Amazon Prime Day 1 Brings in Estimated $7.2B in Online Spending

Preliminary results for Amazon Prime Day, held July 16-17, show that shoppers spent about $7.2 billion online across retailers — not just at Amazon.com — during the first day of the e-commerce sales event, which has quickly become as ubiquitous as the fall Cyber Monday sales day. Adobe Analytics reported that the $7.2 billion amount represented an 11.7 percent growth year-over-year, making it the single biggest e-commerce day so far in 2024. Adobe expects e-commerce spending to top $14 billion during the two-day event.

Online sales were driven by the following categories: electronics (up 33 percent), video games (up 134 percent), small kitchen appliances (up 82 percent), perfume and cologne (up 49 percent) and power tools (up 37 percent). Back-to-school items such as backpacks, lunchboxes and stationery also saw a surge, according to Adobe.

Adobe also found that shoppers were using buy now, pay later (BNPL) methods 17.1 percent more than last year, with BNPL orders accounting for 7.5 percent of online orders and driving $540 million in revenue.

Numerator reported that the average Prime Day spend per order is $60.03, compared to $56.54 from the same period last year. At the time of publication (in the first 32 hours of Prime Day), half of households had already placed two or more orders.

Total Retail's Take: The e-commerce landscape has changed drastically since the world first experienced an Amazon Prime Day on July 15, 2015.

"What began as an Amazon-exclusive event has now evolved into a summer sale phenomenon similar to Black Friday and Cyber Monday," said Peter Galvin, chief marketing officer of NMI, an embedded payments solutions provider. He said Prime Day's influence extends beyond Amazon. Indeed, major retailers like Target, Walmart, Best Buy, Kohl's, and Macy's have all rolled out similar summer deals tied to the Amazon Prime Day dates, thereby energizing the whole marketplace.

Sarah Engel, president of the strategic digital media leadership company January Digital, said nearly every brand and retailer is using this midsummer moment to capture attention, clear inventory, and drive sales.

"Like Black Friday and Cyber Week, many brand owners are seeing the Prime Day promotional period as a 'socially acceptable' time to share a sale or promotion with customers without degrading their brands’ perception," Engel said in an email.

She added that the brands that are going to be most successful this Prime Day season are those that looked to their loyal customers and determined what would feel both rewarding and "brand-right" to them.