The Nielsen team surveyed 1,500 US consumers who were planning to shop online during Amazon’s promotional event, ahead of the scheduled event, which took place on October 10th and 11th.
The survey took place on September 29th and according to the analyst team, the data reveals that consumers are approaching the holiday season with a savers mindset rather than that of a spender, reflecting the impact of the cost of living crisis that is playing out for a broad section of consumers across the country.
What beauty consumers bought on the day
Nielsen also released survey results of what beauty products consumers bought during the Fall event (see graph above), illustrating the top three spends were skincare (46% of those surveyed), hair care (35%) and face cosmetics (34%).
These results showed that 46% of consumers were looking for beauty products at a good price, while 30% were planning to shop at the Sephora VIB sale and 28% would shop at the Ulta Gorgeous Hair sale to find better prices.
“The groundwork appears to be laid for a successful Big Deal Days Event, given high levels of consumer awareness and intent to shop,” according to a Nielsen press statement.
“Our survey found that 62% of respondents were aware of the upcoming October event, and 56% of those surveyed who were aware of Prime Day expressed their intent to make purchases during the event.”
Health and beauty is the winner
The survey results focused on consumers’ purchase intentions for the promotional event, and demonstrate what categories are likely to be the top-sellers.
“Health & Beauty categories like oral hygiene, hair care, facial skin care, cosmetics, and nailcare topped the charts in terms of sales volume and lift. Most CPG categories enjoy big lifts on. Prime Day, but Health & Beauty categories are consistently the biggest winners on Prime sale events,” the statement added.
Traditionally the twice-yearly Prime Day events generate a huge revenue boost for Amazon, but the October 2022 reflected a significant downturn in the sales growth of the previous few years, reflecting the impact tougher economic conditions have had on consumer spend.
Shopping for Christmas
This years’ survey also found that a considerable number of respondents were falling into the ‘I don’t know yet’ category, when asked about their spending intentions for the October 2023 event, but on a more positive note, 58% of respondents said they were expecting to buy Christmas gifts.
Emphasizing the impact of this holiday spend, the Nielsen survey results found that 44% of all respondents intended to spend at least a quarter of their total holiday shopping spend during the event, indicating that consumers are looking to buy discounted products in an effort to spread out and reduce their spend during that period.
Inflation has been one of the driving forces behind the cost of living crisis in the US over the past couple of years, and it is clearly something that has left its mark on the consumer psyche. Reflecting this, the Nielsen data also showed that 21% of US consumers surveyed said that they will be looking at jumping on deals this holiday season for fear of prices rising again later on in the year.
And while it seems a considerable proportion of spend had been set aside for the Autumn Prime Day event, Amazon shoppers are also eyeing Black Friday, with 69% of those surveyed saying they still plan to shop for this event.