Amazon Shoppers Forgo Big-Ticket Items as Prime Sale Gets Going
Amazon.com Inc.'s fall sale for Prime subscribers kicked off Tuesday with price-conscious shoppers mostly snapping up deals on low-cost kitchen gadgets and apparel rather than splurging on big-ticket items.
Customers spent an average of $38 during the event's first eight hours, up 2% from the same period last year, according to Attain, a research firm that harvests data from credit card transactions.
While shoppers are skimping on their purchases now, Amazon is monitoring customers' browsing activity so it can offer them customized deals later in the season when they're prepared to spend more, said Brian Mandelbaum, chief executive officer of Chicago-based Attain. Other retailers looking to draft off Amazon's sale are doing much the same.
“This is a master class of how to have foresight into the consumer ahead of the season,” he said. “Each shopper will have their own symphony of offers heading into the holidays.”
Consumers are grappling with stubbornly persistent inflation even as their debt obligations balloon and savings shrink. The resumption of student loan payments, which were suspended during the pandemic, also are expected to weigh on spending.
US online sales in November and December will rise 4.8% to $222 billion, according to Adobe Inc., beating last year's 3.5% growth, but well below the pre-pandemic level of 13% reached in 2019.
Numerator, another research firm, said top-selling items so far during the sale include Amazon-branded batteries. About 60% of items sold cost less than $20 while only 3% were more than $100, according to the firm, which culled data from 890 shoppers who placed 1,379 orders.
Amazon launched its Prime Day summer sale in 2015 to attract new subscribers, who pay $139 a year for shipping
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