Amazon’s 10th annual Prime Day was its biggest ever, with record-breaking sales over the 48-hour member sales event and more items sold than on any previous Prime Day, according to the company. Helping to drive these banner results were millions of new Prime members worldwide, with a record-breaking number of customers signing up for Prime in the three weeks prior to the start of the sale on July 16, 2024, according to Amazon.
While Amazon didn’t report specific sales figures, Adobe Analytics reported that U.S. sales over the two days totaled $14.2 billion, an 11% increase year-over-year. Consumers spent $7.2 billion (up 11.7% YoY) on the first day of the sale and an additional $7 billion (up 10.4% YoY) on the second. The $7.2 billion in sales on July 16 marked the single biggest day for ecommerce sales in total so far this year.
Adobe also reported that consumers embraced shopping on smaller screens this year, with mobile devices driving nearly half (49.2%) of online purchases versus desktop shopping. Across both days, $7 billion was spent through mobile devices, up 18.6% YoY.
There are indications that consumers were waiting for Prime Day promotions to make some major purchases. “The electronics, apparel and furniture categories make up nearly half of ecommerce spend but have seen low-single-digit growth in the first half of 2024,” said Vivek Pandya, Lead Analyst at Adobe Digital Insights. “It’s clear now that the Prime Day event has been a catalyst across these major categories, with discounts deep enough for consumers to hit the buy button and upgrade items in their homes.”
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Back-to-school shopping also spurred Prime Day spending this year, particularly since Prime Day took place later in the month than last year (the 2023 event took place July 11-12). Spending for school-related items like backpacks, lunchboxes and office supplies was up 216% across both days of the sale compared to daily sales levels in June 2024, and spending for kids’ apparel was up 165% in the same period.
Amazon Ad Business, Other Initiatives Get Prime Day Boost
And Amazon made money on more than product sales during Prime Day. Data compiled by commerce acceleration platform Pacvue showed that on the first day of the sale alone, cost-per-click increased 9% and average advertising spend increased 29% from the same day last year, indicating that merchants allocated more budget to advertising this year, reflecting heightened competition in the marketplace.
For its part, Amazon touted the boost that Prime Day gave to a number of its ongoing initiatives, including:
- Supporting small businesses: Amazon’s independent sellers — most of which are small- and medium-sized businesses — sold more than 200 million items during the Prime Day event;
- Reducing carbon emissions with consolidated shipping: Prime members chose to consolidate the delivery of millions of Prime Day orders, saving an estimated 10 million delivery trips; and
- Improving the shopping experience with AI assistant Rufus: Rolled out to all U.S. shoppers the day prior to the sale, Amazon reported that the Rufus chatbot was used by millions of shoppers during Prime Day.
“Prime Day 2024 was a huge success thanks to the millions of Prime members globally who turned to Amazon for fantastic deals, and our much-appreciated employees, delivery partners and sellers around the world who helped bring the event to life for customers,” said Doug Herrington, CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores in a statement. It has now become tradition for other retailers to hop on Amazon’s Prime Day bullet train, hosting their own promotional events during the same period. Among the retailers that held competitive sales around or during Prime Day this year were Target, Walmart (which also offered a 50% discount on Walmart+ membership), Macy’s, JCPenney, Build-A-Bear, Curacao, Kohl’s, Best Buy and Office Depot.
Senate Investigation Raises New Questions About Amazon Warehouse Worker Safety
Prime Day also tends to increase the already sizeable target on Amazon’s back, and this year was no exception, with the U.S. Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) choosing day one of Prime Day to release the preliminary results of a yearlong investigation into Amazon’s warehouse working conditions.
The report concluded that Prime Day is a “major” cause of worker injuries. The Teamsters Union swiftly followed up by demanding that Congress pass protections for warehouse workers, but an Amazon spokesperson took issue with the Senate investigation, pointing out that it is based on old data and saying that it ignores the progress Amazon has made on worker safety in recent years.
“[This report] draws sweeping and inaccurate conclusions based on unverified anecdotes, and it misrepresents documents that are several years old and contained factual errors and faulty analysis,” said Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel in comments shared with CNBC. “For example, one of the false claims in the report implies that we’re not adequately staffed for busy shopping periods.”
Nantel added that since 2019, Amazon has reduced its incident rate for anything requiring more than basic first aid by 28% in the U.S., and its lost-time incident rate, which encompasses more significant injuries requiring an employee to miss at least one day of work, by 75%.
