Topline
The first 24 hours of Amazon’s annual Prime Day sales event made Tuesday the busiest day for total U.S. online spending so far this year, with $6 billion in spending across all e-commerce sites, Adobe Digital Economy Index found, despite concerns about skyrocketing levels of inflation.
The Amazon website is seen on a computer screen.
Key Facts
Total online sales Tuesday jumped 7.8% from one year ago, and eclipsed the $5.1 billion in sales recorded last Thanksgiving, according to Adobe.
The average Amazon Prime customer ordered $53.58 during the first 36 hours of Prime Day—a 48-hour annual event during which Amazon offers special deals and steep discounts to its Prime members—up $7.05 from the year before, according to Numerator, a company that measures consumer data.
Top-selling Amazon items included Fire TV Sticks, Echo Dot 4th Gens and Blink video doorbells as well as Frito-Lay Variety Packs and Amazon gift cards, Numerator found.
Consumers on Prime Day “took advantage” of discounts after months of “heightened prices online,” Patrick Brown, vice president of growth marketing and insights at Adobe, said in a statement.
What To Watch For
Customers worldwide could purchase as much as $12.52 billion of Amazon products during Prime Day sales before the event ends Wednesday, with 60% of those purchases taking place in the U.S., according to estimates from market research firm Insider Intelligence.
Key Background
The spike in sales came after the U.S. inflation rate hit a new 40-year high of 9.1% for the 12 months ending in June. High levels of inflation—driven partly by increases in the price of gasoline, shelter and food, according to data released by the Labor Department on Wednesday—played a role in consumers’ Amazon purchases on Prime Day, polling of verified buyers from Numerator suggests. Roughly 33% of consumers said they purchased something they’d been waiting to buy at a lower price, while another 27% said they passed on buying an item on Prime Day because of higher prices, according to the research firm.
Further Reading
U.S. sees its biggest online spending day of the year, thanks to Amazon’s ‘Prime Day’ event (NBC)
Day one of Amazon Prime Day was the biggest U.S. online shopping day of 2022 so far (MarketWatch)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/madelinehalpert/2022/07/13/amazon-prime-day-drove-2022-record-for-online-sales/