Small Businesses See Biggest Win in History During Amazon Prime Day 2021 This year's Prime Day was the highest-grossing iteration of the annual event for third-party sellers.
By Emily Rella Edited by Amanda Breen
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To the surprise of probably no one, Amazon's (AMZN) annual Prime Day was a huge success in terms of sales and revenue.
But this year, the big winner wasn't just the online retail giant itself — it was the small and medium-sized businesses that sell their products through the site.
The retail behemoth reported that this year's Prime Day was the highest-grossing iteration of the annual event for third-party sellers, making over $1.9 billion across 70 million small-business goods during Amazon's two-week Spend $10, Get $10 promotion leading up to the big two days.
This is an impressive 100% increase from the same promotion during last year's Prime Day, which ran back in October of 2020.
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"A huge thank you to all of the Amazon teams who made this Prime Day possible for members worldwide and to Prime members who supported small businesses in big ways," CEO of Worldwide Consumer at Amazon, Dave Clark, said in a statement. "Prime members are an important part of our Amazon family, and we love to celebrate them during Prime Day with incredible deals and entertainment, including this year's Prime Day Show."
Amazon reported that over 250 million items were purchased during the "holiday" across 20 different countries.
Bestsellers for Prime Day were spread amongst different categories, including electronics like iRobot Roomba 692 Robot Vacuum and the Kerurig K-Slim Coffee Maker, health and wellness with the Apple Cider Vinegar Gummy Vitamins by Goli Nutrition and beauty with the Crest 3D White Professional Effects Whitestrips.
It's estimated that the retail giant hit a whopping $11.19 billion in sales over the course of the two-day period.
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Prime Day began in 2015 on the retailer's 20th anniversary and quickly became a widespread, annual phenomenon with can't-miss discounts and promotions that cover all categories on the site, with the primary objective to attract and retain new Prime members.
Last year, the summertime holiday was pushed back to the fall because of coronavirus pandemic-related supply-chain shortages and a shift in consumer shopping behavior.
It's become such a big digital event that other discount and chain retailers (think Walmart, Target, Best Buy) will run competing deals in an effort to piggyback off Prime Day's success.
Amazon is up an impressive 25.21% year over year, presumably due to the pandemic winding down and many returning to old shopping priorities instead of doubling down on essential and household items.
