Prime Day 2024 Generates Record Sales Across US E-Commerce

Amazon.com Inc. said its 48-hour Prime Day event broke its own sales record for 2024, though it did not provide a sales amount or estimate for growth.

Prime members shopped for “millions of deals across 35+ categories,” Amazon said. “They also purchased more items than during any previous Prime Day shopping event.”

Independent sellers, specifically, sold more than 200 million items during the 48-hour Prime Day event. Amazon said most of them were small and medium-sized businesses.

Additionally, Amazon said its new AI-powered conversational assistant — called Rufus — helped millions of customers shop during the event.

“Compared to Prime Day 2023, millions more Prime members shopped during the two-day shopping event,” Amazon said in a statement.

Amazon is No. 1 in the Top 1000, Digital Commerce 360’s database of the largest online retailers in North America based on online sales. It is also No. 3 in the Global Online Marketplaces database, which ranks the world’s 100 largest marketplaces by third-party gross merchandise value (GMV). Digital Commerce 360 forecasts that Amazon’s total online sales will reach $469.01 billion in 2024.

How much did Amazon make on Prime Day 2024 sales?

While Amazon hasn’t revealed exactly how much it made in Prime Day 2024 sales, third-party data provides insight into how the event performed.

The average order value (AOV) during Prime Day 2024 was $57.97, according to data from Numerator. Numerator is a data and technology company that provides market research. Its data is based on a collection of 93,513 unique orders during Amazon’s 48-hour event, from 35,588 households.

More than half (60%) of households that shopped on Amazon during the 2024 Prime Day sale placed two or more orders. That brought the average household spend to about $152, Numerator reported. 40% of households placed just one order, while 24% placed two orders.

Additionally, 23% of households for which Numerator has data spent more than $200. 22% of households spent more than $100 but less than $200. Similarly, 21% of households spent more than $50 but less than $100.

The average price per unit was $28.06, according to Numerator. Based on the number of units purchased, the top-selling products were Amazon Fire TV Stick, Premier protein shakes, Liquid IV packs, Glad trash bags and COSRX snail mucin serum.

88% of shoppers were Prime members, according to Numerator, and 85% have been Prime members for more than a year. 98% knew it was Prime Day before they shopped, and just over half (53%) said Prime Day was a primary reason for shopping. In addition, 54% compared prices at other retailers.

While 41% of consumers surveyed by Numerator said they didn’t shop other sales, more than a third shopped other mass retailers’ summer sale promotions. 35% said they shopped Walmart Deals, which ran from July 8 to 11. Similarly, 34% shopped during Target Circle Week. Only 11% said they shopped consumer electronics retailer Best Buy’s July Black Friday promotion.

Impact of Amazon Prime Day 2024 on US Online Retail Sales

On the second day of Amazon Prime Day 2024, July 17, consumers spent $7 billion online, according to Adobe Analytics data — and that was outside of Amazon itself.

Adobe’s analysis is based on 100 million stock-keeping units (SKUs) across 18 product categories and includes more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites. 200 of the Top 1,000 online retailers use Adobe Analytics for website analytics, and 97 use it for website design and development. The Top 1,000 online retailers also use it for content delivery and management, as an e-commerce platform, a marketing platform, for personalization, and more.

The $7 billion is down from $7.2 billion in the first 24 hours, which was a new record, but still represents a 10.4% year-over-year increase.

However, according to Adobe, total U.S. online retail sales — excluding Amazon — are expected to reach $14.2 billion during the entire Amazon Prime Day 2024 sales event. That’s both an 11% year-over-year increase and a new record for online sales during a Prime Day event.

Sales growth by category

Adobe data shows that sales were driven by specific categories. Electronics sales as a whole rose 61% during the two-day event compared to the average daily sales in June 2024, Adobe said. Among specific products, tablets saw the biggest sales increase, up 117% during the two-day event, followed by:

Televisions (up 111%)
Bluetooth Headphones and Speakers (105%)
Physical activity monitors (88%)
Computers (80%)
Smartphones (71%)
Cameras (60%)

Among home, furniture and appliance sales, small kitchen appliances saw the biggest increase over the two-day sale, up 76%. Cookware and pots and pans were up 25% and mattresses were up 21%. Meanwhile, home office furniture was up 14% and bedroom furniture was up 11%.

