Welcome back to closing bell here on cheddar news.
Now, Amazon Prime Day is here for both today
and tomorrow and online shoppers are checking out the deals
, but when it seems like every retailer is having
a sale all the time does prime day still matter
well for more on prime day and what it all
means. We bring in news reporter, Michelle,
castello and Michelle. Why is amazon Prime Day so
important for the company? Well, you know,
amazon prime has, amazon in general has been seeing
a little bit of a scale back. If you
remember last quarter, let's do a little flashback there
. They didn't do quite as good as analysts expected
, especially in the retail sales. People are warning
about this upcoming recession and also on top of that
, even advertising sales, which isn't their biggest sector
is being scaled back. A lot of brands aren't
committing to as much ad dollars, which is bad
news because they think that consumers aren't going to spend
as long as much. This is a sign to
investors that amazon is still, that retail juggernaut that
we expect. But if you look at the data
, Um, according to retail, me not,
they're expecting each average consumer to spend about$388 this
year. That doesn't sound too shabby on prime day
products, but when you compare it to last year
of$595, you do realize that there are some
other effects in place. People are being a little
bit more budget conscious and also I think that there's
just a lot more options out there. So Amazon
just really needs us to show that they are still
good when it comes to people buying online and that
people still want to shop. So the big question
is are there any big deals that you sniped that
you found? Well, you know, I took
a look at some of the deals um and kind
of like some of the popular trends and I did
find it fascinating that one of the deals that was
still actually available as of I think a few minutes
ago but completely sold out is the air fryer,
which I think is this year's instapot, everyone's talking
about their prior, I just picked out some deals
were all watching tv at home more. So this
JBL sound bar if you, especially if you want
to increase that at home experience with so much more
streaming content out and definitely in production. Um This
desk under desk elliptical is also a huge savings.
I thought it was a good deal, especially because
we're all trying to get into fitness whether or not
you decide to cancel that gym membership, realizing you
can work out at home during the pandemic or if
you want to just, you know, have that
work office also at home gym at the same time
. Um we all adopt a lot of pets during
the pandemic. So I definitely am a fan of
this embarked on a dog test kit. I've done
it on my dogs before the pandemic. So I
thought that was really interesting and of course, um
, you know, there's a lot of random deals
, but I think that's what we say a lot
about amazon prime. There are some tech deals,
of course you have the airpods that they've met.
We guys have highlighted before a lot of the amazon
Echo products, but it is a lot of random
stuff, isn't it ken? Like usually like,
like wifi extenders and then lightning cords that are 10
ft long and like little knickknacks and things. But
it looks like you've pulled up some good stuff.
I mean we have google pixel pixel six pro for
6 99. The Airpods Pro, like you mentioned
100 and$70 and then a Sony, a seven
to camera,$898 and it comes with a lens
which is actually fantastic. You know, they call
this black friday in july. But the question I
have really is are people willing to shop and buy
these products at this time, especially as people are
a little bit more budget conscious. And do we
actually need a new tv when there's no real big
event that's gonna happen like a super bowl, which
is still a year away or any big sporting event
. So it does seem a little random to have
it in july but again, amazon needs that point
that they are still a big retail juggernaut and also
that people are still shopping at this time. So
, so, another question I have is there's a
lot of other retailers having a sale kind of to
compete with amazon. So how does that dilute perhaps
amazon's Prime Day? Well, you know, this
is really an interesting point because everyone, I think
what we're seeing in general is that everyone is having
sales whenever they want to. It's no longer this
thing where we really look for sales around holiday points
, even amazon frequently puts things on sale, even
when it is outside of prime Day. So we're
seeing one notable person who's one notable company, who's
not doing their sales this year, of course is
walmart, but you have target, you have coals
, you even have companies like Nordstrom, which is
supposed to have their half yearly annual sale on july
15th. They actually started that early for North Nordstrom
club members. So everyone's getting in on this spirit
of buying things. In fact, according to retail
. Me not, They are expecting at least when
it comes to clothing that people are going to spend
$155 on other retailers outside of Amazon prime and people
are going to spend about$233 on clothing. So
think about it. One half of what they're spending
a little bit more than a half of what they're
planning on spending around clothing is going to go to
other parties now, this might be a difficult question
to ask, but we mentioned a recession all the
time on the show. So our shoppers expected to
shop this year? Well, that's the big question
. They are expecting an increase in overall sales.
I think uh, analysts are expecting it to come
in at 11.19 billion. That's a little bit of
an uptick from last year, meaning that more people
are going to shop. But as I mentioned earlier
, the stats from retail, me not the fact
that people are only gonna spend$388 on average,
compared to$595 does show that people are a little
bit more conscious about their amazon prime budgets. However
, I do think it is being spread out across
more companies. We did see this with black friday
with also um, thanksgiving sales that people are no
longer just shopping on that one day. Their shopping
across multiple days. So we're gonna have to wait
and see. But I think it's gonna be a
really key indicator of where our economy is on how
much we actually shopped in this period. So what
do you think about the frequency of deals changing every
day at least for these two days? Do you
think that tomorrow will be much different? I don't
think so. And you know, as someone who's
covered amazon prime day for quite some time. I
agree with you. It's a bunch of random items
. Um Sometimes if it fits your, what you're
thinking, I think the best stuff is kind of
finding like things that were trending on Tiktok, like
that air fryer. That is why you definitely see
those things sell out right away or those DNA tests
, which a lot of people do on Social media
as well. I think that you'll see a lot
of these things sell out even though they're not as
, I mean like a$72 is nothing to shake
your tail at. But the idea really being is
that I don't think we're really seeing this need to
shop like you have a holiday, like a black
friday because you just see so many deals across the
online sphere and that's happening because they're noticing that people
are definitely scaling back what they're spending their definitely a
little bit more budget conscious. So they're putting more
deals out just to keep people remind to remind people
that you can always shop online. So what are
some deals that you actually purchase? Did you purchase
anything today? I got to know. So I'm
on a shopping diet. Right, okay. I
love that. I don't want my wife to hear
that. But what is what's the shopping diet?
I can't because I've been shopping so much that I
can't shop, but I am, I am definitely
on things like posh mark. So I think there's
also a big resurgence of people looking for items that
are used. I I go to crossroads, I
go to Buffalo exchange. So I think a lot
of people are looking at cheaper options. That might
not necessarily be a brand new thing. Even though
you're seeing big deals. I also do think that
because there are so many sales, you're just frequently
testing things. I definitely get alerts on my phone
when things go on sale and people are just also
like definitely scaling back, doing the shopping diets deciding
, hey, I'm not going to buy something at
this time. I might hold off. You know
, I think people are a little concerned about the
economy. They just want to make sure that they
have that extra cash. Yeah, I think so
too. I think the only thing I got was
a wireless vacuum and that was, it was 100
and$25 because I'm tired of wrestling with the cord
. There's nothing, there's nothing negative against a wireless
vacuum. I have a huge fan of my Dyson
, so oh, there you go. Alright,
cheddar news, senior reporter. Michele Castelli. Oh
, not shopping as much as likely you