Amazon Prime Day sales soar as America’s biggest retailers deal out discounts
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Primed to spend… Amazon’s yearly sales blowout wraps up tonight, and early data suggests it could be a banger. In its first seven hours, Prime Day — the two-day discount event for Amazon Prime subscribers — saw sales up 12% compared to the same time last year, according to data from Momentum Commerce (which oversees Amazon sales for 50 brands including Crocs and Lego). Amazon had said the first day of last year’s Prime event was its biggest sales day ever.
Primordial: Prime Day, which launched in 2015, is aimed at pulling in new subscribers who pay $139/year for “free” shipping and other perks like streaming. Amazon Prime was said to have 180M US subs as of March, up 8% on the year.
Speed strains: A US Senate probe this week said that Prime Day has been a “major cause” of worker injuries (picture: sprained muscles, herniated disks).
It’s a hot discount summer… and everyone wants in. US retailers like Walmart, Target, and Best Buy all planned their own July sales events to compete with Amazon’s. And as consumers hunt for deals, retailers are pushing back-to-school discounts while kids are still at summer camp. The rising Prime tide is lifting all shipping: online sales (not just from Amazon) are expected to total $14B over the course of the Prime Day promo. Overall, retail purchases were up 0.4% last month (excluding car sales).
Beating inflation starts at the top… After years of sticky inflation, some of America’s largest retailers (like: Walgreens, Walmart, Target) have announced plans to slash prices. That may be contributing to cooling inflation: US consumer prices fell last month — the first monthly price decline since the start of the pandemic. Fed Chair Powell said he’s confident inflation’s easing, and the Fed suggested it wouldn’t necessarily wait until it hits its 2% target to cut rates.