Amazon October Prime Day vs Amazon Prime Big Deal Days: A lesson in bad marketing?

Did Amazon do itself a disservice by not going for Amazon October Prime Day?

Opinion By Desire Athow published 3 October 2024

What do you do when you are the biggest online retailer in the world, the owner of the largest ecommerce platform ever built, and you already have a successful franchise that you want to replicate? How about going for a radically different franchise that is likely to confuse the hell out of your audience of hundreds of millions?

That’s exactly what Amazon did with its Amazon Prime Big Deal Days (which starts on October 8). Amazon Prime Day is a well-established, perfectly functional event that has been going for almost a decade (it launched on Amazon’s 20th anniversary in 2015).

The introduction back in October 2022, of Big Deal Days (which some also call Big Deals Day), was viewed by many as a cynical-but-pragmatic move from the retailer to suck some of the air out of the Black Friday/Cyber Monday - which takes place six weeks later.

The peak trading period, as it turned out, has become more and more congested with hundreds of other retailers crowding the online landscape. Compelling buyers to spend their hard-earned cache before Black Friday means that rivals like Walmart or Best Buy would have less to contend with.

Ironically, Amazon was the pioneer that kickstarted the whole online BF/CM bonanza, with other retailers jumping on that bandwagon over the years once it became obvious how lucrative that venture could become.

October Prime Day or Big Day Deals?

The internet has spoken, loud and clear. October Prime Day (OPD) is by far the preferred way to refer to Big Day Deals (BDD), according to Google Trends. In 2023 worldwide, OPD gathered nearly 60% more search volume compared to the other search query, during the Big Day Deals week and Google predicts that this will get worse in 2024.

What is even more interesting is that in the US, the biggest territory for Amazon, the gap between the two is even higher, with search volume OPD almost twice as high as BDD in 2023. 2024 is set to be even more lopsided with Google Trends expecting OPD to be three times more popular than its counterpart.

The same trend happens on YouTube, another Google property that has become a popular battleground for all things Prime Day (October or July); Big Deal Days still lags its unofficial moniker by a country mile and there’s nothing Amazon can seemingly do to reverse the trend.

A changing landscape

The first day of Prime Day in July 2023 was Amazon’s single biggest sales day in its history. There was no such announcement in 2024, which may hint at a slowing down of the global economy. With more than 200 million paid Prime subscribers, Amazon is a bit of a bellwether for economists.

Dropping the Big Deal Days label for just October Prime Day may help boost sales by simplifying the messaging across Amazon’s sprawling marketing ecosystem. This could help reduce the current confusion across its millions of customers while strengthening the overall Prime Day brand. I wouldn’t discount a third such annual event in a near future. Rinse and repeat.

Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter

Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed!

Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors