Amazon reported on Thursday that it saw the “single largest sales day in company history” on the first day of its Prime Day event on Tuesday.
According to the online mega-retailer, Prime members purchased more than 375 million items worldwide, up from the roughly 300 million in 2022.
The company, which didn’t disclose its internal numbers for total sales from the two-day event, added that this year’s event was also the biggest Prime Day ever for independent sellers, whose sales growth in Amazon’s store outpaced Amazon’s retail business.
On Thursday, Adobe reported that consumers spent $6.3 billion on July 12 (the second day of the Prime Day event), up 6.4 percent year-over-year. Across both days, $12.7 billon has been spent online in the U.S., representing 6.1 percent growth over last year’s $11.9 billion in sales, setting a new record for Prime Day, according to its Adobe Analytics data.
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Adobe added that American consumers were enticed by steep discounts in categories such as electronics (peaking at 14 percent off listed price), apparel (12 percent) and toys (12 percent), along with home and furniture (9 percent), computers (8 percent), appliances (7 percent), sporting goods (6 percent) and TVs (5 percent).
Adobe also pointed out in its report that buy now, pay later surged during Prime Day as Americans are still feeling the pinch of inflation. On July 12, buy now, pay later accounted for 6.6 percent of online orders, driving $466 million in revenue, and growing 21 percent compared to the second day last year, Adobe said. Across both days, 6.5 percent of orders leveraged the service, driving $927 million in revenue, up 20 percent over last year.
“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,” Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, said in a statement. “The revenue growth attributed to Buy Now Pay Later is a preview of what we can expect in the months ahead, especially as we near the holiday shopping season.”
This data coincides with new numbers released by market research company Numerator. According to an early read of the full 48-hour, Numerator said that the average order size during Amazon Prime Day 2023 was $54.05, up from $52.26 in the same reporting period in 2022. Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of households shopping Prime Day placed two or more separate orders, bringing the average household spend to roughly $155.67.
The consumer-sourced company also saw that the top items of this year’s Prime Day were Temptations Cat Treats, Fire TV Sticks and Liquid I.V. Packets, while the top categories shoppers said they purchased were home goods (28 percent), household essentials (26 percent) and apparel & shoes (24 percent), Numerator noted.
