Prime Day Could Be Big For Amazon’s Private Label Brands

Though the exact data of the Amazon annual shopping holiday remains up in the air, analysts are becoming increasingly confident that whenever it actually happens, Amazon’s Private Label brands will likely get a starring role in the show.

And this year, that cast of private label characters is much larger than it was in 2017 when Amazon had 40 private label brands to call its own. That figure has fully doubled up since last Prime Day — with Amazon pushing 80 private labels selling everything from batteries and apparel to green tea powder and diapers.

And, according to OneClick Retail, Amazon doesn’t just have a lot private label brands on offer, it has a lot more Prime customers on tap to sell them to. As of April Amazon announced that it had 100 million members in its slightly more than $100 annually loyalty program.

Prime Day, since its inception 2015, has been big business for Amazon. Late year, according to Cowen & Co and JPMC, Amazon generated $1 billion in sales during 2017’s instantiation of the holiday and Amazon claimed it added “tens of millions of new members” overnight.

“One of the key advantages of private brands for any retailer is their ability to drive customer loyalty — producing items that are exclusively available through Amazon will drive more traffic to the platform, which also benefits Amazon sellers by bringing more consumers in front of their products,” One Click Retail Marketing Analyst Ojastro Todd told CNBC.

Amazon’s top in-house brands in 2018 were Mama Bear, Basic Care, Presto, Solimo and Wag, according to Todd.

“Private brand expansion is a major priority for Amazon, with new product lines being introduced across nearly every major category,” Todd said.

Last year saw a big push for private label on Prime Day out of Amazon — with the Echo Dot, Fire tablet, the Kindle device and Happy Belly bottled water all being heavily pushed and discounted top sellers.

“I think Amazon is going to continue to disrupt themselves,” PwC Analyst Steve Barr told CNBC. “Expect Amazon to continue to come forward with distinctive offerings because they’ve become so extraordinary at leveraging their own broader ecosystem, now with Prime Wardrobe [for fashion] and Whole Foods [for groceries].”