California Apparel News

Billions of dollars were spent on goods ranging from vacuums to card games during the sixth annual Amazon Prime Day, which ran Oct. 13–14.

The Seattle–based retail giant did not break out how much revenue it made during the pre-holiday shopping event. But the market-research group Digital Commerce 360 estimated that Amazon made more than $10.4 billion globally.

Amazon did break out numbers for sales made by independent, third-party retailers doing business on the Amazon platform. The small- to medium-sized businesses made sales totaling more than $3.5 billion during the event, which was an increase of more than 60 percent over the previous year, said Jeff Wilke, Amazon’s chief executive officer, worldwide consumer.

Amazon, considered one of the biggest retailers in the world, said that it designed the recent Prime Day to help support small businesses. During the event, Amazon produced a promotion that helped drive $900 million in sales to small businesses in the two weeks leading up to Prime Day, according to Wilke. He forecasted that it would help drive holiday business.

“We look forward to providing more opportunities for our selling partners to grow and customers to save throughout the holiday season,” he said. The holiday business season seemed to start immediately after Prime Day. On Oct. 16, Amazon released a statement that it had unveiled a series of Black Friday–style deals on its website, www.amazon.com/holidaydash. Deals include 30 percent discounts on select kids’ clothing made by Amazon-owned brands and 40 percent on select apparel from Calvin Klein.