MichaelVi/Depositphotos.com
July 9, 2025
Does Amazon Prime Day Actually Have a Growth Ceiling?
It’s official: Amazon Prime Day has become one of the biggest shopping events of the year, outgrowing its moniker to span a four-day period in 2025. American consumers look forward to spending across a variety of categories during the deals frenzy put off by the world’s largest e-commerce retailer, but the question remains — is there any stopping the growth of Amazon Prime Day?
The numbers tell slightly different stories, at least at this early juncture.
Adobe Data Suggests Amazon Prime Day Set for Blockbuster US Spend
According to Adobe data detailed by Chain Store Age, Amazon is off to a spectacular start to its sales event. Said data indicates that U.S. retailers raked in $7.9 billion in online spend on July 8 alone, a figure which represents a 9.9% uptick in spending growth year-over-year. It also comes in as the biggest single day of e-commerce spend thus far this year.
With that opening in mind, Adobe is sticking firm on its projections of U.S. retailers experiencing a record $23.8 billion in online spend throughout the Amazon Prime Day event, from July 8 to July 11. If that forecast holds up, it would represent 28.4% YoY growth versus 2024’s numbers, or a total improvement of $9.6 billion in sales — perhaps to be expected, given the lengthening of the sale period from two days to four (having occurred on July 16-17 in 2024).
Top categories included appliances (up 135% versus average daily sales in June 2025), electronics (up 95%), tools and home improvement (up 85%) among others, and just over half (50.2%) of the July 8 U.S. online sales were made through a mobile device.
Numerator Data Indicates Amazon Prime Day Kickoff Was Weaker Than Last Year’s
On the other hand, Numerator’s Amazon Prime Day Tracker provided a different portrait of the first day’s sales.
According to Numerator data pulled as of 4 p.m. ET on July 8, average order size was $58.37 (down 1.7% from $59.78 as of the same time frame during last year’s first day of the sales event) and average household spend came in at approximately $106.41, down 3.6% from 2024’s figure of $110.40.
Further, while 42% of households shopping Prime Day had placed two or more separate orders as of that cutoff, that’s still lower than the 45% which had done so by the same reference point last year.
Additional data further muddied the waters: Chain Store Age cited a RetailMeNot survey showing that 84% of U.S. adults planned to take part in Amazon’s sales event this summer, up from 81% in 2024. With that being said, shoppers indicated an intention to spend an average of $430 — $242 with Amazon and $188 at competitors’ rival sales pushes — a downturn of $38 versus last year’s intended spend.
Discussion Questions
Does Amazon Prime Day have a growth ceiling? If so, what signs will be the first to show themselves? If not, how much larger can it grow?
Do you foresee Amazon expanding the length of its Prime Day sales event even further? Why or why not?
Is Amazon benefiting from, or being hampered by, the current macroeconomic environment? With consumers being more considered in terms of purchasing behavior, will this present an opportunity for Amazon during its highly publicized sales event?
Poll
Loading …BrainTrust
Scott Benedict
Founder & CEO, Benedict Enterprises LLC
Frank Margolis
Executive Director, Growth Marketing & Business Development, Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions
Mohamed Amer, PhD
CEO & Strategic Board Advisor, Strategy Doctor
Recent Discussions
More Discussions
Which Tech Will Solve In-Store Inventory Woes?
Three major tech lineups are looking to solve retail inventory problems. Which is most suited?Will Ford’s New Retail Experience Deliver Results?
Ford is revamping its global dealership model, in terms of physical space and other aspects. Will…Will Target’s Rebalancing Act Solve its ‘Sloppier’ Stores Problem?
Target is making an operational move to take fulfillment duties away from certain stores. Will this…
Yes, of course there is a ceiling, in that there is a practical ceiling for everything. The real question is whether Prime Day has scope to grow. And the answer is largely yes. Last year, Prime Day accounted for 2.8% of core US non-food retail sales in July – so eking out more market share gains is perfectly feasible. This is especially so as Amazon expands the number of categories involved in Prime Day, including to everyday essentials. Although, obviously, gains get incrementally harder, especially in this more constrained consumer environment. Regarding the results so far, I would be very cautious about reading too much into them. The pattern of trade is different this year because of the longer event, we see this in our behavioral and intention data.
I get paid over 220 Dollars per hour working from home with 2 kids at home. i never thought i’d be able to do it but my best friend earns over 15k a month doing this and she convinced me to try. it was all true and has totally changed my life. This is what I do, check it out by Visiting Following Website…
.
.
HERE—————⊃⫸ https://rb.gy/20rv69
Google is now paying $300 to $500 per hour for doing work online work from home. Last paycheck of me said that $20537 from this easy and simple job. Its amazing and earns are awesome. No boss, full time freedom and earnings are in front of you. This job is just awesome. Every person can makes income online with google easily….
.
More Details For Us→→→→ https://tinyurl.com/mr8pnsb6
Amazon is a growth machine, but nothing goes on forever. Amazon extending Prime Days is like a retailer opening more stores – higher total sales are likely, but how are same-store sales? The real proof will come when all the sales are tallied, and final comparisons to last year can be made. I suspect that Amazon will notch a ‘win’ for extending Prime Day, but how long they can sustain this in the future will depend on many factors. Tariff concerns are still a consideration. Some of the buying is likely driven by consumers wanting to avoid potential higher (tariff) prices in the future, and this is likely contributing to these strong early results.
