Ahead of Amazon’s 10th annual Prime Day kicking off Tuesday, Adobe Analytics predicted $14 billion in ecommerce sales, noting why Prime Day sales for retailers across the industry could increase significantly from the year before.

If the two-day Amazon Prime sale event July 16 and 17 does drive $14 billion in ecommerce activity, that would represent a 10.5% increase year over year. It would also be the highest-ever result recorded during Amazon’s best-known promotion.

Adobe’s analysis is based on 100 million stock keeping units (SKUs) across 18 product categories. 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. The Top 1000 is Digital Commerce 360’s database of North America’s largest online retailers based on web sales.

Why Prime Day could see ecommerce sales reach $14 billion

“Adobe expects day 1 of the Prime Day event (July 16) to drive $7.1 billion online, up an impressive 11.3 percent year-over-year (YoY),” Vivek Pandya, the director at Adobe Digital Insights, wrote in a July 15 blog post. “Day 2 (July 17) is expected to drive $6.9 billion online, up 9.2 percent YoY.”

In addition, Pandya said Adobe anticipates July 16 will “be the biggest mobile shopping day of the year so far, driving $3.4 billion in online spend, and representing a 48.4 percent share compared to desktop shopping.”

Why the dramatic increase from 2023? Among the factors cited are deeper discounts ranging from 9% to 22% off listed prices, according to Pandya. He also credited back-to-school shopping, where Adobe already saw an 80% increase in spending during the first week of July. With Prime Day occurring closer to the beginning of the new school year after landing on July 11 and 12 in 2023, proximity could fuel more buying activity, Adobe predicts.

Buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) promotions may fuel activity as well.

“Adobe expects a substantial uptick in BNPL usage during the Prime Day event, driving between $1.09 and $1.11 billion in online spend across both days, and representing 18.1 percent and 19.6 percent growth YoY, respectively,” Pandya wrote.

How important is Prime Day for Amazon?

Now in its 10th year, Amazon uses Prime Day to drive paid memberships to its Amazon Prime membership program, in addition to sales of its own products and those of third-party sellers. In 2024, the company announced that Prime members would have “exclusive access to millions” of deals. Some of those deals would be circulated through invitations that only Prime members can request. Examples include 40% discounts for Sony wireless headphones and as much as 30% off Peloton products.

Amazon web sales by year

Amazon is No. 1 in the Top 1000. 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.

Alongside other promotions this year, Amazon is showcasing back-to-school and college shopping deals. The online retailer is offering young adults and college students special “Prime Student” accounts with six-month trials. Those offers will be accompanied by discounted Amazon Basics products for school-related needs.

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