Amazon Delivers Biggest Prime Day Event Ever

Proclaiming “this year’s event the biggest Prime Day event in Amazon’s history,” Amazon said the first of this year’s two Prime Day events saw over 300 million items sold worldwide, and Prime members saved more than $1.7 billion in the two-day sales frenzy.

Whether it’s enough to get Amazon’s eCommerce mojo back remains to be seen. Big spikes like this often set a new high from the baseline, and then the baseline level rises, but sustaining this level of sales activity with recession shadowing the economy is a heavy lift, even for Amazon.

“This year was the biggest Prime Day event for Amazon’s selling partners, most of whom are small- to medium-sized businesses [SMBs], whose sales growth in Amazon’s store outpaced Amazon’s retail business,” a Thursday (July 14) press release stated. “Customers spent over $3 billion on more than 100 million small business items included in the Support Small Businesses to Win Big sweepstakes.”

Partly addressing that, the Prime Day event that just ended put a strong emphasis on SMBs — the thousands of independent sellers on the platform — with a sweepstakes.

Support Small Businesses to Win Big accepted entries June 21 through July 11, offering “eligible customers an opportunity to win amazing prizes, unique experiences like an all-expenses-paid trip to the Super Bowl, and exclusive merchandise,” per Amazon Seller Central, it’s portal for the seller community.

“Once registered, for every $1 a customer spends on eligible small business products, they will receive one additional entry in the sweepstakes,” Amazon said, adding in the release that “[d]uring the three weeks leading up to Prime Day, customers shopped from small businesses included in the Support Small Businesses to Win Big sweepstakes across all 50 U.S. states, with those in Delaware, New York and Wyoming seeing the biggest sales per capita.”

See also: All Eyes on Amazon Prime Day as Inflation, Competition Cloud the Forecast

Primed for Summer Fun

What did U.S. consumers snap up? Noting that merchandise was moving at the rate of 60,000 items per minute, Amazon said in the release its best-selling categories were consumer electronics — namely Fire TV, Echo, and Blink devices — as well as household essentials and home, with fast-movers including premium beauty brands, and for summer, “more than 1.2 million pairs of sunglasses and more than 1 million swimsuits.”

“Apple Watch Series 7; Crest Teeth Whitening and Oral-B electric toothbrushes; kids’ and baby clothing from Simple Joys by Carter’s; Bentgo Kids lunch boxes; Levi’s apparel and accessories; Shark vacuums, air purifiers and steam mops; Beats by Dre headphones and earbuds; Coleman, Marmot and ExOfficio outdoor gear and apparel; and construction toys including LEGO sets, Magna-Tiles, and PLAYMOBIL” were top-sellers, according to the release.

Not mentioned at all in Amazon’s Prime Day wrap announcement was groceries. The July PYMNTS report “Walmart+ Weekend: Prime Day Rival or Trip to the Grocery Store” found that 57% percent of Walmart+ subscribers who shopped the June event “purchased grocery products, versus just 24% of Prime members who did so during Prime Day 2021.”

Get the report: Prime Day Rival or Trip to the Grocery Store

“This indicates that the biggest impact of Walmart+ Weekend was to incentivize members to stock up on groceries in advance, frontloading essential spending that was already in their budgets to capture discounts,” the report stated.

Amazon Worldwide Stores CEO Doug Herrington said in the release: “Prime Day is a celebration of our Prime members, who look forward to this event every year, and we’re thrilled to have delivered incredible savings to them once again. This special event is made possible because of the support of our employees, vendors and sellers, and I want to give a big thank you to all of them for making this a Prime Day to remember.”

See also: Walmart+ Weekend Brings in Different Shoppers Than Amazon Prime Day

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