The Prime Day effect is real, according to new data about Day 1 of Amazon’s annual summer sales event.
In other words, if Amazon is holding a sales event, so are other online retailers. Furthermore, if Amazon is holding a sales event, consumers are shopping — whether on Amazon or elsewhere — to capitalize on promotions.
Amazon is No. 1 in the Top 1000, Digital Commerce 360’s database of North America’s largest online retailers based on web sales. It’s also No. 3 in the Global Online Marketplaces database, which ranks the 100 largest global marketplaces. Digital Commerce 360 projects Amazon’s total web sales in 2024 will reach $469.01 billion.
As one of the largest online merchants on the planet, its decisions — such as when to hold promotions — affect the entire ecommerce industry.
How much did consumers spend on the first of Amazon’s Prime Days in 2024?
U.S. consumers spent $7.2 billion on July 16, the first of Amazon’s 48-hour Prime Day 2024 sales event, according to Adobe Analytics. But that’s not just sales on Amazon.com. Adobe’s analysis is based on 100 million stock keeping units (SKUs) across 18 product categories and covers more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites.
That $7.2 billion represents 11.7% year-over-year growth and marks the single-largest ecommerce spending day of 2024 yet, according to Adobe data. It also substantiates the likening of Prime Day to “Black Friday in July,” as some retailers offered promotions using the marketing term that overlap with — or directly compete against — Amazon’s sales event.
200 online retailers in the Top 1000 use Adobe Analytics for their web analytics, and 97 use it for site design and development. Top 1000 online retailers also use it for content delivery and management, as an ecommerce platform, a marketing platform, for personalization and more.
Trending spending habits
Moreover, the first 24 hours of Amazon’s Prime Day 2024 event also marked the biggest mobile shopping day of the year so far, Adobe said. The Amazon Prime Day effect contributed to $3.5 billion in mobile spending on July 16, which is 49.3% of sales, nearly equal to desktop shopping.
Specific categories drove the sales, Adobe data shows. Electronics sales as a whole increased 33% compared to average daily sales in June 2024, Adobe said. Across specific products, headphones and Bluetooth speakers saw the largest sales growth at 164%, followed by:
- Televisions (up 83%)
- Fitness trackers (81%)
- Tablets (71%)
- E-readers (65%)
- Computers (64%)
Consumers used curbside pickup for 18% of online orders from online retailers that offer the service. That represents a decrease from 20% for the same period last year, Adobe said.
Buy now, pay later (BNPL) accounted for 7.5% of online orders in the first 24 hours of the Prime Day 2024 event. That represents $540 in revenue, which is a 17.1% year-over-year increase, according to Adobe.
“Steep discounting has been the story of e-commerce so far this year, as consumers look to get the most value out of their dollar,” said Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, in a statement. “It is driving up demand for major categories like electronics and apparel, which have seen more modest growth in recent months, while also capturing back-to-school shoppers at just the right moment.”
What is the Amazon Prime Day effect?
Prime Day creates a small “halo effect” for North American retailers, as Salesforce puts it. Online sales growth in North America hit 3% year over year in the first 24 hours of Prime Day, according to the platform provider, based on the activity of 1.5 billion shoppers across Salesforce Commerce Cloud and other Salesforce products. Its results encompass retailers and brands outside of Amazon, it said. Web traffic to North American online retailers grew 4% year over year.
In North America, 76 of the top 2000 online retailers use Salesforce as their ecommerce platform, according to Digital Commerce 360 data. And in 2023, those 76 online retailers combined for more than $136.077 billion in web sales.
In the U.S., specifically, online sales grew 3% year over year during the first day of the event. For Canada, that was 4% growth over the same period. Meanwhile, web traffic to online retailers grew 4% in the U.S. and 6% in Canada.
Globally, year-over-year sales during the first 24 hours of the Prime Day event were flat for retailers other than Amazon, Salesforce said. However, global web traffic to Salesforce-powered online retailers grew 2% year over year for the first 24 hours.
Salesforce also broke out which categories had the largest sales growth and discounts during the first 24 hours of the 2024 Prime Day event.
Top-performing verticals by sales growth
- Health & Beauty (23% increase)
- Active Footwear (10%)
- General Handbags (12%)
Highest discounts globally by category
- General Apparel (average discount of 28%)
- Beauty & Makeup (26%)
- Home & Furniture (24%)
Global discounts grew 10% year over year during the first 24 hours of the Prime Day event, Salesforce said. The average discount rate across categories was 20%.
Highest discounts by category in the US
- General Apparel (average discount of 33%)
- Home Goods, which includes dining, furniture and art (23%)
- Health & Beauty (20%)
Discounts from U.S. online retailers grew 13% year over year during the same period, according to Salesforce. The average discount rate across categories was 22%. For online retailers in Canada, those figures are 8% and 27%, respectively.
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