Amazon Prime Day 2025 Explained: Trends, Analysis and Insights from the 4-Day Event | Reimagining Retail

Summary

Behind the Numbers: Amazon Prime Day 2025 Explained

Episode: Amazon Prime Day 2025 Explained: Trends, Analysis and Insights from the 4-Day Event | Reimagining Retail
Release Date: July 23, 2025
Host: Arielle Fager
Guests: Zach T. Damboer and Rachel Wolf

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1. Introduction to Amazon Prime Day 2025

In the July 23, 2025 episode of Behind the Numbers: Reimagining Retail, host Arielle Fager delves into the expanded Amazon Prime Day event. This year, Amazon extended Prime Day from a traditional two-day affair to an unprecedented four-day event. The move aimed to offer consumers more deals, provide brands with additional advertising opportunities, and allow Amazon more time to boost sales. Despite initial reports of a slow start, Amazon declared it the most successful Prime Day yet.

2. Analyzing Prime Day's Performance

Rachel Wolf provides an optimistic view, stating, “it would have been the biggest prime day regardless of what Amazon said because as you mentioned, it's four days versus two” (01:30). She highlights Adobe’s data, revealing a 30.3% year-over-year growth and $24.1 billion in spending over two Black Fridays, underscoring the event's success.

Zach T. Damboer adds nuance, pointing out that Adobe's numbers reflect the broader U.S. e-commerce landscape rather than Amazon alone. He mentions, “Amazon is always opaque in its recaps of big sales events” (02:03), but remains confident that sales were robust despite the lack of detailed disclosures from Amazon.

3. The Role of Tariffs and Shifting Consumer Behavior

A significant discussion centers around the impact of tariffs on consumer spending. Zach notes, “tariffs are casting a shadow over all of consumer behavior” (04:10), influencing when and how consumers choose to spend. He observes that Prime Day has accelerated the back-to-school shopping season into early July, a shift partly driven by economic uncertainties.

Rachel complements this by highlighting the types of products sold, stating, “the vast majority of what Amazon was selling were everyday essentials like protein shakes and dish soap” (05:26). This behavior suggests consumers are leveraging Prime Day to stock up on regular purchases, taking advantage of lower prices.

4. The Rise of Competing Retailer Sales

With Amazon extending Prime Day, other retailers have introduced their own sales, reshaping the retail landscape. Zach observes, “Dollar General has a sale, REI has a sale, Kohl's has a sale, Best Buy has a sale...” (06:39). Notably, Walmart and Target's sales overlapped with Prime Day, contributing to a significant overall increase in sales during the four-day period.

Rachel adds that awareness of these competing sales has grown, with “49% of people who shopped Prime Day also looked at Walmart deals and 35% looked at Target Circle Week” (07:38). This diversification allows consumers to comparison shop more effectively, enhancing their purchasing power.

5. Future Outlook: Sustainability of the Four-Day Model and Holiday Implications

The discussion shifts to the sustainability and future of the four-day Prime Day model. Rachel believes Amazon is unlikely to revert to a shorter event, stating, “they can't go back now” (08:49). Zach emphasizes Amazon's strategic advantage in ad inventory, predicting continued expansion of the event's duration to maximize advertising revenue and consumer spending opportunities.

Looking ahead to the holiday season, both guests agree that Prime Day's success signals a shift in consumer expectations towards valuing early and deep discounts. Rachel anticipates, “Amazon and all these other retailers sort of battling out to see which can have the deepest discounts” (11:15), while Zach raises concerns about inflation's impact, noting, “inflation is still very high” (13:00), which could influence consumer spending during Q4.

6. Personal Experiences with Prime Day

Towards the episode's conclusion, the hosts and guests share their personal shopping experiences during Prime Day:

• Rachel Wolf admitted, “I did not. I was very disciplined and also I actually forgot about it” (16:12), attributing her inaction to travel and jet lag.
• Zach T. Damboer shared that he purchased a new running watch and stocked up on essentials like dish soap and laundry detergent (16:27), aligning with the trend of using Prime Day to buy necessary items at discounted prices.
• Arielle Fager reflected on receiving pre-sale notifications from smaller retailers, noting an increase in diverse sales beyond traditional giants like Target and Walmart (17:45).

