Adobe: Amazon Prime Day Single Biggest E-Commerce Day So Far This Year

Amazon Prime Day, which began at 3 a.m. July 11 and ends at midnight July 12, saw average orders up from last year, according to data provided by Numerator, a data and tech company serving the market research space. As of 4 p.m. July 11, the average Prime Day order was $56.64,  compared to $53.14 in the same reporting period on Prime Day 2022. Over half (57 percent) of households shopping Prime Day have already placed at least two separate orders, bringing the average household spending to roughly $134.09, according to Numerator. That's up from last year, when 52 percent of households placed two or more orders and spent an average of $116.58.

The top-selling items so far are Temptations Cat Treats, Fire TV Sticks, and Liquid I.V. packets, while the top categories shoppers say they've purchased are home goods, household essentials, and apparel and shoes.

Adobe, which analyzes direct consumer transactions online, found that consumers spent $6.4 billion on July 11 — not just on Amazon.com, but on other U.S. retail sites as well. Adobe's analysis covered 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites, 100 million SKUs, and 18 product categories.

Adobe Analytics found that spending represented 5.96 percent growth year-over-year, and finisihed as the single biggest e-commerce day thus far in 2023.

"Prime Day has become of one the biggest e-commerce moments of the year as consumers latch onto major discounts from a number of different retailers,” said Vivek Pandya, lead analyst, Adobe Digital Insights. “The record spending so far shows us that consumers are tapping into their inner bargain hunters, stocking up on specific categories such as electronics and apparel while the discounts remain steep.”

Total Retail's Take: The data shows that U.S. shoppers have been waiting for the heavy discounts featured on Prime Day as well as on competing retailers' sites as they continue to face rising interest rates and price increases.

Retailers and brands outside of Amazon often take advantage of the increase in e-commerce traffic surrounding the Prime Day event by announcing promotions and special discounts of their own. However, 2023 is proving to be a bit of a slowdown compared to years past. Salesforce data found that there was less promotional marketing activity as well as lackluster discounts that led to softer online sales outside of Amazon on July 11.

“Retailers normally looking to capitalize on the buzz of Prime Day didn’t show up on day one with attractive promotions and discounts ... and, therefore, consumers didn’t bite," said Rob Garf, Salesforce's vice president and general manager of retail.