Are you excited about the Amazon Prime Festival sale? If you think all those ‘lightening deals’ that will get still lighter, as an inducement for you to empty your wallets, then you are not alone, as this is what a PricewaterHouseCoopers (PwC) survey of 1,100 customers found.

52 percent of shoppers will wait for prime deals at this time of the year.

55 percent shop around for deals with other sellers.

40 percent were fine with impulsive purchases, if the price was right but even then they wouldn’t do this without comparing prices. Hence, they might shift from branded merchandise to buying something from Amazon Fashion or Amazon’s in-house label.

More than 60 percent are Prime members for the discounts in the first place.

68 percent are looking to browse only.

62 percent stated that one-day shipping had no influence on buying decisions.

39 percent are looking to buy more this year than last year.

59 percent will shop for themselves and others.

Amazon Prime has made its open-to-all-sale days attractive by not imposing any membership bar and also retailers play right along by giving deep discounts, sometimes in advance of the sale period. That’s because, abroad, all retailers see spikes during this period and they are all looking for a huge chunk of our money to come their way. Amazon sees a 45 percent spike in sales, Costco sees a 27 percent increase, Apple sees a 22 percent hike and Best Buy sees 13 percent pick-up in sales.

What about the age of the shoppers?

The shopper’s demographic profile is younger too. Around 73 percent of the 18-24 age group stated that prime day deals were an important deciding factor for them, and 40 percent of them said they will shop more compared to 28 percent of customers aged 53 and above.

So while many people may shop for routine stuff like groceries, cleaning products and pet food, quite a few of them are looking for deals in electronics (56 percent), beauty care products (39 percent), footwear (46 percent), and books, music and movies (37 percent). More of the younger shoppers have also shown interest in signing up for prime deals watchlists (42 percent) compared to 35 percent of older shoppers. But 49 percent of the older lot plan to do their research more thoroughly than 40 percent of the younger people.

Some people plan to stay away and their reasons are many, and none of them is really about saving money! It ranges from shopping locally, to having a baby, to being busy, to being broke and about last year’s deals not being very exciting, so they do not want to bother about it this year.

Manali Rohinesh is a freelance writer who explores financial and non-financial subjects that pique her interest.

First Published:Oct 2, 2019 12:59 PM IST