7. Final Thoughts and Closing Remarks

As the episode wraps up, the conversation highlights the dual impact of extended sales events on both consumers and retailers. While consumers benefit from more opportunities to save, sellers face challenges in sustaining discount levels amid rising costs and expanded event durations.

Zach concludes, “as long as you don't have that dynamic that like several years ago Gap ran into this circumstance where like consumers came to expect everything to be at least 50% off, that's a troubling place to be” (13:26). This caution underscores the delicate balance retailers must maintain between offering attractive deals and preserving profit margins.

Arielle invites listeners to stay tuned for future episodes, emphasizing the evolving nature of the retail landscape and the importance of staying informed to navigate these changes effectively.

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Notable Quotes:

• Rachel Wolf: “It would have been the biggest prime day regardless of what Amazon said because as you mentioned, it's four days versus two.” (01:30)
• Zach T. Damboer: “Amazon is always opaque in its recaps of big sales events.” (02:03)
• Zach T. Damboer: “Tariffs are casting a shadow over all of consumer behavior.” (04:10)
• Rachel Wolf: “The vast majority of what Amazon was selling were everyday essentials like protein shakes and dish soap.” (05:26)
• Rachel Wolf: “49% of people who shopped Prime Day also looked at Walmart deals and 35% looked at Target Circle Week.” (07:38)
• Zach T. Damboer: “Inflation is still very high.” (13:00)
• Zach T. Damboer: “As long as you don't have that dynamic that like several years ago Gap ran into this circumstance where like consumers came to expect everything to be at least 50% off, that's a troubling place to be.” (13:26)

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For more insights and analysis on the evolving world of digital media, marketing, and retail, subscribe to Behind the Numbers wherever you find podcasts.

Transcript

[Arielle Fager]

In marketing, everything must work seamlessly or efficiency, speed, and ROI all suffer. That's why Quad is obsessed with making sure your marketing machine runs smoothly with less friction and smarter integration. Better marketing is built on Quad. See how better gets done at www.quad.com buildbetter. Hello listeners. Today is Wednesday, July 23rd. Welcome to behind the Numbers Reimagining Retail, an E marketing podcast made possible by Quad. This is the show where we talk about how retail collides with every part of our lives. I'm your host for this week, Arielle Fager. Today's episode topic is Amazon Prime Day. But before we get into that, let's meet today's guests. Joining me for today's episode, we have Zach T. Damboer. Hi, Zach.

[Zach T. Damboer]

Hi. Thanks for having me.

[Arielle Fager]

Great to have you. And we've also got Rachel Wolf. Hey, Rachel.

[Rachel Wolf]

Hey, Arielle.

[Arielle Fager]

Okay, let's jump in. This year, Amazon stretched its July Prime Day event from two to four days, giving consumers more deals to shop, brands more opportunities to advertise, and Amazon more time to rack up the sales. Despite some reports of a sluggish start, Amazon said it was the biggest Prime Day event ever. So. So Zach and Rachel, what's the real story here?

[Rachel Wolf]

Well, I think, you know, it would have been the biggest prime day regardless of what Amazon said because as you mentioned, it's four days versus two. So that was just sort of inevitable. But I think, you know, there was definitely a disconnect, as you said in the early hours where you had certain companies reporting a pretty steep decline in sales. But I think if you look at the overall numbers, I mean Adobe had some something like was it 30.3% growth year on year, $24.1 billion in spending two Black Fridays? I would say that sounds like a pretty resounding success.

[Zach T. Damboer]

Yes, but the Adobe numbers are really interesting. But they point to the broader U.S. e commerce landscape, not exclusively Amazon. And so that tells me that this prime day period is just a prime time for summer E commerce to some extent in store as well. Sales events. Yeah, it seems like Amazon delivered solid results. They said it was the best four day period that included a prime day in its history. Kind of a weird metric and one that you would like to Rachel said assume they would hit. But it is a little unclear exactly how good it was for Amazon. Amazon is always opaque in its recaps of big sales events. This time around, Amazon was incredibly opaque and just didn't say that much. That said, I am fairly certain that sales were pretty strong.

