Prime Day Delivers $6 Billion Sales Day Online: Adobe
Amazon Prime Day got consumers clicking.
The first day of the two-day promotional bonanza on Tuesday helped drive total online U.S. sales to $6 billion, marking growth of 7.8 percent from a year ago and making it the biggest online sales day so far this year, according to the Adobe Digital Economy Index. (By comparison, consumers spent $10.7 billion on Cyber Monday last year, kicking off a strong holiday sales period).
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While Adobe said toys saw the biggest price discounts at 15.4 percent on Tuesday, apparel was marked down 11 percent.
The solid turnout indicates that the price cuts and the buzz around a big shopping holiday were enough to overcome growing economic concerns as well as a lull in e-commerce growth after the pandemic’s dramatic expansion.
Prime Day seems to have also transcended its e-commerce roots and is helping drive sales in stores as well. Adobe said curbside pickup gave retailers an “extra edge” on Prime Day, with stores that offer the services seeing an “11.8 percent boost in conversion and likelihood to purchase compared to an average June day.”
“Consumers took advantage of discounts that were offered, after having experienced many months of heightened prices, online,” said Pat Brown, vice president of Adobe. “The early momentum and strong growth for the first day of the Prime Day event supports retailers trying to unlock new levels of growth, in an inflationary market environment.”
And that inflationary environment is only growing more worrisome.
On Wednesday, the Labor Department said the June reading of the Consumer Price Index showed price inflation of 9.1 percent from a year ago — the biggest jump since 1981.
But so far, many shoppers are hanging on.
A survey of 1,162 consumers who participated in Prime Day by supply chain management company Blue Yonder found that inflation only slightly impacted spending.
The study found that 59 percent of the consumers surveyed made a purchase on Prime Day, down from 61 percent a year earlier.
“Seventy-two percent of consumers said they spent the same or more on Prime Day this year compared to last year, down slightly from 78 percent in 2021,” Blue Yonder said. “Forty-eight percent said they spent more this year and 23 percent said they spent significantly more.”
Once primed, it seems shoppers were ready to spend.
“Walmart did not host a rival ‘branded’ event on Prime Day, yet consumers still flocked to its site for deals and in greater numbers than last year,” Blue Yonder said, noting that “49 percent of consumers said they participated in deals on Prime Day with Walmart compared to 35 percent in 2021.”
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