Amazon India saw 2X jump in Prime members during the two-days shopping fest

Amazon’s yearly festival Prime Day has achieved a new landmark during the 48-hour sale in India started on August 6. The e-commerce giant has recorded a 2X jump in Prime membership subscriptions throughout the shopping festival compared to last year.

According to Amazon, more than 65% of new members were from outside top 10 cities and over 97% pin codes of India shopped across multiple categories during the sale. The firm also saw over one million Prime members bought from small businesses in the 14-day lead up to Prime Day.

This year, more than four out of five Prime members engaged with at least one of the categories -- shopping, prime video, prime music, prime reading and gaming.

Overall, Amazon Prime in India has 10 million users. According to consultancy firm RedSeer, only 40% of loyalty program users pay for their membership while others are members because of bundled subscriptions. The report also revealed that 30% of its users buy Prime for videos instead of e-commerce shopping. 

Globally, Amazon Prime had crossed 150 million paid subscribers in February this year.

“We are humbled that we were able to help as this was our biggest Prime Day ever for small businesses – nearly 1 Lakh SMB sellers (70% from small towns) received orders from across 97% of India’s pin-codes; Karigar artisans, Saheli women sellers, Launchpad entrepreneurs, and Local Shops enjoyed their highest ever day of sales,” said Amit Agarwal, SVP and Country Manager, Amazon India.

Factoring in the ongoing global pandemic, Amazon chose India as the first market for Prime Day this year.

Looking at the Prime Day numbers, it seems that Covid-19 outbreak has not been able to hamper online shopping totally. The restriction in buying non-essential items, especially electronics, during the lockdown has also led to a spurt in the number of orders in the category during the sale. For example, personal computing, large appliances, kitchen, smartphones, apparel and pantry categories were among those that saw the most success in terms of units sold.

A separate report by TOI claimed that Amazon has clocked over $600 million GMV in two days of Prime Day, which is more than its flagship sale in Diwali in terms of per day sale. It’s worth noting that Amazon runs a five-day sale during Diwali.