Prime Big Deal Days is over: record revenue in the headlines — but what did sellers keep?
At last year's event, Adobe measured $9.1B in US online retail spend (+7.3%). But headline revenue and a seller's net profit are not the same thing.
Amazon's October sale ended on the evening of October 7. Headlines will again talk record revenue — for reference, Adobe measured $9.1 billion in US online retail spend at last year's event, up 7.3% year over year. But that figure is a platform-and-channel total; it says nothing about what an individual seller keeps.
The right post-event read is this: from the revenue you made in those 48 hours, subtract the discount share, the elevated ad (CPC) cost, and the returns wave arriving over the coming weeks. What's left is the event's real return to you. Many sellers say 'I sold a record,' then run the net-per-unit math and find they broke even — or lost money. Note the lesson and don't enter Black Friday the same way: bake the discount + ad + return lines into price for every SKU in advance, so peak season grows profit, not just revenue.