This year’s Amazon Prime Day was the biggest in company history
By Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN
New York (CNN) — America still loves a bargain.
Consumers spent $12.7 billion across the web on July 11 and 12 during Amazon’s Prime Day sales, a 6.1% jump from a year ago, according to Adobe Analytics. Walmart, Target, and other retailers also offered savings deals to customers.
Amazon said July 11 was the single largest sales day in the company’s history, but declined to provide totals. Shoppers bought 375 million items across the two days, up from 300 million last year during the sales promotion.
Adobe said it was a record two days for online shopping overall.
Online sales were driven by appliances and toys, Adobe said. Other surging categories included apparel and electronics.
“Prime Day has become of one the biggest e-commerce moments of the year, as consumers latch onto major discounts from a number of different retailers,” said Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights. “The record spending so far shows us that consumers are tapping into their inner bargain hunters.”
Elsewhere, curbside pickup was used in 20% of online orders on July 11, according to Adobe, highlighting the staying power of a service that gathered steam during the pandemic. This is up slightly from last year.
Amazon holds Prime Day in July every year to juice sales numbers during what are typically slow summer months. It also helps Amazon promote an early start to the back-to-school and college shopping period, according to JPMorgan analyst Doug Anmuth.
Since Prime Day began in 2015, other chains, like Walmart with its Walmart+ week and Best Buy with “Black Friday in July,” have also jumped in to capture shoppers’ spending during slow summer months.
Amazon shares Thursday morning were up about $2 to $133.
The-CNN-Wire
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