US shoppers spent $9.86B online across all retailers during Amazon’s two-day Prime Big Deal Days, up 8.5% from $9.09B last October and just under Adobe’s $9.9B forecast.
Discounts of up to 20% pushed shoppers to upsell themselves, as the share of the most expensive goods sold rose 21% compared to the year-to-date average, led by electronics, up 45%, and personal care, up 34%. Shoppers also used the event to stock up on essentials, with household cleaning and paper products up 55%, and personal hygiene and pet food each up 45%.
Here’s what else Adobe found:
- Mobile drove $5.1B in sales, or 52% of the total, up 12.8% YoY.
- BNPL accounted for 6% of online orders ($692.3M), up 4% YoY.
- Affiliates and partners, including influencers, drove 21.9% of revenue, up 11% YoY.
- Social media drove only 7% of revenue, but it was the fastest-growing channel at 40% YoY, and influencers converted shoppers at 11x the rate of social networks overall.
- Compared to average daily sales in September, Halloween costumes saw the biggest spike (up 610%), followed by headphones and speakers (up 300%), smartwatches (up 255%), and candy (up 180%).
- Toys rose 158%, cameras 135%, smartphones 130%, TVs 95%, video games 90%, and computers 60%.
- Parents went crazy on baby gear, with infant and toddler furniture up 160%, baby toys up 115%, diapers up 100%, strollers up 95%, car seats up 85%, and bottle-feeding supplies up 75%. For a few years, we had “Covid babies”. Now we’re experiencing “too poor to go out babies.”
- Apparel basics rose 25% as shoppers stocked up on everyday wardrobe items.
Shoppers are apparently using the October sales events to knock out holiday shopping early, which very well could impact BFCM sales in November. There’s only so much money to go around during the holiday season. Not every shopping event can break records, can it? We’ll find out next month. I’ll keep you posted.
