Amazon says October Prime Day outpaces last year’s event

Amazon‘s fall Prime deals bonanza “outpaced” last year’s event, the company said Thursday, as discount-hungry consumers got an early jump on holiday shopping.

The 48-hour event, called “Prime Big Deal Days,” ran through Wednesday. It marks the second year Amazon has held the shopping event, which is a fall follow-up to the company’s main Prime Day sale held in July.

“Prime Big Deal Days was a strong start to the holiday shopping season, offering Prime members an exclusive early opportunity to save and surpassing our expectations,” Doug Herrington, CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores, said in a statement. “This event outpaced last year’s holiday kick-off event, with more Prime members shopping this year.”

Amazon said Prime members, who pay $139 per year for fast shipping and other perks, ordered more than 150 million items from third-party sellers, up from about 100 million items in 2022. It disclosed little else about the results, such as sales figures.

Shoppers snapped up Apple AirPods Pro, Bissell carpet cleaners, and Crest 3D Whitestrips, as well as Amazon-branded devices like Fire TVs and Echo smart speakers, the company said. Amazon typically uses its discount events for Prime members to run promotions on its devices.

The average spend per order during the Prime Big Deal Days event was $53.47, down from Amazon’s July Prime Day sale, but up slightly from last year’s fall sale, according to market research firm Numerator.

About 60% of items sold for less than $20, while just 4% were over $100, Numerator said, suggesting consumers shunned big-ticket purchases. Protein shakes, Amazon Basics batteries, and Liquid I.V. hydration packets were among the top items purchased, according to Numerator data.

In recent years, Amazon, Walmart, Target and many other major retailers have held discount events well ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday as a way to elongate demand during the holiday season, and as more sales continue to move online.

Online spending throughout the holiday season is expected to grow 4.8% to $221.8 billion, according to Adobe, which would mark a jump from last year’s increase of 3.5%. But it’s a slowdown from the pandemic-era surge in 2020, when U.S. online purchases skyrocketed roughly 32%.

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