For the first time in Amazon Prime Day history, the online shopping frenzy will take place in the fall. Traditionally held in July to celebrate the founding of Amazon by chief executive Jeff Bezos, Amazon Prime Day is a 48-hour online shopping event that gives Prime members exclusive access to deals and promotions. Due to surging demand and strains on the company’s warehouses as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Amazon decided to postpone the event by three months to October 12-14.

While there is a lot of speculation every year around it’s impact on brick-and-mortar retailers, the truth is that it’s strategically positioned not to overlap with traditional retail sales events. In fact, as we’ve seen in the past, pure e-commerce holidays, like Amazon Prime Day and Cyber Monday, have zero impact on brick and mortar shopper traffic. Last year there were no changes to in-store shopper behavior due to Prime Day.

Like the rest of this unpredictable year, however, it’s unclear whether Amazon Prime Day will have a different impact this year so close to the holidays. Based on our holiday survey of over 1,000 U.S. consumers, most respondents indicated that they plan to begin their holiday shopping in October (24%) or November (31%). The early planners may very well do some of their holiday shopping on Amazon Prime Day. Whereas for 31% of consumers who planned to start in November, and 13% who are uncertain when they will begin, shopping as early as October 12-14 for the holidays could be too soon.

While it’s unlikely Amazon Prime Day will impact this year’s predicted top busiest days, it’s more important than ever for retailers to be prepared to offer a seamless experience in order to compete against online. While shoppers have been accustomed to look online for the best deals, retailers can boost e-commerce deals through store fulfillment services, like buy online, pickup in store (BOPIS) and curbside. It will be interesting to see how major retailers’ own sales days, like Walmart’s Big Save event and Target’s Deals Days, will compete this year. Not only can they help bring customers to brick-and-mortar stores, but their items may be available quicker than Amazon can ship leveraging their store fulfillment options.

For more Sensormatic Solutions’ holiday insights, follow along on LinkedIn and Twitter using #SensormaticHolidays2020 and stay tuned for more holiday trend blogs.