupied the highest SoS on Amazon for Beds.
Urban shop and Amazon basics were popular in Chairs, Lifestyle in Couches, WLive in Dressers both before and during the event.
Vasagle was more popular during the event than Furrion in Tables, though the reverse was true prior to the event.
Summary & Key Takeaways
Black Friday this year was a pleasant surprise to Brands and Retailers, reporting much larger sales than predicted. After experiencing a slump in sales in the months leading up to Thanksgiving, e-commerce vendors have a reason to be optimistic about their holiday season sales forecasts.
A record-breaking $9.2 Billion in online sales was reported by Adobe Analytics, a growth of 2.3 % compared to the previous year.
Mobile shopping accounted for 55% of digital sales, a rise of 8.5% compared to last year.
Retailers wooed customers through deep discounts (~30%) prior to Thanksgiving and around Black Friday. Heavily discounted items like Apple AirPods were the most popular.
Thanks to inflation and stretched wallets, consumers were willing to spend but waited to grab the best and biggest deals. Utility products had better sales.
With tough competition between retailers on who offers the best discounts, Amazon slid down to the fourth position, and Walmart was the most searched retailer.
DataWeave, through its Digital Shelf Analytics and Commerce Intelligence solutions, gleans useful insights from e-commerce data and breaks down trends during global shopping events like Prime Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday. If you are a brand or a retailer who would like to know more about our products and solutions, contact us at contact@dataweave.com.
Amazon India’s much-awaited annual two-day shopping event, Prime Day, kicked off with a bang on July 23rd & 24th this year & was one of the most successful Prime Day events yet! Amazon reported that more than 32,000 sellers saw their highest ever sales day during the event. Interestingly 70% of these sellers who received orders during Prime Day were based in Tier 2 cities in India, further validating how the post-pandemic eCommerce boom has spread across the country. Also, Indian exporters saw 50% business growth on Amazon on Prime Day as customers across markets like North America, Europe, Australia, and Japan continued to purchase Made In India products. It was a great 2 days for Indian sellers, but what about customers who were waiting in anticipation for the great deals typically offered on Prime Day? We dug into our data to take a look at the deals, discounts, and brands that shone bright on Prime Day in India.
Methodology
In addition to Amazon IN, we also tracked Flipkart on 23 & 24th July 2022, on Prime Day.
We looked at Additional Discounts offered on Prime Day: Additional Discount is the extra discount on an item during Prime Day when compared to the Pre-Prime Day price.
We also looked at Post Prime Day Discounts, which were the discounts offered after the 2-day event ended.
Amazon v/s Flipkart – who offered better discounts?
Prime Day discounts are legendary. And across the globe, during Prime Day retailers try and compete to see if they can offer better deals than Amazon. Forbes even published an article on the 36 Prime Day competitor sales that were way more enticing than what Amazon had to offer. In India, we wanted to see if Amazon’s homegrown rival Flipkart might give it a tough fight, so we tracked the volume of discounts across categories on both retailers.
Discounts on Amazon & Flipkart across categories
Out of the 4 categories we tracked, in spite of Prime Day, Amazon offered discounts higher than Flipkart in only 2 categories – Electronics & Beauty.
… while Flipkart offered higher discounts than Amazon in the Grocery & Fashion category. For groceries, Flipkart offered a 3.2% additional discount v/s 2.2% on Amazon. However, in the Fashion category, the difference was marginal – 8.1% on Amazon v/s 8.6% on Flipkart
Post-event, both Amazon & Flipkart went back to the original pre-event prices. This made it clear that Flipkart was tracking and making price changes based on their closest competitor. It’s what smart eCommerce businesses do to stay ahead in the race.
Interestingly, post-event, in the fashion category, not only did Amazon revert to the original pre-event price, they even increased prices by close to 2%.
Let’s take a look at discounts across 4 categories & the Brands that WON in each category.
From Electronics to Fashion, Beauty & Groceries, let’s deep dive into the data to see which products were highly discounted within each category and brands that sprinted ahead to win the race on Amazon on Prime Day 2022.
Amazon India released highlights from Prime Day and reported that Smartphones & Electronics were among the categories that saw the most success in terms of units sold.
From the 6 product categories we tracked within electronics, we saw the highest additional discounts on Smartwatches (13.4%), followed by Bluetooth headphones (10.5%)
TV, Smartphones, cameras, and laptops had an additional discount of between 3 – 5.5%
On Prime Day 2022, Amazon India reported that the top-selling consumer electronics brands were HP, Lenovo, Asus, and Boat to name a few. Our assumption is, these brands must’ve had a high Share of Search (SoS), which played a massive role in increasing sales, so we looked into our data to see which brands had the highest SoS against specific keywords related to electronics.
