Holiday Prime Day shoppers seek smaller-ticket items on first day

During the first 16 hours of Amazon's Prime Early Access event, shoppers gravitated toward products costing less than $20.

However, according to analysis from Numerator, the average Amazon Prime Early Access order size was $445.37. The average price per item sold is $29.65. A little more than four in 10 (42%) of households shopping the Prime Early Access sale have placed two or more separate orders already, bringing the average household spend to roughly $79.72.

The top-selling items so far are Amazon gift cards, Amazon Echo Dots, Melissa & Doug brand toys, Scott’s Turf Builder seed, and a California king sheet set. Six in 10 (59%) items have sold for under $20, while 4% have sold for over $100.

The top categories consumers say they've purchased are household essentials, health & beauty and apparel & shoes. Four in 10 surveyed shoppers say they have purchased large ticket items they would only buy on sale, while 20% have acquired everyday goods they would be buying anyways.

Interestingly, only three in 10 (31%) surveyed shoppers said they bought holiday gifts. In terms of holiday shopping completion, 72% of respondents said they have completed less than half of their holiday shopping, 19% have completed about half, 4% have completed more than half, and 4% have completed all.

In good news for Amazon’s ongoing holiday sales performance, 85% of surveyed customers said they will definitely shop Amazon again in the next three months for holiday purchases.

Other notable findings include:

• Fifty-two percent of Prime Early Access shoppers only considered Amazon for their purchases.
• Close to six in 10 Prime Early Access shoppers (57%) only shopped at Amazon this Prime Day, but 21% made a purchase at another retailer or website, as well.
• Inflation impacted 83% of Prime Early Access shoppers– 30% said they waited for the sale to purchase a specific item at a discounted price, while 24% passed on a good deal because it wasn't a necessity. Inflation also drove 11% to look at prices outside of Amazon before buying.

Initially announced in September 2022, Prime Early Access Sale will offer Prime members hundreds of thousands of deals. As part of the event, Amazon is introducing a Top 100 list of popular and giftable holiday items. New deals from the list will drop throughout the sale, offering savings across all top Amazon categories, including electronics, fashion, home, kitchen, pets, toys, and Amazon devices.

This marks the first year Amazon is essentially hosting two full-blown versions of its members-only Prime Day promotion. The retailer has not yet said if it will also provide any type of early holiday (pre-Thanksgiving) promotion open to all consumers. Chief Amazon rivals Walmart and Target are both running October holiday sales events for all shoppers.

All three retail giants are making an early holiday push amid what many experts are predicting will be a modest holiday season. Deloitte’s annual holiday forecast predicts that year-over-year holiday sales will increase 4% to 6%.  By comparison, sales grew 15.1% in 2021.

Prime membership costs $14.99 per month, or $139 per year. In the U.S., that includes free, fast delivery. Anyone can join Prime or start a free 30-day trial to be eligible to participate in Prime Early Access Sale.

To see the full Numerator Prime Early Access Sale data, click here.