[Rachel Wolf]

Yeah, I think you know, one data point that I did manage to scrounge out was that Momentum Commerce, which is the company that flagged the decline, they said that they grew sales 4.9% over the course of the four days. Again, like Amazon comparing, you know, the four day period year on year, which, you know, it is growth. Is it astounding growth? Not really, considering it was twice as long as. So I think this sort of tells you about, you know, the results that Amazon saw, which were good but not necessarily amazing.

[Arielle Fager]

Yeah, let's, let's dig into that a little bit. Kind of talk about maybe tariffs. Did tariffs play a role in this? Did we see kind of consumers shopping differently, stocking up or putting off any kind of purchases? Or do we think that that didn't really play a role in the results?

[Zach T. Damboer]

I think tariffs are casting a shadow over all of consumer behavior. It impacts how consumers spend, it controls how consumers think about spending and it weighs on like when they're spending. So one of the things that I think is notable about Prime Day is that at this point it's pretty clear, it's pretty easy to say that Prime Day has pulled back the back to school shopping season forward. And the back to school shopping period begins now in early July, which is very early. And so that's certainly one way in which tariffs and just this uncertainty is impacting consumer behavior.

[Rachel Wolf]

Yeah, and I think the other way is just that looking at what people are buying. Right. You know, there was some data from Adobe that maybe people were trading up in certain categories, but the vast majority of what Amazon was selling were, you know, these everyday essentials like protein shakes. I think that was a big one. Dawn Platinum dish soap. You know, these are things that people buy regularly and you know, clearly they're just using these sales, taking advantage of these sales to buy those everyday products.

[Zach T. Damboer]

Yeah, Numerator pointed that out and I thought that's a good point. Why wouldn't you stock up and save a few dollars when you, you're going to buy it? So the sale has always been to some extent, some of that. And I think this year consumers leaned in that direction a little bit more than in years past.

[Rachel Wolf]

Yeah. And I think the longer length of the event also helped with that because people had more time to compare prices, for example, to see whether the dish soap was cheaper at Amazon versus Walmart. And you know, maybe you put in your, in your cart, but you wait until the last day to actually make that purchase. So I think that also contributed to the shifting behavior over the course of Prime Day.

[Arielle Fager]

Yeah, and it makes sense that why, you know, we'd had some headlines at the the very start, day one and day two, where things seemed a little slower. Consumers were just kind of waiting to see what kind of deals they were going to get. As Zach mentioned, you know, this isn't just Prime Day anymore. This is a whole bunch of retailers hosting their own competing sales. What stood out to you about other retailer sales this year? You know, how is this Prime Day now longer shaping the broader retail landscape?

[Zach T. Damboer]

So first of all, everybody has a sale, Dollar General has a sale, REI has a sale, Kohl's has a sale, Best Buy has a sale. And then Walmart and Target of course have sales. And I think one of the things that stood out to me this year was that the Walmart and Target sales in particular overlapped quite a bit with the Prime Day sale. I in part because Amazon pulled Prime Day so early in July that it was either overlap with the 4th of July or overlap with Prime Day. And so I think that partially explains the Adobe numbers. You saw that pretty strong gain in sales over that four day period. The other thing they did was jumpstart the Prime Day sale, often with member exclusive sales to give consumers a little incentive to shop with them rather than wait around to see what Amazon might offer.

[Rachel Wolf]

Yeah, I think another thing that stood out to me this year is that in years past, you know, most of the attention has been on Amazon and awareness of these competing sales has been limited. But I think that is really starting to shift. I mean, going back to the numerator data, 49% of people who shopped Prime Day also looked at Walmart deals and you know, 35% looked at target Circle Week. So there is a lot more awareness and a lot more interest in what, you know, these retailers are doing over that period.

[Zach T. Damboer]

And that's just because Prime Day has been around a pretty long time at this point. The earned media from Prime Day is everywhere, as are articles about the competing sales. If you look at like Wirecutter or Buy sided in the Wall Street Journal, it's all over. And so yeah, awareness is there and consumers are shopping around particularly because they are watching their spending.

