If You Invested $1,000 In Amazon Stock When It Launched First Prime Day, Here's How Much You'd Have Now

E-commerce giant Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN launched as an online bookstore back in 1995. Over the years, the company has expanded its product offerings, which now include shipping thousands of items to customers.

As the company celebrates its annual Amazon Prime Day shopping holiday, here’s a look at the history and how the stock has performed since the event was created.

What Happened: Amazon launched its Prime membership program in 2005 with an annual cost of $79. The main perk of the plan was free two-day shipping for consumers.

Over the years, Amazon has added additional perks that include Prime Video and partnerships with companies like Grubhub.

On July 15, 2015, Amazon held its first Amazon Prime Day, coinciding with the company's 20th anniversary. Amazon called Prime Day a “global shopping event” that would offer more deals than Black Friday, in reference to the annual physical retail shopping day.

The first Amazon Prime saw deals introduced throughout the day, with some flash sales and limited offers across every product category. Prime Day was originally available in only the United States and eight other countries, but has expanded to more territories over the years.

Amazon raised the cost of its Prime membership in 2022 with its monthly price going from $12.99 to $14.99 and the annual plan going from $119 to $139.

Prime Day remains one of the key benefits to Amazon Prime subscribers, as the deals are exclusive to members of the program.

Related Link: Amazon Set For Record Breaking Prime Day Despite Economic Frugality 

Investing $1,000 in Amazon Stock: Shares of Amazon traded at a high of $23.24 on July 15, 2015, split adjusted for the recent 20-for-1 split in 2022.

An investor could have purchased 43.03 shares of Amazon stock on its first Amazon Prime Day with $1,000. 

The $1,000 investment would be worth $5,470.40 today based on an Amazon stock price of $127.13 at the time of writing.

This represents a return of 447% over the last eight years.

An investment in Amazon eight years ago could have generated a nice return and the ability to pay for a Prime membership and purchase items if the investor chose to sell a portion or all of the stock.

In comparison, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY, which tracks the S&P 500, is up 108.1% over the same time period, not including dividends.

Amazon Prime Day 2023 runs through Wednesday, July 12. 

Read Next: If You Invested $1,000 In Amazon Stock At IPO, Here's How Much You'd Have Today

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