Prime Day Boosts U.S. E-Commerce Sales Beyond $24 Billion, with GenAI Traffic Surging by 3,300%

Amazon’s Prime Day, a significant boost for U.S. e-commerce through competitive deals, saw remarkable growth in retail traffic, fueled by generative AI tools like chatbots and browsing assistants. A post-Prime Day analysis by Adobe Analytics disclosed that GenAI traffic to U.S. retail websites skyrocketed by 3,300% year-over-year, surpassing the company’s initial expectations.

Adobe’s e-commerce team performed an extensive study of the U.S. retail landscape, analyzing over 1 trillion visits to retail sites and 100 million SKUs across 18 product categories. During the Prime Day event (July 8-11), U.S. retailers recorded $24.1 billion in online purchases, representing a 30.3% increase year-over-year, comparable to the sales seen on two Black Fridays. (As a comparison, Black Friday 2024 achieved $10.8 billion, setting a new record.)

The actual findings from Adobe’s analysis surpassed its earlier forecast, which anticipated a spending of $23.8 billion over the four-day Prime Day period, reflecting a year-over-year growth of 28.4%.

As a result, the uptake of GenAI in online shopping showed a notable rise, highlighting an increased consumer interest in utilizing generative AI-driven chat services and browsing tools as shopping assistants. However, Adobe noted that this AI-induced traffic remains significantly smaller compared to other channels like email or paid search.

For instance, paid search accounted for a 28.5% share of U.S. e-commerce sales during the Prime Day event, marking a 5.6% increase year-over-year.

Another newly emerging channel enhancing retail clicks this year was social media influencers, who made up 19.9% of U.S. online retail sales during the event. This represented a 15% increase year-over-year, with insights indicating that influencers converted shoppers into buyers 10 times more effectively than social media overall.

Although Amazon did not release specific figures for Prime Day, the company claimed it had its largest event to date, achieving unprecedented sales with more items sold than in previous years. However, the four-day extension of Prime Day this year complicates comparisons with past events.

According to a third-party analysis by Momentum Commerce, as reported by Adweek, Prime Day sales during the initial two days were initially down 35% year-over-year, but surged by 165% year-over-year by day three. This suggests that shoppers may have been holding out for greater discounts on the later days of the sale.

Adobe found that leading categories driving U.S. e-commerce sales during this year’s Prime Day included appliances, which experienced a 112% increase in online sales compared to average daily sales in June. Other categories showing significant growth included office supplies (up 105%), electronics (up 95%), books (up 81%), tools and home improvement (up 76%), home and garden (up 58%), and baby and toddler items (up 55%).