Prime Day Lifted US E-Commerce Spend to $12B for 2 Days: Adobe

Amazon’s Prime Day, ended Wednesday, was “the biggest Prime Day event ever,” said Amazon Thursday, not disclosing receipts for the 48-hour event. Prime members in over 20 countries bought more than 300 million items, said Amazon. The first Prime Day, a 24-hour event, was in July 2015, when 34.4 million items were ordered in nine Prime-eligible countries, Amazon said.

EMarketer projected Tuesday that Prime Day 2022 would bring in $12.52 billion worldwide for Amazon, 17% more than the 2021 event, with the U.S. accounting for 60% of sales. Though Prime Day continues to set sales records, growth is slowing, eMarketer said. In 2019, global Prime Day sales grew 67.9% year over year, but that rate of growth is “in the rearview mirror,” said the research firm. Still, with consumer spending shifting to travel and experiences in 2022, “Amazon can expect to see its biggest Prime Day yet,” it said. Amazon didn’t comment Thursday.

Prime Day had a positive impact on e-commerce overall. Adobe emailed Thursday that the total U.S. online spend over the two days was $11.98 billion -- $6 billion Tuesday and $5.9 billion Wednesday, 8.5% higher than last year’s $11 billion. The two days were the largest e-commerce spending dates in 2022. Adobe pegged the total online revenue for U.S. retail for the two days at 141% above an average day in June.

Discount levels were consistent across e-commerce over the two days, Adobe said, led by toys (15%) and apparel (12%). In tech, discounts were given as 6% for electronics, 3% for TVs and 8% for computers. Audio equipment and appliances were among the categories seeing an uptick in sales, Adobe said.

Amazon said consumer electronics were among the best-selling categories in the U.S. during Prime Day, highlighting Apple Watch Series 7, Beats by Dre headphones and earbuds, and its homegrown Fire TVs, Echo and Blink security cameras as top sellers.

Prime customers purchased at a 100,000 item-per-minute clip during the global sales event, Amazon said, 60,000 items per minute in the U.S. They spent over $3 billion globally on more than 100 million small business items included in the Support Small Businesses to Win Big Sweepstakes, Amazon said. Worldwide, the highest volume of orders was made noon-1 p.m. EDT Tuesday. In the U.S., the busiest shopping hour was 11 p.m.-midnight EDT Wednesday, Amazon said.

In the first Prime Day featuring influencer videos, Amazon Live Prime Day streams had over 100 million views, Amazon said. “Thousands” of creators streamed over the course of the event, it said.

Adobe said Tuesday online prices in the U.S. grew 0.3% year on year, while slipping 1% from May. Most categories had higher prices in June, but electronics and apparel had price decreases, it said. Electronics had their largest year-on-year drop, 7.3%, since May 2020: “As the biggest category in e-commerce by share of spend, [CE] price movements have an outsized impact on overall inflation online,” Adobe said. Through June, consumers spent $451.7 billion online.