Amazon’s Prime Day brings record sales again as shoppers hunt for deals – Daily News

Amazon’s Prime Day this year saw record sales, with total online spending during the 48-hour sales event reaching $14.2 billion. (Dreamstime/TNS)

Lauren Rosenblatt | (TNS) The Seattle Times

Amazon’s Prime Day this year brought record sales as inflation fell and customers held off on placing orders in anticipation of the annual sale.

Total online spending during the 48-hour sales event — July 16-17 — was $14.2 billion, up 11% from last year’s Prime Day, according to data from Adobe Analytics, a consumer spending reporting and analytics company.

Shoppers placed about 93,500 orders and purchased 188,000 items, according to a tally from data and technology firm Numerator. More than 35,000 households took advantage of the sale, Numerator said.

Amazon didn’t provide many details, but in a press release Thursday it said this year’s event was “the biggest Prime Day shopping event ever.”

That’s no surprise; Amazon Prime Day always gets bigger. It’s continued to grow year over year since Adobe Analytics has been tracking it, said Vivek Pandya, principal analyst at Adobe Digital Insights.

“Sometimes it didn’t grow at the pace we would have liked, and sometimes the growth was more moderate, especially when we saw an inflationary crisis,” Pandya said. “Now we’ve seen inflation come down significantly.”

From the beginning of the year through June 30, American consumers spent $503 billion in online stores, up more than 7% from the same period last year, according to Adobe Analytics.

New demand, not higher prices, was driving growth in online shopping. E-commerce prices fell 4% year over year and have continued to fall for most of the past two years, according to Adobe data.

Even though inflation has cooled, consumers are still cautiously opening their wallets, said Neil Saunders, managing director and analyst at GlobalData Retail. He said the days of “impulsive shopping” are over. Instead, shoppers are planning around sale events like Prime Day and similar summer discounts that retail rivals have begun to compete with Amazon.

“People are really focused on their budgets,” Saunders said. In response, Amazon is “really focused on must-haves.”

“Every retailer has to do a little bit more to get consumers to spend money,” Saunders continued. “This isn’t something that’s unique to Amazon, but I think Amazon has learned the lesson really well.”

According to Numerator, the average order value for Prime Day increased slightly year-over-year: from $52 in 2022 to $54 in 2023 and to $58 in 2024.

About 60% of households placed more than one order during this year’s event, resulting in an average household order value of $152, up from $155 in 2023. This year, 65% of households placed more than one order.

Shoppers this year and last have focused on cheap items, Numerator said. The average spend per item this year was $28, with nearly two-thirds of items selling for less than $20 and just 4% selling for more than $100.

Last year, the average amount spent per item was slightly higher at $32, with 57% of items purchased for under $20 and 5% for over $100.

“This year’s Prime Day focused on small pleasures and everyday things,” Amanda Schoenbauer, an analyst at Numerator, said in a prepared statement. “Shoppers purchased fewer high-ticket items than in years past, and fewer attendees placed multiple orders during the sale.”

This shows that consumers are moving towards “more conscious shopping and preferring to save money rather than spend it,” she added.

Roy Avidor, co-founder and CEO of digital growth platform Cymbio, said it’s important to consider the outcome of the 48-hour event in the context of the entire year of sales. He’s starting to see a pattern where consumers spend less money in the days leading up to a Prime Sales event, knowing that deals are coming.

“The fact is that people are waiting for these sales,” Avidor said.

When working with independent sellers who sell on platforms like Amazon, Avidor advises them to stock up. He predicted that Prime Day would bring in four times more sales than an average day on the platform.

“It’s not just about sales. It’s also about execution and being ready with inventory ahead of time,” he said. “Retailers are getting more prepared.”

Independent sellers sold more than 200 million items during Prime Day 2024, Amazon said Thursday. The company also said a “record number” of people signed up for Prime memberships in the three weeks leading up to the sale, indicating that shoppers were looking forward to the big day.

The company said shoppers have saved “billions” and that “millions more” Prime members have made a purchase this year compared to last year, but declined to provide specific numbers. Amazon says it has more than 200 million paying Prime members worldwide.

The first 24 hours of Amazon Prime Day 2023 were the biggest sales day in the company’s history, Amazon said last year. Prime members purchased more than 375 million items worldwide in 48 hours this year and saved more than $2.5 billion, according to Amazon.

Just ahead of this year’s sale, Amazon launched its AI-powered chatbot, Rufus, which is meant to act as a shopping assistant, helping customers compare options or find product recommendations. Rufus helped “millions” of customers shop during this year’s event, Amazon said Thursday.

“Prime Day 2024 was a huge success,” said Doug Herrington, CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores, in a prepared statement.

Criticism before Prime Day

Amazon has faced criticism for its impact on the environment and working conditions in its warehouses ahead of this year’s Prime Day sale.

A report released Monday by Senator Bernie Sanders found that workers face an increased risk of injury during Amazon’s peak shopping periods — including Prime Day and the weeks leading up to the winter holidays.

Citing internal data that Amazon shared with the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Senator Sanders’ report found that Amazon’s injury rate during Prime Day 2019 was about 45 injuries per 100 workers.

Amazon disputed the report’s findings and said it “misinterprets documents from several years ago.”

On Tuesday, at the start of Prime Day sales, protesters dragged roadblocks onto Amazon’s Seattle campus, calling on the company to end its use of fossil fuels in deliveries. The group demanded that Amazon eliminate greenhouse gas emissions in the “last mile” of deliveries — from warehouse to customer door — by 2030.

Amazon said protesters are “mistaken” about the facts and the company’s sustainability efforts.

Amazon has pledged to achieve net-zero carbon emissions across all of its operations by 2040 — but some climate groups have questioned whether the company has done enough to reach that milestone. In a recent sustainability report, Amazon said its carbon emissions fell by 3% last year.