Amazon Prime Day UK consumer spend across two days saw “record highs” totalling £1.3bn, according to the latest data from Adobe Analytics.

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Amazon Prime Day for 2024 saw spending reach ‘record highs’

The two-day event, from July 16-17, saw £633.4m being spent online on the first day and £618m on the second day.

July 16 has become the biggest day for online shopping so far in 2024 and online spending over the event increased by 8.8% from 2023.

Top-performing categories included electronics, apparel and home and furniture, with products such as video games, fragrances and cosmetics, and exercise equipment seeing sales growth of 59%, 56% and 32% respectively.

The data also revealed that 14.9% of online sales over Prime Day were purchased through buy now, pay later services, accounting for £186.4m in spend.

Adobe Digital Insights lead analyst Vivek Pandya said: “Prime Day has once again proven to be the biggest online shopping event for the UK market with the two-day sales period seeing significant growth and an increase of £101.3m in sales compared with last year. 

“With the first UK leg of [Taylor Swift’s] Eras tour and England’s performance in the Euros failing to deliver the levels of growth retailers were hoping for, these major shopping events become even more important. 

“This year’s boost will come as welcome relief for retailers, who have faced sluggish growth in the first half of 2024, but the heavy discounting needed to generate these sales mean margins will put a bigger squeeze on margins.”

Fending off competition

Non-Amazon ecommerce apps saw a decline in installations during the week of Prime Day, while downloads decreased by 38% week on week in the UK, according to data from AppsFlyer shared exclusively with Retail Week.

Non-Amazon in-app purchases also dropped by 8% in the week that Prime Day took place, compared with a growth of 10.4% in 2023.

AppsFlyer ecommerce industry consultant Sue Azari said: “The data shows the significant impact Amazon’s Prime Day has on other retailers. 

“Consumers are clearly downloading a lot fewer new ecommerce apps that aren’t Amazon during Prime Week, meaning businesses must make specific strategic considerations around the event to avoid wasting their efforts. 

“Remarketing to retain existing users should be the priority, before reverting back to a bigger focus on driving new installs once Prime Week is wrapped up.”