Amazon boasts first day of Prime Day largest sales day in its history
- July 11 was the single largest sales day in Amazon’s history.
- Prime members purchased more than 375 million items worldwide during this year’s two-day shopping event.
- The average order size for Prime Day 2023 was $54.05, up from $52.26 in the same reporting period for last year, according to Numerator.
The first day of Prime Day, July 11, was the single largest sales day in Amazon’s history, the retailer announced. During this year’s two-day shopping event, Prime members purchased more than 375 million items worldwide, and Amazon said shoppers saved more than $2.5 billion on millions of deals across the retailer. In comparison, consumers bought 34.4 million items on the first Prime Day in 2015, and last year purchased 300 million items, according to Amazon.
“Prime is an incredible value, and we’re proud to offer additional value for members through exclusive deals events like Prime Day,” said Doug Herrington, CEO of Amazon Stores, in a press release. “Thank you to our Prime members for continuing to shop in our store, and to our employees and independent sellers around the world who delivered for customers this Prime Day.”
While Amazon doesn't release official sales numbers for Prime Day, Digital Commerce 360 estimates show a meteoric rise in revenue connected to Prime Day through the years that's been slowed by the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine, according to Statista. Estimated revenues grew from $900 million in 2015 to $7.2 billion in 2019, an increase of 700%. In turn, the jump from 2019 to 2022 is considerably smaller, amounting to around $5 billion and a growth rate of 68%.
Prime Day 2023
According to preliminary data from the Numerator Amazon Prime Day Tracker as of 8 a.m. ET on July 13, 98,462 prime day orders were placed boasting 34,185 unique buyers. The average order size for Prime Day 2023 was $54.05, up from $52.26 in the same reporting period for last year. Nearly two-thirds (65%) of households shopping Prime Day placed more than two separate orders, and, in turn, the average household spend was $155.67, according to Numerator.
This year, Amazon claimed to have offered more deals than any past Prime Day event, with home, fashion and beauty among the top-selling deal categories. Fire TV Stick, Laneige Lip Glowy Balm, Apple AirPods and Bissell Little Green Portable Deep Cleaner among the top-selling deals, the retailer said.
Additionally, Prime members purchased millions of Alexa-enabled devices, including Fire TV Stick (third generation) with Alexa Voice Remote, which was the best-selling product across all of Amazon worldwide, the retailer said.
According to Numerator, the top items in an early read of Prime Day 2023 sales were Temptations Cat Treats, Fire TV Sticks and Liquid I.V. Packets. Numerator tracked the top categories shoppers said they purchased were:
- home goods — 28%.
- household essentials — 26%.
- apparel and shoes — 24%.
More than half (52%) of Prime Day shoppers said they purchased items they'd been holding off on buying until they were on sale, according to Numerator. Additionally, the majority of Prime Day items (57%) sold for less than $20, while 5% were more than $100 — the average spend per item was $32.35, Numerator reported.
Amazon’s independent sellers – most of which are small- and medium-sized businesses – also experienced their largest Prime Day, the retailer said. In regard to small businesses, Caraway, True Classic and TUSHY increased their average daily sales in Amazon’s store by more than 18 times during the first day of the Prime Day event when compared to 2023 leading up to Prime Day, Amazon said.
Buy with Prime
This Prime Day, members shopped deals beyond the Amazon store using Buy with Prime, a new Prime member perk that offers U.S.-based members the same benefits when shopping directly from participating brands’ websites. To help drive awareness for these deals, Buy with Prime invited a range of small, medium and larger merchants to participate in promotional activities in connection with Prime Day deals on their own sites. These deals were promoted across Amazon channels, including placement in premium on-site banners on the Amazon store, influencer content and digital awareness campaigns.
Merchants who participated in Prime Day activities, in aggregate, experienced a ten times increase in daily Buy with Prime orders and saw an eight times increase in daily revenue from those orders during the Prime Day event period versus the month before Amazon announced Prime Day, the retailer reported.