Hey, Big Spenders!

U.S. online spending during Prime Day reached $12.7 billion for the full two days—up 6.1% from a year earlier.

• Amazon Prime Day set records.
• Prime members bought more than 375 million items worldwide.
• The retail giant says Prime Day deals saved consumers $2.5 billion.

Early data on Amazon Prime Day sales event shows customers were breaking out their credit cards with enthusiasm.

Amazon.com (AMZN) reported today that July 11, the first day of its two-day Prime Day sales event, was its biggest-grossing day ever.

Merchandise sales for the whole July 11-12 period set a new Prime Day record, the e-commerce giant says. (Unlike most days, Prime Day lasts 48 hours. Why? Because Amazon says so. Just don't think about it too hard.)

In a mood to spend

A July 12 survey of Amazon Prime Day shoppers by market research firm CivicScience found 72% of shoppers spent at least as much as they did during 2022's Prime Day. The full breakdown was:

• Much more: 22%
• Somewhat more: 19%
• About the same: 31%
• Somewhat less: 11%
• Much less: 17%

The top two categories in the CivicScience survey were electronics and technology (cited by 22% of shoppers) and home goods and decor (cited by 19%). The bottom two categories were toys and video games (8%) and outdoors items (7%).

At the time of the survey—completed a few hours before Prime Day ended—38% of all Prime Day shoppers had spent more than $100. 26% of shoppers reported buying both planned and impulse purchases compared to 23% during Prime Day 2022.

A boost for U.S. online sales

Amazon never provides sales figures for its sales events. But because Prime Day boosts all U.S. online spending, data from Adobe Analytics provides a hint about the event's impact.

Adobe estimates industry-wide U.S. online spending during Prime Day reached $6.4 billion during Prime Day's first 24 hours (up almost 6% year over year). For the full two days, U.S. online spending was $12.7 billion (up 6.1% from a year earlier), according to Adobe.

"Early read" numbers from data firm Numerator reported that the average order size of a Prime Day 2023 purchase was $54.05, up from $52.26 during. Prime Day 2022. 65% of households shopping Prime Day placed two or more orders, spending $155.67.

Third-party sales set a record

The good news wasn’t just for Amazon itself. The retail behemoth reported 2023’s Prime Day was the largest ever for the third-party sellers using the Amazon platform.

Those third-party sellers are increasingly important to Amazon. For the quarter ended March 31, such sellers generated 59% of overall unit sales on Amazon.com, up from 55% a year earlier. Amazon didn’t release a similar breakdown for Prime Day.

Among third-party sellers, cookware brand Caraway, apparel maker True Classic and bidet brand Tushy increased their average daily sales in Amazon’s store more than 18-fold during the first day of Prime Day, Amazon reported. That's compared with daily averages in 2023 prior to Prime Day.

Top sellers

This year, Amazon says the home, fashion, and beauty categories were top sellers. At the individual product level, Fire TV Stick, Laneige Lip Glowy Balm, Apple AirPods and Bissell Little Green Portable Deep Cleaner were among the top-selling items.

According to Amazon, members of its Prime membership program bought more than 375 million items worldwide during 2023’s Prime Day.

Amazon claims customers “saved more than $2.5 billion on millions of deals across the Amazon store”—the most since the first Prime Day in 2015.

James Melton is managing editor of Luckbox magazine.

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