Amazon says groceries and essentials are growing ‘meaningfully faster’ than the rest of its Stores business

Overall, net sales came in at just over $200 billion during the second quarter, which ended on June 30. That represented a 20% year-over-year increase. 

The bulk of that growth was driven by AWS, which grew 36.7% year over year, aided by the AI boom. But online Stores revenue was also up 15% year over year. 

“In Stores, we again set record delivery speeds for Prime members in the first half of the year — over 40% more items delivered same-day or overnight, with Grocery and Everyday Essentials growing meaningfully faster than the rest of the business,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a statement. 

It helped that this year, Prime Day was held from June 23 to June 26. Typically, the event is held in mid-July. Holding the event at the end of June meant that Amazon got to realize the gains from Prime Day during the second quarter, rather than the third quarter. 

Like past years, Amazon did not say exactly how much revenue Prime Day brought in this year. Jassy only said that the company was “pleased” with Prime Day results, and that hundreds of thousands of items were discounted at 40% or more. 

Prime Day data from third-party sources reinforced the idea that people have come to use Prime Day as an occasion to shop for essential products. That’s partially fueled by inflation and a desire among shoppers to make their dollars stretch further by doing more of their shopping during big sales events like Prime Day. Data from Numerator estimated that the top five most popular products during Prime Day, based on units sold, included Premier protein shakes and Liquid I.V. packets. 

In turn, while some people may be buying more items during Prime Day, they are spending less overall because they are prioritizing essentials. The average household spent $143.45 during Prime Day, according to Numerator, down from $156.37. 

But it isn’t just Prime Day that’s causing people to turn to Amazon when they need to re-up essentials. Amazon has also made significant investments to grow its grocery business over the past year. Jason Beuchel, who was put in charge of Amazon’s grocery business at the beginning of 2025, has overseen the rollout of a same-day delivery service that lets customers place orders for both perishable and non-perishable items together. He’s also made some operational changes, like bringing the Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh teams closer together.

In turn, Amazon has made significant strides in grocery, Jassy stressed during the earnings call.
“The number of monthly active perishables customers grew over 50% since the start of the year. Same-day orders with perishables averaged over 3x more units per order, and fresh groceries now make up six of the top 20 bestsellers on Amazon.com,” he said. 

He also pointed to the growth of Amazon Pharmacy — the number of customers grew more than 2x in the first six months of the year — as another positive for the Stores business this quarter. 

Newer, faster delivery services have also been crucial to fueling more sales of essentials. In May, Amazon launched Amazon Now in the U.S, starting with major metro areas like Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth, Philadelphia and Seattle. During the second quarter, Jassy said that Amazon launched Amazon Now in 80 additional cities and towns in the U.S. 

In turn, Amazon is further encroaching upon the territories of Walmart, Target, Costco and other major brick-and-mortar retailers with these new offerings. 

“We offer millions of items for same-day delivery with Prime, up to 40 times more selection than a typical big-box retail store, and our same-day network continues to expand,” Jassy said.