How Can Other Retailers Best Capitalize on Amazon Prime Day?

With Amazon Prime Day 2025 squarely in the rear-view mirror, a postmortem of the data points becomes relevant to those who follow the retail business.

According to search and product discovery platform Constructor, competitors left at least some opportunity on the table when it came to best leveraging the interest surrounding Prime Day to their own benefit. Constructor data, as presented by Chain Store Age editor-in-chief Marianne Wilson, suggested that while retailers competing with Amazon did enjoy appreciable spend during their counter-sale events, “There’s still a lot of potential left on the table. Greater awareness could have resulted in an even greater impact.”

“It’s not enough to just run a sale,” said Nate Roy, strategic director of e-commerce innovation at Constructor.

“To maximize effectiveness, you’ve got to let people know it exists. That means using personalized marketing and making sure your site’s search, navigation, and other product discovery tools draw attention to deals and make them easy to find,” Roy added.

Amazon Prime Day Illuminated a Lack of Sales-Related Searches on Competitors’ Sites

One interesting finding from Constructor’s analysis of over 160 million search queries across 100 retail sites during the Prime Day period: There was no notable increase in sales-related searches (e.g. searches for “sale,” “promo,” or “clearance”) throughout, which could prove problematic for retail competitors as they attempt to draw attention away from the retail elephant in the room that is Amazon.

This could indicate that the bulk of online shoppers do not know how to look for parallel promotions through other retail portals, particularly without the algorithmic guidance put forth by Amazon.

Black Friday Shows a Contrast With Amazon Prime Day Data

However, as the data underscored, the same can’t be said for Black Friday — at least last year’s event.

During Black Friday 2024, pulling data from the same set of retailers, Constructor found that promo-related search activity spiked by about 1.5x during the span of the sales event, “signaling shopper expectations around discounts at many different stores” according to the company.

So, then, is the problem technological or operational, when it comes to framing effective counter-sales running adjacent to Amazon’s Prime Day blockbuster event? While the numbers appear to suggest that consumers have no problem searching for deals or promos independently when the event calls for it (in this case, Black Friday), that’s by no means certain.

Given the groundswell of interest in what is shaping up to be an entirely unique sales holiday, it could be vital for retail competitors to answer this question sooner, rather than later, and to execute a plan to best maximize spend from their own audiences.