Yes, everything in retailing has a ceiling, including promotional events such as Prime Day. Extending the length of the promotion certainly helps growth, as does the consumer tendency to purchase for fear of pending tariff impacts. That said, Amazon still has plenty of upside in their Prime event…but not forever.
‘Ceiling’ may not be the right word, but rather ‘slowing growth’. Whether driven by economic conditions, shopper fatigue, a lack of compelling merchandise, or competitive pressure (Walmart’s Deals Days is overlapping Prime Week by several days), I foresee nominal topline growth for Prime Week in the future.
Given 2025’s market uncertainty and low consumer sentiment, these Prime Day results are impressive. This strategic shopping extravaganza (and rivals’ concurrent sales) livens up a historically slower sales period.
Prime Day will keep growing in terms of sales and possibly duration, as years of inflation have conditioned consumers to seek deals and stock up when they spot a bargain. Additional revenue growth comes from advertisers willing to spend to get their brands in front of customers while they shop.
Amazon is not one to just hope that adding extra days will drive an outcome. While there is trial and error, the company usually has done some research and makes an educated guess and predicts the impact of extended days. The expectation is that Prime day will expand sales to over $14B this year. This is consistent growth. But what is interesting is that just as Black Friday/Cyber Monday has turned into more of a Holiday Week, Prime day, is also shifting in this direction. For consumers, locking them into deals on a single day is great for certain shoppers but not for all. I would suspect we will see continued growth for the day- especially in the high purchase category of electronics plus the October Prime day returning for a first stab at consumer wallet share. The pie continues to grow and has a long runway yet.
Is the pie really growing? When retail growth is 3.6%, inflation is 2.9% and population growth is 0.7% the pie has not changed.
Amazon’s pie is growing. July Prime Day inspires us to spend when we normally wouldn’t (e.g. vacation season) and often captures spending that would have otherwise gone to rivals. (Love my DTC supplier but their protein powder is way cheaper on Amazon today, so guess who’s getting my money.)
The retail pie, in volume terms, hasn’t grown much. Amazon’s share of the pie has grown. It’s a myth to say they’ve hit a growth ceiling. None of the numbers show that. What Amazon is doing with the 4 days is responding to the data they saw last year which showed people wanted more time to shop; and allowing for more of a deal discovery/drop culture, which helps drive demand. And, of course, this isn’t just about the event itself and the sales it drives. Prime Day is a tentpole occasion that throws a halo around other things like Prime membership sign-ups, retention, frequency of purchase, advertising revenue, and so forth. Amazon isn’t just grasping at random straws here, there’s a lot of thought and data behind this.
Amazon Prime Day has already hit its rate of growth ceiling. This is Amazon’s promotional creep—first, they added a second annual event (2022), now they’ve doubled the duration. It’s a pattern of needing more promotional “real estate” to achieve the same impact. Amazon is essentially admitting that consumer attention has become more expensive to capture, and the per-day intensity is declining. Amazon is trapped in a cycle where each Prime Day must be bigger, longer, and more aggressive than the last.
Prime Day’s ceiling isn’t just revenue – it’s actually around relevance. While Amazon redefined summer seasonality, now they discovered they can’t control it. Competitors like Walmart are no longer playing defense – they’re confronting Amazon’s monopoly of July’s mindshare.
Amazon’s promotional empire is entering its mature phase, requiring exponentially more effort for incrementally smaller gains. The real winners will be retailers who escape the discount cycle entirely and focus on solving problems rather than manufacturing sales events.
Yes. Insightful.
“per-day intensity is declining”… possibly for purchases.
But PRIME is a subscription that brings continuing revenue. So, giving a few more days of tempting/decision making room might balance a drop in per-day shopping intensity.
The Prime acquisition rate is slowing. Any buzz or temptation to re grab lapsed members is an educated gamble.
Simple answer. One Day Sales. What did the proliferation of One Day Sales do to Macy’s…??? At some point, One Day Sales/Prime Day Sales/whatever become a really good reason to wait. They are frequent enough and long enough that there is simply to reason to buy at “regular” price. And a whole bunch of purchases will have been shifted from full margin to discount margins. Amazon may not be there yet, but there is a powerful lesson to be taken from what happened to Macy’s. And of course Walmart and Target and other retailers have to participate in some manner, or all they do is cede market share to Amazon. So as retailers they have to participate, but at the same time, I’m betting there are a whole bunch of brands that absolutely do not want to get drawn into this margin destroying black hole. It all makes for very interesting times.
Sure, there is a ceiling of sorts and growth may slow. That said, this has been going (Amazon) since 1994 and they continue to find new ways of doing things. I don’t expect that to stop anytime soon.
Retail sales are finite. If not Amazon, then someone else. The ceiling is when Amazon gets 100% of retail sales.
Prime Days are either taking sales from other retailers or shifting dollars. Mohamed explains well that for Amazon, it is more than sales. If they continue with this mindset, they will win, year after year.
There is a ceiling as there are a finite number of consumers and spending is impacted by economics and competition. Amazon has already added days to their Prime Days and leveraged calendar shifts around Summer/Fall and Holiday. I do think there is room for growth to increase the average order values or maybe have bonus dollars applied to leverage at other times (think old fashioned bouncebacks). My guess would also be a future of not only free delivery but with drone service or another innovation to drive interest and conversion.