Adobe: Amazon Prime Day led record online sales for July

Amazon’s annual Prime Day sales event and other retailers’ efforts to boost mid-year revenue helped push U.S. e-commerce sales up 6% year over year on July 11 and 6.4% on July 12, according to Adobe Analytics.

Adobe said U.S. online sales totaled a record $12.7 billion for the two days.

“For months, consumers have felt the effects of persistent inflation and an uncertain economic environment, and it has pushed shoppers to embrace more flexible ways to manage their spending around the Prime Day event. Shoppers also used ‘buy now, pay later’ for 6.5% of the online orders totaling $927 million in sales, up 20% from a year ago,” said Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights.”

Expectations for curbside pickup could also be a factor this holiday season, considering that the service was used in 20% of online orders on July 12, up slightly from last year, Adobe reports.

Amazon has not released total sales revenue data for the promotional event. Walmart nor Target released sales data from their events but are expected to talk about the sales in their upcoming earnings calls next month.

Retail data marketers at Numerator said more than half of Prime Day shoppers said they made purchases they had been putting off until they went on sale. Many others stocked up on daily essentials rather than buying larger ticket items, Numerator reported.

Christmas in July has caught on across the retail industry with Walmart Plus Week and Target Circle Week promotion events occurring simultaneously with Amazon Prime Day. The Walmart and Target events spanned seven and four days respectively, longer than Amazon’s two-day event.

Numerator found over half of shoppers compared Amazon’s prices with other retailers before making a Prime Day purchase and 33% said they planned to shop at Target and Walmart, while 37% said they would not shop at other sales.

Numerator found more than half of Prime Day items were under $20, and the average spend per item was $32.35. Early on in the sale, shoppers were buying pet treats, Fire TV Sticks and home essentials. Throughout the two-day sales event Numerator said the top categories were home goods at 28%, household essentials at 26% and apparel and footwear at 24%. Numerator said Prime Day helps boost sales in the summer ahead of back-to-school and it gives those planning to stretch out holiday purchases a chance to buy several months before Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

“The typical observed Prime Day shopper was a high income, suburban female aged 35 to 44. Also 88% were Prime members, and many had been members for a significant period of time— 73% since 2019 or earlier, and 84% for at least a year. Nearly all (97%) were aware of Prime Day before shopping on Amazon during the sale and 80% had shopped at the event in the past,” Numerator stated in the report.