Brand Visibility against the Keywords
Our data aligned with what Amazon reported. HP had high sales, perhaps because they occupied the premium #1 spot in the laptop category with a 44% SoS! Simply put, this means of the 100 laptops that appeared on a page, against a search for the keyword laptop, 44 products were listed by HP! Consumers always gravitate towards buying products they can find with ease.
Lenovo had a 32% SoS for Laptops. Asus at 14%
The top selling smartphone brands reported by Amazon included OnePlus, Redmi, Samsung, Realme & iQOO – our data showed that 3 out of these 5 brands were in the top 5 listings on Prime Day! Redmi had a whopping 30% SoS against the keyword smartphone, Samsung at 15%, and iQOO at 5% – clear validation that a high SoS can positively impact sales.
BEAUTY & GROOMING
Now let’s look at discounts in the beauty & grooming category.
Discounts on Beauty Products on Prime Day
The highest additional discounts were given on shampoos (9.3%), followed by Lipsticks (6.6%)
Shaving kits for men were at an additional discount of 3.4%. Hair gel at 4.9% & Face Masks at 4.3%
In the beauty category, Amazon India reported that top-selling brands included Head & Shoulders, Dove, Biotique, L’Oreal, Sugar Cosmetics, and Mamaearth to name a few. Once again, we looked into our data to see the sort of brand visibility & SoS each of these brands had.
All the top-selling brand’s Amazon reported on we noticed appeared in the top 5 search results.
Head & Shoulders & Dove were the top 2 listings against the keyword Shampoo at 26% & 16% SoS respectively. Biotique came in at #5 with a 7% SoS
Bombay Shaving Company, Gillette, and Axe were the top grooming brands for men in the Shaving Kit category.
Lakme made a clean sweep with a 19% SoS against the keyword lipstick, which speaks volumes, considering the aggressive competition from D2C beauty brands in India today.
GROCERY
According to the New eCommerce in India report by consulting firm Redseer, grocery has been a major contributor to the growth of ecommerce in India & Amazon Fresh used Prime Day to grab a larger piece of that pie! As part of the Prime Day sale, Amazon Fresh also pushed discounts on groceries, as well as fruits and vegetables. We tracked products that fell into the “snack” category, and here’s what we saw.
Discounts on Snacks on Prime Day
Given changing lifestyles & healthy food fads, it was no surprise that we saw the highest additional discounts were given on Healthy Snacks (3.2%) & Diet Food (2.7%)
Chocolates and chips saw much lower additional discounts at 1.2% each.
Drinks were additionally discounted by 2.5% during Prime Day.
Cadbury had a 69% share of search against the keyword Chocolate, leaving some of its key competitors way behind. Amul had a 20% SoS, while Hershey’s was at just 4%.
According to an article in the Economic times, YogaBar tripled sales in FY22, which is why we were not surprised to see the brand at #1 when users were searching for “Healthy Snacks” during Prime Day. YogaBar products typically enjoy high visibility year-round, which clearly helped with brand awareness on Amazon & sales.
FASHION
Amazon reported that Men’s t-shirts and polos, denims, Kurtis, tops, and dresses for women, designer wear, and clothing for kids were some of the most-loved fashion categories on Prime Day. We looked into our data to see the trends that emerged.
Discounts on Fashion on Prime Day
From the categories we tracked, women’s handbags had the highest additional discount (11.8%), followed by watches (9.1%)
Sneakers & jeans had additional discounts in the ballpark of 7% and sunglasses at 4.4%
Some of the usual suspects made it to the top 5, but what really stood out for us were brands that popped up against the keyword Jeans. While Levi’s came in at #2 with an 11% SoS, 2 Private Label Amazon brands featured in the top 5! Symbol at 27% SoS and Inkast Denim at 9%
Against the keyword Handbag, Lavie had a massive lead at 38% v/s the #2 brand – Caprese, at 13%
Boat found a #2 spot against the keyword watches, racing way ahead of the age-old popular brand Fastrack at #5 with a 4% SoS.
Conclusion
Amazon Prime Day 2022 in India came to a successful close as shoppers across India discovered the joy of the 2 day celebration with the best deals, savings, new launches, and more. Prime members from 95% of pin codes in India made purchases, there were 1000’s of deals and 500+ new product launches from brand partners & sellers. Nearly 18% more sellers grossed sales over INR 1 crore, and close to 38% more sellers grossed sales of over 1 lakh vs Prime Day 2021. Local neighborhood shops that sell on Amazon witnessed 4x sales growth. And start-ups and brands under the Amazon Launchpad program witnessed a growth of 3x. All in all, a successful event for everyone involved!
