Amazon’s 2023 holiday shopping season has officially concluded, with more deals, discounts, and coupons this year than in previous years. Some brands took a more cautious approach, while others continued to push aggressively during the post-Christmas period. Let’s look at some notable trends and subcategory battles in the last few weeks of December 2023 using our Amazon Brand Leaderboard. In this analysis, we compare data from December 24-30, 2023 to the preceding period of December 17-24, 2023.

Electronics > Computers & Accessories > Computers & Tablets

Link to Leaderboard View

• Apple maintained a dominant position within the subcategory, securing the top spot on our Leaderboard with 20.92% Total SOV for the selected period. When looking beyond Apple, the rest of the category battled it out through the end of the season, fighting back and forth for paid placements. Apple and Amazon did begin to pull back on paid ad spend towards the end of this analysis. 
• HP displayed the most significant increase in Paid SOV, recording a 3.56% week-over-week growth, the most of any brand in the subcategory. 
• We also observed prices gradually return to pre-holiday norms, with Apple, Amazon, and Lenovo seeing price changes of 16.25%, 12.96%, and 10.39% respectively. 
• Electronics often generate considerable buzz from the media, frequently featured in ‘Top Holiday Gift’ lists, or mentioned on social platforms. The heightened visibility underscores the importance of securing paid placements in this category!

Beauty & Personal Care > Makeup > Face

Link to Leaderboard View

• The dynamics within the Face Makeup subcategory are intriguing, as reflected in the Leaderboard. Although e.l.f. initially dominated Paid SOV in the days leading up to Christmas, their share shrunk by 6.79% versus the previous period, allowing for Maybelline New York and Laura Geller New York to make gains.
  • Laura Geller New York increased their Paid SOV by 2.36% in this time frame, the only brand to do so out of the five brands listed above. 
• Beauty & Personal Care has seen significant growth on Amazon US with major contributions stemming from social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram. In our most recent search volume analysis, searches related to Beauty & Personal Care accounted for 7.5% of Amazon’s total search volume, placing the category into the 5th most searched on the platform (up from the 6th most searched just one year ago.)
  • Securing paid placements is crucial when competing in such highly fragmented categories.

Home & Kitchen > Kitchen & Dining > Small Appliances > Fryers > Air Fryers

Link to Leaderboard View

• The air fryer subcategory competition was on fire over the last few weeks of 2023! As we see COSORI pull back in terms of Paid SOV, competitors were ready to jump on the opportunity. During this period we observed:
  • COSORI experiencing an 8.80% decline in Paid SOV, the most of any brand in the subcategory. 
  • Ninja recording a 1.15% decline in Paid SOV.
  • Chefman demonstrated a 2.62% decline in Paid SOV. 
  • On the other hand, Cuisinart increased its Paid SOV by 5.67% over the study period, the largest increase in the subcategory. 
  • Instant Pot recorded a 0.85% increase in Paid SOV. 
• It’s interesting to note that on December 23, 2023, COSORI held 42.5% of Paid SOV, and dropped to 9.6% just a few days later.

Electronics > Headphones > On-Ear Headphones

Link to Leaderboard View

• While competition held rather steady in terms of Paid SOV, Soundcore upped their paid placements by 3.41% during the time frame and simultaneously slashed prices by 54.61%! 
• Sony decreased their Paid SOV by 1.14%, the only brand to do so out of those listed above.

Biggest Takeaways For Brands

• Brands that continued to be aggressive in the post-Christmas period may have been better suited to capture consumers shopping via gift cards.
  • While traffic in this period was not nearly as high as the holiday peak, it is worth noting that there was decent shopping activity, even directly following the holidays. 
• As more and more shoppers are waiting until the last minute to make holiday purchases, brands shouldn’t forgo strategies too soon. 
• Discounting activity over the next 4-6 weeks will be worth watching, as brands may be incentivized to cut prices to encourage sell-through of static holiday-season inventory in favor of newer 2024 products

Methodology

All price figures in the analysis are calculated as a weighted average of the median price across a brand’s category-specific products within the same parameters, specifically comparing December 17th through 24th, 2023 to December 24th through 30th, 2023, expressed as a percentage difference.