Prime Day results suggest shoppers are saving splurges for Black Friday

Amazon’s Prime Day sale looked a little more like a Costco run this year.

Consumers used the occasion to stock up on products like protein shakes, trash bags and cat treats. Only 14% of shoppers reported purchasing consumer electronics such as televisions and cell phones, Numerator data found.

They had plenty of reasons to be cautious. While gas prices have cooled slightly in recent weeks thanks to an interim peace deal, the national average for regular gas is still hovering close to $4 a gallon. Inflation continues to squeeze many everyday expenses. Rather than stretching their budgets for another gadget, shoppers increasingly appear focused on saving money on products they know they’ll need anyway.

Sure, online spending reached a record $26.4 billion during Amazon’s first June Prime Day, which ran from June 23 to June 26, according to Adobe Analytics. But the average household spent $143.45 during the event, down 9% from $156.37 last year, according to Numerator’s Prime Day tracker, which is based on more than 178,000 Prime Day orders from more than nearly 60,000 households.

“Typical of statements made by third-party consultancies that don’t have access to the actual data, these estimates are inaccurate,” an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement. “We were pleased with the positive customer response to this year’s Prime Day event. During the event, customers had access to millions of items at their lowest price of the year so far, with more than 80% of our deals at their lowest price of the year and hundreds of thousands discounted by 40% or more.”

Adobe’s strong sales figures may reflect broader participation rather than bigger shopping baskets. As eMarketer analyst Sky Canaves told me, households appeared to spend less per order, but more consumers took part in the event.

I’ve spent the past week talking to sellers, consultants and analysts about how Prime Day went for them. Here are a few takeaways that stuck with me:

Consumers stocked up instead of splurging 

• Jonathan Cohen, chief marketing officer of AquaSonic and Pure Daily Care, said shoppers consistently prioritized necessities over new devices during Prime Day. At AquaSonic, an oral care company, sales of replacement brush heads grew two to four times year over year, depending on the refill pack, outpacing growth in new electric toothbrushes. Bundles of two toothbrushes also ranked among the brand’s top 10 sellers. 
• Meanwhile, replenishable skin care is outperforming devices, with beauty gadgets like Pure Daily Care taking “a little bit of a second seat,” Cohen said.
• Consumers are being a lot more deliberate, trying to max out the value during Prime Day, as opposed to the shiny new object,” he added.
• Phil Masiello, founder of acceleration agency CrunchGrowth, which manages about 60 Amazon sellers, said home textiles “did extremely well,” with sales climbing 43% as shoppers stocked up on sheets, blankets and mattress toppers for both college move-ins and home upgrades. He also saw strong demand for premium beauty products, electric shavers and kitchen appliances, particularly when brands offered deeper-than-usual discounts.
• “There were a lot of people thinking ahead and taking advantage and trying to buy some of the essentials,” Masiello said.

Shoppers arrived ready to buy 

• Envision Horizons, which manages Amazon businesses for roughly 75 brands, found conversion rates jumped nearly 19% year over year, even as traffic fell 8%. At the same time, total orders increased 10%. Fewer people browsed, but the shoppers who did visit Amazon listings were more likely to check out. 
• Cohen saw a similar pattern. Traffic to his brands’ Amazon listings was softer than expected. “We usually expect growth year over year, and it was a little bit less,” he said. But shoppers who did visit were more likely to make a purchase. “The traffic that we did get was converting higher,” he told me. The data suggests many consumers came to Prime Day with a shopping list instead of browsing for impulse buys.  
• Moreover, Envision Horizons found 56% of sales during the four-day event came from returning customers rather than shoppers buying a brand for the first time, down 15% from last year.
• In other words, consumers appeared more focused on waiting for discounts on brands they already buy before stocking up.

Prime Day still moved the needle for sellers

• Liran Hirschkorn, founder of Incrementum Digital, which works with roughly 100 Amazon brands, said clients’ sales rose 66% compared with the previous 30 days. That’s a strong showing, but below last year’s 81% increase. Hirschkorn said shoppers had more time to compare prices across Amazon, Walmart, Target and TikTok Shop because the sale lasted four days, making it harder for brands to capture impulse purchases.
• Cohen described Prime Day as “a mixed bag.” At AquaSonic, softer traffic was offset by higher conversion rates, leaving overall sales roughly where the company hoped they would be. Pure Daily Care’s Amazon sales were “a little bit softer.”
• Owen Carr, chief merchandising officer at e-commerce accelerator Spreetail, which works with around 200 brands, said the company saw double-digit sales growth during Prime Day. Spreetail saw strong sales of summer seasonal products, such as pools. He also said ongoing heat waves in the U.S. and Europe likely helped demand for some categories, including fans and other outdoor products.

Some brands were more willing to lean into Prime Day 

• Carr said deal participation across the company’s brand partners increased by more than 30% from last year. He attributed that to less hesitation around participating in Prime Day than a year ago, when tariff uncertainty was top of mind for many sellers.
• But some smaller brands said Prime Day has become a tougher investment. Eugene Khayman, who has sold kitchen goods on Amazon for the last decade, skipped Prime Day almost entirely this year in light of higher Amazon fees. Chad Davis, a New York-based consultant who works with about 15 small to mid-sized Amazon brands, estimated deal participation among his clients fell about 30% from last year as brands pulled back over margin concerns.

What does all this mean for the holiday season?

EMarketer’s Sky Canaves expects Prime Day and Black Friday to continue serving different purposes. She told me consumers increasingly use Amazon’s summer sales event “to stock up on things that they already” buy instead of making “big-ticket purchases.” Those purchases, she said, are more likely to wait until Black Friday and Cyber Monday, “which is when they know the best deals are going to be had.”

At the same time, Canaves is forecasting that overall holiday growth in November and December will decelerate, making it riskier for brands and retailers to rely on the traditional end‑of‑year surge to “get out of the red,” and meet their revenue goals.

As she put it, “That’s becoming a riskier proposition to wait until the end of the year to generate the sales you need to make up for the rest of the year.”