Prime Day Sales Climb 11% as Shoppers Spend $14 Billion, Setting Record

American shoppers reportedly spent $14.2 billion during Amazon’s Prime Day event, setting a record for the number of items purchased.

That’s an 11% increase over last year for the 48-hour eCommerce sale, Bloomberg reported Thursday (July 18), citing data from Adobe, which found consumers taking advantage of high markdowns on electronics, clothing and small appliances.

“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,” Adobe analyst Vivek Pandya said.

According to Bloomberg, Adobe measures total online spend during Prime Day, as rival retailers push their own deals, leading consumers to visit multiple sites for comparison shopping. The $14.2 billion sales figure was in line with Adobe’s earlier predictions.

As PYMNTS reported earlier this week, Prime Day — along with Walmart and Target’s similar summer deals offerings (Walmart+ Week and Target Circle Week) — comes as consumers increasingly wait until sales events to make major purchases.

“In the past year, we’ve seen engagement in our promotions with higher-than-expected volume around popular seasonal moments,” Katie Stratton, chief growth officer at Target-owned on-demand delivery aggregator Shipt, told PYMNTS.

PYMNTS Intelligence research shows that half of consumers have switched to cheaper retail merchants in response to inflation, while 45% of low-income consumers, 41% of middle-income consumers, and 28% of high-income consumers said that they had opted for lower-quality products to reduce expenses for the same reason.

“Customers are shopping circulars to find the best deals, and … we’ve seen an uptick in the use of coupons,” Katie Kobus, vice president of marketing at Save A Lot, told PYMNTS in an interview posted on Tuesday (July 16).

Amazon issued a news release Thursday saying that Prime Day had set a record, with more items sold than any previous Prime Day. The company did not offer specific sales figures.

“Rufus, Amazon’s new AI-powered conversational shopping assistant, helped millions of customers shop Amazon’s wide selection quickly and easily,” the release noted.

Amazon had first beta-tested Rufus in February before making it available to all customers last week.

The generative artificial intelligence-powered assistant answers questions on various shopping needs and products, trained on Amazon’s product catalog, customer reviews, community Q&As and information from across the web.

“While it’s still early days for both generative AI and Rufus, we’re excited to hear customers are using Rufus to help them make more informed shopping decisions,” Rajiv Mehta, Amazon’s vice president of search and conversational shopping, said in a news release last week. “As we continue to grow and improve upon Rufus, we’re looking forward to seeing how customers continue to use it to find exactly what they need or want in our store.”