Prime Day Early Access Sale Revealed 4 Truths About the 2022 Holiday Shopping Season

There was a time not long ago when Christmas décor before Halloween—or even Thanksgiving—made many consumers balk. But following the upheaval of the last two years, it’s fair to say shoppers are increasingly comfortable seeing Santa and the Mensch on a Bench alongside pumpkins. Retailers, of course, are more than happy to oblige. Take Amazon, for example, which just wrapped its second Prime Day of 2022—technically called the Prime Day Early Access Sale. In a statement, Doug Herrington, CEO of Amazon Worldwide Stores, called the event “a great kickoff to the holidays.” As usual, best-selling items included Amazon devices (and Crest 3D Whitestrips). But the sales event also gave some real-world insight into what we can expect in the remainder of Q4. Infographic: How People Want to Shop This Holiday Season Shopping predates Halloween now For starters, predictions about earlier spend and an elongated season were right on the money. Analysis from research firm Gartner shows more than 20% of consumers start their holiday shopping in October now, while 16% shop year-round. Melissa Burdick, president of ecommerce platform Pacvue, noted Amazon successfully pulled demand forward from Cyber Week in 2020, when Prime Day was delayed because of the pandemic. According to Pacvue data, impressions for Black Friday and Cyber Monday were 40% lower—and sales were 30% lower—than Prime Day that year. As a result, she expects similar behavior in 2022. What’s more, Salesforce found copycat sales from other retailers resulted in a “halo effect” the weekend before Prime Day 2. From Oct. 6-9, Salesforce data shows online sales outside of Amazon in the U.S. grew by 10% (although they were “essentially flat” during the event). In the first 36 hours of Prime Day 2, Criteo analyzed shopping habits outside of Amazon and “did not observe an uptick in the number of products sold across retailers, who historically capitalize on Amazon’s Prime Day with their own deals.” This illustrates the holiday shopping season is much more drawn out as consumers seek the best deals and “retailers can no longer rely solely on blockbuster events to drive results,” according to Megan Clarken, CEO of media platform Criteo. Inflation is the new logistics Inflation has officially replaced the supply chain as the biggest holiday shopping storyline of 2022. Gartner found inflation is the top concern among consumers this holiday season, with nearly 30% planning to spend less as a result. Burdick, too, anticipates inflationary pressure will drive consumers to shop earlier. Big discounts—and prices In a bit of a good news, bad news scenario, discounts are up, as Adobe predicted. In fact, Salesforce found the average discount was more than 21% during the Prime Day event, which it noted was the deepest discount outside of Cyber Week that we’ve seen since the beginning of the pandemic. Nevertheless, consumers are still paying more than they did in prior years. Per Salesforce data, the average selling price during Prime Day 2 was up 8% compared to 2021 and 17% versus 2020. As a result, shoppers bought 5% fewer items compared to the same two-day period in 2021 and 8% less versus 2020. Following Eye-Popping Growth, Gale Gives Employees $600 Monthly Stipends to Offset Inflation Too much stuff Finally, inventory surplus will continue to be a prominent theme in retail through the end of the year. Burdick noted the Amazon sale was a good opportunity to clear overstock and help with warehouse optimization prior to Black Friday. Similarly, Brad Jashinsky, director analyst at Gartner, said October sales help Amazon and other retailers see which deals work (or don’t) so they can further optimize inventory and deals before Cyber Week. “That's going to help them have a lot of insights and maybe change their inventory mix a little bit for the November timeframe," he added, "[or] the type of deals that they're offering for Black Friday, Cyber Monday and into the December holiday shopping period."