Former Apple Employee Took A Leaf Out Of Alibaba's Book — Helped Jeff Bezos Transform Amazon's Summer Slump Into A Billion Dollar Prime Day Powerhouse

Amazon’s AMZN Prime Day, a retail extravaganza generating billions in sales, can be traced back to a pivotal pitch made to Jeff Bezos, the company’s founder, by a single executive.

What Happened: The origins of Prime Day can be traced back to a proposal made by Diego Piacentini, who was leading Amazon’s international business in the early 2010s, reported Fortune. Piacentini, an ex-Apple AAPL executive, inspired by the success of Alibaba’s BABA Singles Day in China, pitched the idea of Amazon having its own event to Bezos. After receiving Bezos’s approval, Amazon decided to hold its sale during the summer months, avoiding a clash with Alibaba’s Singles Day in November.

After securing Bezos’s approval, the Amazon team decided to hold their event during the summer, a traditionally slower retail period. The first Prime Day, codenamed “Project Piñata,” was launched on July 15, 2015, to coincide with Amazon’s 20th anniversary.

Despite initial technical issues and mixed reviews, Prime Day was a hit, selling 34.4 million items and adding 1.2 million new Prime members in a single day. Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky described it as “Christmas in July.”

Since its inception, Prime Day has grown from a single-day sale into a four-day shopping event. Last year, shoppers across 23 countries bought more than 300 million items, with 88% of all purchases made by Prime members.

According to Capital One, Amazon Prime Day 2024 generated $14.2 billion in global sales over a 48-hour span.

Why It Matters: Despite its impressive growth, Amazon’s Prime Day sales have reportedly fallen short of last year’s initial performance. In the first four hours of the 2025 event, sales were down nearly 14% compared to the same period in 2024, according to data from Momentum Commerce.

However, this year’s Prime Day is still expected to be a record-breaker, with Bank of America projecting a staggering $21 billion in sales over just four days—a 60% leap from last year’s already historic haul.

Prime Day is just one of the major summer sales events, with Walmart WMT Deals Days and Target TGT Circle Week also offering significant discounts. These events are expected to drive a surge in consumer spending, potentially impacting the stock performance of these retail giants.

Over the past year, shares of Amazon gained 10.4%, as per Benzinga Pro.

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