In the apparel category, suits saw the biggest increase, up 36% on both days. Outerwear (19%), footwear (17%) and accessories (17%) accounted for the next biggest sales increases.

“The electronics, apparel and furniture categories account for almost half of e-commerce spending, but saw low-single-digit growth in the first half of 2024,” Vivek Pandya, principal analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, said in a statement. “It’s clear now that Prime Day was a catalyst for these key categories, with discounts deep enough to drive consumers to hit the buy button and upgrade items in their homes.”

Spending trends

Almost half of that total came from mobile devices. Mobile commerce drove almost half (49.2%) of online purchases during the second of Amazon’s two-day events. Across the two days, consumers spent a combined $7 billion on mobile devices. That’s an 18.6% increase year over year.

Buy now, pay later (BNPL) accounted for 7.6% of online orders during Amazon Prime Day 2024. BNPL generated $1.08 billion in online spend during Amazon Prime Day 2024. That’s a 16.4% increase year-over-year.

Retailers have begun using discounts to drive growth for the 2023 holiday shopping season, Adobe said. The Amazon Prime Day sales event attracted discounts from other retailers, according to Adobe Analytics data, including:

Electronics tops out at 23% off list price (vs. 14% in 2023)
20% off clothing (up from 12% in 2023)
Home/furniture – 16% (vs 9%)
Televisions 16% (vs. 5%)
Toys 15% (vs 12%)
Home appliances at 14% (compared to 7%)
Sporting goods 11% (vs 6%)
Computers at 11% (vs. 8%)

Consumers chose curbside pickup for nearly one-fifth of U.S. online orders (18.9%) during the two-day sales event (among retailers offering the service), down slightly from 20.2% in 2023.

Prime Day’s Impact on Online Retailing

Global sales growth among non-Amazon retailers during Prime Day 2024 remained flat compared to the previous year, according to e-commerce platform provider Salesforce.

That wasn’t the case in North America, however. Overall, online sales in North America grew 3% year-over-year during the sales event. The U.S. led the growth on the continent, accounting for the majority of sales during the period. However, online retail sales in Canada grew faster, up 8% year-over-year.

In North America, 76 of the top 2,000 online retailers use Salesforce as their e-commerce platform, according to Digital Commerce 360. And in 2023, these 76 online retailers will collectively generate more than $136.077 billion in online sales.

Consumers are closing in on deals as they increasingly focus on value, Rob Garf, vice president and general manager of retail and consumer goods at Salesforce, said in a statement. Makeup, skincare and apparel were big winners during the back-to-school season, he added.

“Amazon’s annual Prime Day gives us a glimpse of what to expect this holiday season,” Garf said. “And retailers have to smile. Online traffic and demand are up. And most of the online growth was based on people buying more, not just higher prices.”

TikTok’s “Deal for You Days,” meanwhile, didn’t deliver the same results as Amazon’s this year, according to Salesforce. Discounts synced with TikTok’s sales event averaged 18% off product prices. That’s 22% off, on average, during this year’s Prime Day event, according to Salesforce.

Salesforce also released a breakdown of the categories where sales and discounts increased the most during Prime Day 2024.

Top performing industries by sales growth

Health and beauty (up 16%). Cosmetics sales up 30%. Skincare sales up 14%.
Active footwear (12%)
General footwear (12%)

The world’s highest discounts by category

General Clothing (average discount 28%)
Beauty and makeup (26%; 2023: 21%)
Beauty and skin care (22%)
Home and furniture (22%)

Global discounts grew 8% year-over-year during the full 48 hours of the Prime Day 2024 sales event, Salesforce reported. The average discount rate across categories was 20%.

Highest Discounts by Category in the US

General Clothing (average discount 33%)
Home and furniture (21%)
Health and beauty (21%)

According to Salesforce, discounts from U.S. online retailers increased by 10% year over year during the same period. The average discount rate across categories was 22%. For online retailers in Canada, the figures are 11% and 27%, respectively.

“For the first time in a long time, we’re seeing order volumes turn positive and discounts are strong,” said Caila Schwartz, Salesforce’s director of customer insights, in a statement. “The lesson is simple — if retailers provide discounts and real value, they’ll release the pressure valve of pent-up demand and see incredible success. If they don’t, retailers risk losing out as shoppers go elsewhere.”

Here’s last year’s article summarizing Amazon Prime Day sales results.

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