[Arielle Fager]

Yeah. Thinking about a new four day format, what do we think? Is Amazon going to do this again? Is this going to happen for its October Prime Day event? Are we going to see Amazon four day Prime Days for kind of the time being?

[Rachel Wolf]

I think they can't go back now. Right? I mean if the point is to have a record Prime Day every year, you can't make it shorter at this point, that would kind of defeat the purpose.

[Zach T. Damboer]

The other thing I would say is that I think one of the understated reasons to have a longer Prime Day is about ad inventory. Certainly you want to drive sales, but also you want to serve as many ads as you possibly can. And I think in prior years they kind of got stuck. They didn't have enough ad inventory to deliver to all of the advertisers who wanted to reach consumers eyeballs during this marquee moment. And so what Amazon essentially did was like if Fox could double the length of the super bowl and have eight quarters, I guess they wouldn't be quarters at that point, but like a double the length of the super bowl and all of that opportunity to serve consumers advertising. That's what Amazon did. And so why would Amazon not grab all of that very high margin advertising revenue when it's just low hanging fruit for them? So I fully expect Amazon to make the big deal days event longer. Will it be four days? Will it be three days? Will it? I don't know. But I would assume that it will be a longer sales event because why not?

[Arielle Fager]

We've seen Amazon really prioritize its advertising business and its site has probably one of the higher ad loads of a lot of different sites. So obviously any chance that it can get to kind of expand that ad inventory, it's, it's going to take. So I completely agree with you there, Zach.

[Zach T. Damboer]

And the other thing I would add is that consumers are hyper focused on value at this moment in time and a sales event that is squarely focused on delivering deals is just a prime opportunity pun unintended to drive consumers to spend.

[Arielle Fager]

Yeah, thinking about that again, kind of a forward looking question, you know, what do we think this tells us about the holidays? You know, I think it's pretty clear what seeing very value focused consumers. We're seeing consumers who are waiting out the best deals. You know, what does Prime Day tell us about what to expect for Q4?

[Rachel Wolf]

I think it's pretty much as you said, right? I mean it's going to be Amazon and all these other retailers sort of battling out to see which can have the deepest discounts to get these shoppers in. And I think being early is key. As we saw as Zach mentioned, Prime Day has been pulling forward back to school spending. Well if the October sales are pulling forward holiday spending. So I think those are going to be crucial to look at thinking about the holiday season.

[Zach T. Damboer]

There's also the big unknown here and that's inflation like what will inflation look like come the holiday season? How will consumers respond to that inflation? The delays in the more extreme version of tariffs has given retailers a buffer to import more items so that they could have them in stock for the holiday season. Which is good news for consumers because that means that like you probably won't have items from China that had a 145% tariff. Great. But the tariffs are still not nothing. The tariffs are still very high compared to any period in any of our lifetimes or our parents lifetimes for that matter, and to some extent even like our grandpar lifetimes. You have to talk to, you have to go back to like many, many, many, many, many decades to see anything like this. And so at some point there, there will be a point where prices rise and consumers are already very price sensitive and so they probably will be pulling back a bit. How much kind of remains to be seen.

[Arielle Fager]

Yeah, a question I think I asked you both off, off pod. Do we think that consumers are going to get sailed out? Do we think that a four day Amazon prime day is too long? Or as Zach noted, kind of with just the general consumer landscape, is it just enough for people to kind of find the best deals? What do you guys think?

[Zach T. Damboer]

I mean, four days is not like four months. You know, it's like four days is certainly longer than two days. It's twice as long. But it's not a week, it's not a month. It's a pretty short period of time that is short enough that it provides a driver to get consumers to spend. So yeah, I don't think four days makes people sailed out. And I also don't think the more specific sales events, the pet sale, the gamer sale, the all of these other sales that Amazon has popped up, you can kind of ignore those sales if you're not in the market for pet food or whatnot. And so I don't think those are in the way. I think people want a sale, people want a deal. And as long as you don't have that dynamic that like several years ago Gap ran into this circumstance where like consumers came to expect everything to be at least 50% off, that's a troubling place to be. But Amazon's not going to get there because it's a totally different type of retailer. And also the discounts are not that steep. So you don't want to train people to expect a sale. But I don't think they're at risk of that.

