Amazon Prime Day is a shopping event held annually for Amazon Prime members. For ecommerce businesses, it is one of the biggest events of the year to drive revenue for their businesses. Amazon has an estimated 167 million Prime members in the US alone, making up 71% of users. In 2023, Prime Day shoppers spent 12.9 billion, making it the biggest single sales day in Amazon’s history. 

Prime Day is – both literally and figuratively – a big deal, so it’s best for Amazon sellers to be well prepared.

Why Prime Day matters for ecommerce businesses

Metrics provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) suggest Amazon’s website handled 15.35 trillion requests and 764 petabytes of data during each day of Prime deals. Shoppers made over 500 million HTTP requests per minute on Amazon’s website, and Amazon’s Simple Queue Service (SQS) servers processed 86 million messages per second. 

HTTP requests are sent between the shopper’s browser and Amazon’s server. Clicking a link, opening a new page, or viewing an image all generate HTTP requests. If each user makes 10 HTTP requests per minute, and Amazon processes 500 million of those, there are 50 million users every minute, or 3 billion users in an hour. Estimating just 10 minutes of Prime Day browsing per user means Amazon has 300 million users all shopping at once, with backend systems able to handle the traffic load.

To put the AWS results into perspective: if Amazon Prime Day were a mall, it would host the entire population of Tokyo before opening its doors to New York City and all of Spain. Shoppers at the Prime Day market browse 24/7 and never wait in line, so later that day this imaginary Prime Day megamall might welcome the entire population of China, and also Brazil. 

How ecommerce businesses prep for Prime Day deals

50 million users per minute is a lineup that would stretch from one end of the United States to the other multiple times. A brick and mortar business expecting even a fraction of this foot traffic would make massive preparations beforehand, and for ecommerce businesses this is also true. Prime Day brings in a mega-wave of ecommerce shopping traffic – so here are a few steps ecommerce businesses can take to prepare:

How ecommerce prepares for Prime Day: Optimizing Listings and Applying for Prime Day Deals

Under the Advertising Manager menu on Amazon Seller Central, sellers can add products to Prime Day Deals. To qualify, the product must be Prime eligible, brand new, and have a customer rating of over 3 stars. For Prime eligibility, sellers need to opt in to the Fulfilled By Amazon (FBA) shipping. 

With FBA shipping, sellers deliver products directly to Amazon’s warehouses and Amazon delivers the products to the customer. This means inventory must be delivered to Amazon’s warehouse in preparation of the deal. The application period for Prime Day deals in 2024 ended on May 4, and sellers now have until June 20 to get inventory delivered before the sale.

For sellers thinking more along the lines of Prime Day 2025, this is also a chance to budget for the deal day. Purchasing inventory up front can lead to 20% more sales volume and 40% more revenue. It’s possible for sales results to be supercharged on Prime Day, especially with planning and attention to detail. Optimizing listings in advance ensures both eligibility (via a three star rating and a successful application) and readiness for the waves of shoppers looking for a deal.

How ecommerce prepares for Prime Day: Restocking Inventory

In some cases, a small discount on the price of the product can lead to a 10x multiple in sales and many sellers move 3-5 times as many units on Prime Day, thanks to a Prime Day badge advertising the ‘limited time deal.’ Amazon’s Prime Day is usually run in July, but deal and shipment deadlines can be a month or two before – which means sellers need to think well in advance in order to take full advantage of a deal. 

Communicating these timelines and maintaining a good relationship with suppliers, such as by paying vendor invoices in advance, can create a time cushion for getting your inventory to the warehouse before the deadline. Previous sales results, discount amount for each deal, and investment in advertising can all contribute to how many units will sell on Prime Day. Use these factors to estimate sales and order inventory accordingly in order to make the sale.

How ecommerce prepares for Prime Day: Creating a Marketing Plan

Ecommerce businesses can learn plenty from existing sales to create a marketing plan for Prime Day. Monitor traffic coming into the web page or Amazon store, especially any search keywords, product lines, or trends amongst shoppers. What were the most clicked phrases or items last Prime Day? What about Amazon ads or deals? Pull the same results (or estimations) of similar products or competitors, if this information is relevant. Consider investing in digital advertising on platforms outside of Amazon, such as Google and Meta, as well. 

Amazon’s Seller Central also allows sellers to bulk edit the advertising budget, so it may be worthwhile to tweak ad spend prior to Prime Day or invest more budget into items showing promising sales. Amazon’s seller guide for 2023 suggests making these tweaks in advance of Prime Day, and letting the deals themselves drive sales. For ecommerce brands, having a sponsored brand campaign leading up to the event can create all the buzz necessary for great sales. 

Get ready for Prime Day 2024

Whether Amazon sales represent the bulk of an ecommerce business or exist as only a small part of sales, Prime Day is a very big deal. Waves of shoppers will be browsing Amazon looking for a sale, and it’s up to ecommerce brands to rise to the occasion for another year!