American consumers spent 6 percent more on the first day of the Prime Day shopping spree of online retailer Amazon than last year’s edition. But with $ 6.4 billion, their spending in the first 24 hours fell short of expectations.
Research agency Numerator also came up with preliminary figures about the event. The average order was $56.64, according to the firm. That is 7 percent more than a year ago. People would mainly buy household items.
The 48-hour Prime Day at Amazon started Tuesday and runs through Wednesday. With the many promotions surrounding the event, Amazon is trying to attract more customers worldwide for its Amazon Prime subscription service. Only those who are paying members can go on a bargain hunt.
Expectations were high. Adobe predicted that e-commerce sales in the US would increase by as much as 9.5 percent during Prime Day. Insider Intelligence also stated that shoppers worldwide would spend an estimated $12.9 billion on Amazon during the event, up 11 percent.
Last year, Prime members bought more than 300 million items. Amazon reported that this was equivalent to more than 100,000 items per minute. Especially the own devices were in demand. This concerns, for example, the smart speaker Alexa, electronics and household products. The total discount last time amounted to $ 1.7 billion.