In this episode of Retail Right Now, Total Retail's Joe Keenan and Kristina Stidham discuss last week’s Amazon Prime Day event, and what it could potentially mean for this year’s holiday shopping season. Some of the key highlights to come out of Prime Day include a sales increase of 36 percent compared to Prime Day 2019, according to data from Edison Trends; third-party businesses sold $3.5 billion worth of goods on the Marketplace during the two-day sale, up 60 percent from the previous year; and, excluding Amazon, online sales rose 76 percent on Tuesday, the first day of the Prime Day event, according to Salesforce data.

This data reveals potential implications for the industry as we enter the holiday shopping period. First, e-commerce will be more critical than ever, and with Prime Day happening three months later than originally planned, the two-day event will likely be the unofficial kickoff to the holiday season. The retailers that are prepared for the surge in e-commerce demand figure to fare best. Stay tuned for coverage on Prime Day, e-commerce trends, holiday season predictions and more on mytotalretail.com.