Amazon’s Prime Day event in 2026 arrived earlier than usual, running for four days instead of the typical two — and other major retailers have adjusted their plans accordingly in an attempt to grow sales during summer’s peak period.
Pre-Prime Day data analysis suggests that sales could rise from 2025 levels.
Notably, Amazon was not alone in moving its event dates. Target announced its Circle Days will run the same time frame as Prime Day; Walmart Deals will outlast them both by starting earlier and ending later to last a full week. The overlap in promotional periods could have a direct impact on ecommerce sales growth in the month of June, according to data from market research firm Numerator. It surveyed more than 3,000 U.S. consumers and analyzed purchase data from 200,000 panelists.
Numerator found that 64% of all consumers plan to shop other summer sales events. Those include:
- Walmart Deals (42%)
- Target Circle Week (28%)
- Costco Summer Sales Event (22%)
- Best Buy Black Friday Deals in July (13%)
“Consumers have been conditioned to wait for big promotional periods, to hit the buy button on purchases such as apparel, refrigerators, and vacuum cleaners,” said Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, in a statement. “Outside of the holiday season in November and December, shoppers now have an opportunity to tap into big discounts during the summer months.”
Impact of Amazon Prime Day on ecommerce sales
Data from Adobe Analytics projects U.S. consumers spending a combined $26.3 billion online over the course of Amazon’s Prime Day event from June 23 through 26. That does not factor in sales on Amazon’s owned marketplace. The $26.3 billion would represent 9% growth year over year and $2.5 billion more than the comparable period in 2025, it said.
It would also be more than what consumers spent on Cyber Monday and Black Friday 2025 combined, according to Adobe. Those days drove $14.25 billion and $11.8 billion, respectively ($26.05 billion total).
Adobe anticipates most of the online spending (59%) occurring in the first two days of the event. That would be a more even distribution than in 2025, it said, when it was 64%. Its projections also indicate that the average daily online spend during the Amazon Prime Day event will be 84% higher than the overall average in June prior to the sales period.
Adobe projects that overall ecommerce activity during the Prime Day period will lead to Q2 online retail sales of more than $300 billion. It anticipates Q2 ecommerce sales to reach $301.4 billion, which would be 11.9% year-over-year growth, per Adobe data. Prime Day moving to July will drive that growth, with Adobe anticipating ecommerce sales in the month rising 23% year over year.
Adobe said its data analyzes direct ecommerce transactions and covers more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites, 100 million SKUs and 18 product categories.
Omar Qari, CEO of ecommerce and supply chain platform Logicbroker, said Prime Day is “more than a marketing event. He called Prime Day “one of the biggest operational stress tests in retail.”
“Every inventory discrepancy, fulfillment delay, and broken delivery promise gets exposed at scale,” he said. “And while it’s relatively easy to drive traffic during Prime Day, the harder challenge is fulfilling orders accurately and consistently amid demand surges.”
Projected Amazon Prime Day 2026 spending trends
Adobe anticipates mobile shopping to account for 54.2% of online sales during the 2026 Amazon Prime Day event period. The remainder would come from desktop sales. Mobile shopping could lead to $14.2 billion in online sales during the period, Adobe said.
Meanwhile, Adobe expects buy now, pay later (BNPL) to account for $2.04 billion in ecommerce sales during the 2026 Amazon Prime Day period. That would be 5.5% year-over-year growth. It also would represent about 7.8% of ecommerce spending during the period, according to Adobe projections.
Adobe expects paid search to drive the most retail revenue during the event. It expects paid search to account for 29.1% of online sales. That would come with a 2% year-over-year growth rate, Adobe said. Social media could account for a 4.4% share, based on Adobe figures. Adobe anticipates social media-generated revenue to grow 15% year over year.
Relatedly, Adobe expects influencers to convert shoppers at a rate 10x higher than social media overall. It said it anticipates affiliates driving 22.3% of revenue, which would be 12% growth.
Eric Kobe, CEO at post-purchase platform Route, said the winners during Prime Day aren’t the brands offering the deepest discounts. Instead, they’re the retailers that deliver a strong customer experience before and after checkout while protecting margins, he said.
“For both major retailers and smaller ecommerce brands, success around Prime Day requires having a well designed post-purchase strategy in place before orders arrive,” Kobe said.
Retailers must build into their plans clear return policies, exchange workflows, fraud prevention and branded tracking experiences, he said.
“Without this, an otherwise successful sales event can actually put stress on profitability once the packages start shipping,” Kobe said.
How AI factors into Prime Day sales
During the four-day sales period, Adobe expects traffic from generative AI sources to U.S. retail sites to increase by 103% compared to June 2025. It said that growth “shows consumers are relying on AI to quickly surface deals and product information during high-stakes shopping events.”
For comparison, traffic to retail sites from generative AI platforms increased 138% year over year in May 2026, Adobe data showed. During the 2025 holiday season, that type of traffic had increased 693.4% year over year.
A recent Adobe survey of 5,000 U.S. consumers gave insights into AI adoption. In that survey, 39% of consumers said they’ve used AI before for online shopping. 85% of them said it improved their experience.
“These figures highlight the durable value that AI is delivering in the ecommerce space, shortening the time it takes for consumers to find what they need or locate relevant discounts,” according to Adobe.
22% of consumers plan to use AI-powered tools or features to shop Prime Day, according to Numerator data. 15% of consumers are unsure if they will use AI to shop, Numerator found.
Numerator data shows the AI tools consumers most intend to use are:
- ChatGPT or a comparable AI chatbot (37%)
- Built-in AI search tools while shopping online (30%)
- AI-powered price comparisons across other retailers (28%)
- Deal or coupon recommendations that use AI (28%)
- Amazon’s AI shopping assistant, Alexa for Shopping (25%)
“Many retailers remain too focused on how to get recommended by AI when the bigger question is whether they’ve earned the trust to keep being recommended at all,” said Logicbroker’s Qari. “In AI-powered commerce, operational failures become part of the data that shapes future buying decisions. If a retailer struggles with inventory accuracy, fulfillment delays, or inconsistent delivery performance during a major event like Prime Day, those failures create reviews, sentiment, and customer experiences that influence future discoverability across AI-driven shopping environments.”
How shoppers view Amazon Prime Day sales events
Half of shoppers said Prime Day is less exciting than it used to be, according to Numerator.
Projections indicate that about 43% of U.S. households (about 59 million of them) expect to shop Amazon Prime Day, according to Numerator. It found that households will plan to spend about $187, on average, during the four-day event period. In total, Prime Day shoppers could spend more than $11 billion, according to Numerator’s projection.
Numerator found that consumers’ intentions when shopping Amazon Prime Day 2026 are to:
- Browse for deals without a specific plan (46%)
- Stock up on products they purchase regularly (25%)
- Buy household essentials (21%)
- Buy higher-priced items they have otherwise delayed purchasing (21%)
- Spend on discretionary or “fun” items (18%)
Numerator also found that Prime Day 2026 shoppers plan to shop or compare prices with other retailers during the sale. Those include:
- Walmart (62%)
- Target (41%)
- Costco (27%)
- Best Buy (17%)
- Temu (10%)
For consumers who said they don’t plan to shop Amazon Prime Day 2026, the top reasons are:
- Not needing to make any purchases at the moment (40%)
- Not being an Amazon Prime member (37%)
- Trying to save money or reduce spending (31%)
- Not thinking the Prime deals are worth it (24%)
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