How Much Money Does Amazon Make on Prime Day?

July 11 marks the beginning of the annual Amazon Prime Day, a 48-hour campaign meant to offer Prime subscribers a variety of deals across a broad range of consumer goods. Even though Amazon itself doesn't release official sales numbers for this campaign, estimates by the e-commerce research experts at Digital Commerce 360 show a meteoric rise in revenue connected to Prime Day that's been hampered by the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

As our chart shows, estimated revenues grew from $900 million in 2015 to $7.2 billion in 2019, an increase of 700 percent. The jump from 2019 to 2022 is considerably smaller, amounting to around $5 billion and a growth rate of 68 percent. While the start of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020 shifted shopping behavior from brick-and-mortar stores to online channels, it also put increased stress on the labor market and endangered jobs in the hospitality and service sectors. With the pandemic's effects on the economy waning in 2022, the Russian attack on Ukraine in February 2022 can be seen as another marker for a more conservative approach to consumer spending due to, for example, the price hikes for energy and food.

The first Prime Day was held by Amazon in 2015 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the start of its e-commerce platform. The 24-hour event was available to Prime customers in the US, the UK, Spain, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, Canada, and Austria. According to company statements, customers bought 34.4 million items on the first Prime Day. In 2022, this number shot up to 300 million items. Due to rising inflation and a pessimistic monetary outlook, shoppers focused on discounted household and so-called consumer packaged goods, according to a report by Numerator. Whether the spending will shift towards more traditional e-commerce goods like electronics, toys or fashion and how the uptake in Amazon's first-ever discounts on travel will be in 2023 remains to be seen.