Amazon, the world’s largest e-commerce company, recorded the highest sales performance ever at the massive discount event ‘Prime Day’ this year.
According to Amazon on the 14th (local time), more than 300 million items were sold worldwide during the Prime Day event from the 12th to the 13th. This is a significant increase compared to about 250 million units sold at the same event last year.
Amazon said that during the two-day event, Prime members worldwide purchased more than 100,000 products per minute. The top-selling segments in the United States were consumer electronics, home appliances, and Amazon-branded devices. However, specific sales figures were not disclosed.
Prime Day is a large-scale discount event held once a year by Amazon for paid Prime service members. This year, for the first time, it will be held twice in the second half of the year.
The event was held at a time when consumers’ wallets were closed due to the soaring inflation rate. According to market research firm Numerator’s analysis of Prime Day spending, this year’s consumers mostly searched for necessities rather than luxury items.
A typical example is that a bundle of sweets is included as a top purchase item. In addition, as a result of conducting a survey of 21,000 households related to Prime Day purchases, 58% of the total purchased items under $20 (about 26,000 won).
However, CNBC explained, “Inflation does not seem to dampen consumers’ enthusiasm for discount events such as Prime Day and Best Buy.”
According to the online marketing service Adobe Analytics, the total sales of online shopping malls in the United States during this year’s Prime Day event exceeded 11.9 billion dollars. This is an increase of 8.5% compared to the same period last year.
