Amazon's Made-Up Prime Day Holiday Has Worked Out Just Fine

eCommerce
Written By Rick Watson

Perhaps this should give other retailers courage to make up their own holidays. The very middle of summer is usually a slow online retail time. After Father's Day & Graduations, and before Back to School.

There is absolutely no particular reason to buy, other than the stuff is there. And (kind of) on sale.

10 Prime Days ago, as part of Amazon's 20th anniversary, Jeff Bezos was looking for something to reward Prime Members, and attract new subscribers.

And attract it has. In 2015, Amazon had 50 million members. Now?

Something closer to 170 million members. Quite a run.

Speaking of, what was your first Amazon purchase ever? Mine was July 21, 1999 - a technical book XML IE5. My how the world has changed! Amazon has not. In fact, Amazon seems more consistently run over the years than many things in life....

Speaking of consistency -- It's funny how people can say eBay's user interface has not changed in 25 years as a bad thing, and say the same thing about Amazon as a good thing.

Of course Amazon's user interface has evolved significantly and seems to add new widgets each month sometimes, but that is different than real change. The basic function has remained largely the same.

Long live consistency of purpose in customer experiences.

Rick Watson

Rick Watson founded RMW Commerce Consulting after spending 20+ years as a technology entrepreneur and operator exclusively in the eCommerce industry with companies like ChannelAdvisor, BarnesandNoble.com, Merchantry, and Pitney Bowes.

Watson’s work today is centered on supporting investors and management teams incubating and growing direct-to-consumer businesses. Most recently, in partnership with WHP Global, Rick was a critical resource in architecting the WHP+ platform, a new turnkey direct to consumer digital e-commerce platform that powers AnneKlein.com and JosephAbboud.com.

Watson also hosts a weekly podcast, Watson Weekly, where he shares an unbiased, unfiltered expert take on the retail sector’s biggest players.

In the past year alone, Rick has spoken at many in-person and virtual events as well as podcasts on topics ranging from retail/ecom to supply chain/logistics and even digital grocery including CommerceNext IRL, ASCM Connect, and Retail Innovation Conference.

https://www.rmwcommerce.com/
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