The unintentional winners of Amazon Prime Day: Amazon’s competitors

Peter Foley | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Jeff Bezos, chief executive officer of Amazon.com Inc.

Amazon Prime Day lures shoppers to its website with the promise of great deals on everything from tech gadgets to Whole Foods items. But the potential of finding a bargain online is also creating a marketing boost for Amazon’s competitors, including eBay, Walmart, and Best Buy.

Sales on Prime Day, which kicks off on Monday at 3PM, are expected to reach $3.4 billion globally this year, according to Coresight Research. During the week leading up to this year’s event, searches for Amazon were up 544 percent over the previous week according to search marketing company Captify.

But other online retailers are also seeing the benefits. Searches for Best Buy during the same period were up a whipping 712 percent. Walmart during the same time period increased 143 percent, while eBay saw a slight 27 percent bump. Many competitors plan to offer their own exclusive discounts during Amazon’s event, including eBay, Target, Kohl’s and Macy’s.

“We can see the halo effect Amazon Prime Day has on the retail industry at large,” said Dominic Joseph, Captify co-founder and CEO. “The hype created around Prime Day is one of the biggest opportunities and unintended advantages for other retailers get their skin in the game, especially as consumers search for Amazon’s competitors to compare prices and deals.”

The data echoes last year’s trend. On Prime Day 2017, searches for Amazon were up 91 percent according to Captify. As an echo effect, searches for eBay, Walmart and Best Buy were up 23 percent, 16, percent and 7 percent respectively.

Data from Adobe found large retailers of over $1 billion in revenue saw a 35 percent increase in sales during last year’s Amazon sale, while sellers making under $5 million in revenue also received a 17 percent bump. Adobe expects larger figures this year.