[Rachel Wolf]

Yeah, and I wonder, I think maybe it's just a question of Amazon Sort of refining the four day strategy.

[Arielle Fager]

Right.

[Rachel Wolf]

Like if people are reluctant to shop on the first couple days, what tactics can you do? Maybe you take some of those specific days like gaming day or beauty week or like whatever those are and use them to juice sales on those first two days. But I think, you know, I don't think shoppers are at risk of getting fatigued, but I think the problem lies more with sellers and whether sellers can sustain this level of discounting. But plus the advertising spend that is now required for a four day prime day and tariffs, you know, all of these things are really weighing pretty heavily on their margins. So I think, you know, there could be pushback from sellers if Amazon decides to continue extending prime day and continue extending the length of its sales events.

[Zach T. Damboer]

I think that's a great point. And it's, it's one of the reasons why during any of these events, Amazon leans so heavily into its own stuff. All of the gadgets that they sell are heavily discounted because they can do it. They can use these things as a loss leader to get consumers in the door and drive consumers to add to their cart and spend more.

[Arielle Fager]

Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing kind of how this elongated back to school holiday season and how sellers react to it and how they're going to prioritize discounts throughout the entire season. Did either of you shop the sale this year?

[Rachel Wolf]

I did not. I was very disciplined and also I actually forgot about it, which is surprising.

[Zach T. Damboer]

How did you. Oh my goodness.

[Arielle Fager]

Not sure how you do that.

[Rachel Wolf]

I mean I was traveling and jet lagged for the first two days, so I was not in the loop.

[Arielle Fager]

Zach, what about you?

[Zach T. Damboer]

I for sure bought, bought stuff during it. I got a new running watch which I have been in the market for, for quite some time. So that is a big ticket, big ish ticket item that I made. And then I also did what a whole lot of people did and just stock up on a few things that I would buy anyway, so dish soap, laundry detergent, those sorts of things. Because why not? If it's a few dollars less and I know I'm going to need it, I might as well.

[Arielle Fager]

Yeah, I just. No, no, did not. No. I'm not a big online shopper. I'm not a big shopper, period. So I think there's that. But maybe that's not great for hosting a retail podcast. But I did notice that I got a few emails from different other retailers like bookshop.org I got an email from, you know, their pre prime day sale. So I did notice other retailers because I know in past years we've seen, you know, Target and Walmart kind of going pretty hard. But I think this year I've seen a lot more smaller brands and retailers get in the game and try to boost their sales pre prime day. That was an interesting thing to see.

[Zach T. Damboer]

So did you buy from either any of those smaller or online retailers?

[Arielle Fager]

I don't. I haven't bought anything online in, well, a while, a few months I think. So unless you count groceries, which I get from Instacart.

[Zach T. Damboer]

Yeah, I didn't buy anything from any other retailers. I was squarely focused on Amazon. I mean, lucky that I did look, I comparison shopped.

[Arielle Fager]

Yeah, I mean, and I think that that's, I mean generally a win win for the consumer. Right. If we're having every single retailer rolling out these sales, we get to price, comparison shop and see where the best deal is. But I would really love to see. I don't know if there's any way to even get this data. Amazon probably could what that incrementality. Right. Like what is going to having been bought anyway, the dish soap, the laundry detergent, the things that you're kind of always stocking up on and what are the things that people maybe ordered a little bit more of or different items. I would love to kind of see the overlap between what's kind of a current order and what's a new. A net new sale. But I don't think Amazon wants to tell us. Okay, that's all we have time for today. Thank you, Zach, for being here.

[Zach T. Damboer]

Thanks for having me.

[Arielle Fager]

Thank you, Rachel, for being here.

[Rachel Wolf]

Thanks. I enjoy our chat.

[Arielle Fager]

Yeah. And thank you listeners, our studio team, including our podcast editors who are always in their prime. Please leave a comment or review and remember to subscribe to behind the Numbers podcast. We'll be back next Wednesday with another episode of Reimagining Retail. And on Friday, Friday join Marcus for another episode of behind the Numbers, an emarketer podcast made possible by Quad.