Amazon created Prime Day to reward its most loyal shoppers.

More than a decade later, the event has grown far beyond Amazon.

Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Kohl’s, and other major retailers now routinely launch competing promotions around Prime Day, turning a once Amazon-centric sale into one of the biggest shopping periods of the summer.

U.S. shoppers spent a record $26.4 billion online during Amazon’s four-day Prime Day period from June 23 through June 26, according to Adobe Analytics.

That was up 9.3% from a year earlier.

But beneath the record spending, new data reveals a more complicated picture for Amazon.

Amazon shoppers spent less per order and per household than they did a year earlier, while competing retailers experienced significant increases in store traffic during the same promotional period.

The shift suggests consumers remain willing to spend when discounts are strong, but are increasingly spreading those dollars across retailers rather than concentrating their shopping on Amazon.

That trend is emerging just as Amazon prepares to report second-quarter earnings on July 30.

Amazon shares fell about 4.6% on July 23 to $233.66 as technology stocks came under pressure following Alphabet’s latest earnings report and renewed concerns about the cost of artificial intelligence infrastructure.

The stock has declined 6.35% over the past five days and 8.26% over the past three months, while remaining up about 1.4% over the year.

Amazon Prime Day spending hits record, but growth slows

Prime Day continues to generate enormous consumer spending.

Adobe Analytics said U.S. retailers generated $26.4 billion in online sales during the four-day 2026 Prime Day period, up 9.3% year over year.

That set another record for the summer promotional period. However, the pace of growth was substantially slower than a year ago.

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During the comparable four-day Prime Day period in 2025, U.S. consumers spent $24.1 billion online, according to Adobe, representing 30.3% growth from the comparable four-day period a year earlier.

Although the 2024 comparison should be used within context.

Amazon’s official Prime Day event lasted only two days in 2024, compared with four days in both 2025 and 2026.

Adobe reported $14.2 billion in U.S. online spending during the two official Prime Day days in 2024, up 11% year over year.

The more recent figures nevertheless show that industrywide spending continued to reach records in 2026, even as growth slowed sharply from the previous year.

Amazon stock is up 1.4% year to date.

Peter Dazeley / Getty Images

Amazon shoppers spend less per order

Numerator, a consumer data firm, found that the average Amazon Prime Day order in 2026 was $47.66, down from $53.34 in its comparable year-earlier analysis.

Average household spending also declined to about $143.45 from $156.37 a year earlier.

Nearly two-thirds of households that shopped during Prime Day placed at least two separate orders, suggesting consumers remained engaged with the event.

But they spent less each time they checked out.

In May, Bank of America Consumer Spend Collective data showed U.S. e-commerce spending increased 13% year over year, while online shopping penetration rose 1.8 percentage points to 29.8%.

The latest BofA data suggests that momentum continued into the second quarter.

In a July 22 research note shared with TheStreet, Bank of America analyst Justin Post said aggregated credit- and debit-card data showed online spending growth accelerated by 2 percentage points from the first quarter.

At the same time, the bank said the Prime Day sales-growth bump appeared more modest than in previous years.

The figures point to a consumer who remains willing to spend online but is becoming less loyal to any single promotional event.

Walmart, Target, Best Buy gain from Prime Week

When Amazon held Prime Day from June 23 through June 26, several of its biggest retail rivals launched overlapping promotions.

Placer.ai found that all four major chains it analyzed experienced increased store traffic during the promotional period compared with their typical day-of-week traffic.

On June 23, the opening day of Prime Day:

• Visits to Kohl’s were 18.4% above the retailer’s year-to-date day-of-week baseline
• Best Buy traffic increased 18.1%
• Target visits rose 16.3%.
• Walmart recorded a more modest but still positive increase of 4.7%

All four retailers continued to experience elevated traffic through the promotional period, according to Placer.ai.

Amazon’s competitors are increasingly using the event to capture consumers already in a deal-seeking mindset.

Placer.ai characterized the behavior as evidence of a pressured but engaged consumer who is increasingly willing to wait for promotional events before making purchases.

For Amazon, that creates both an opportunity and a challenge.

Prime Day can stimulate enormous consumer demand, but Amazon no longer has that demand all to itself.

Amazon earnings preview points to stronger retail growth

Despite more modest Prime Day growth, Bank of America expects Amazon’s broader retail business to accelerate when the company reports second-quarter earnings.

BofA maintains a Buy rating on Amazon, with a price objective of $310, ahead of the earnings.

Additionally, the firm forecasts Amazon will report total second-quarter revenue of about $198.8 billion, above the roughly $196.8 billion Wall Street estimate the bank cited.

The firm expects operating income of approximately $24.1 billion, also slightly above Wall Street’s $23.6 billion estimate.

North America could be a strong contributor: BofA expects North American revenue of about $116.3 billion, representing roughly 16% year-over-year growth.

Wall Street is expecting about $113.9 billion, according to estimates cited by the bank.

The stronger outlook reflects continued strength in online consumer spending and Amazon’s decision to move Prime Day from July to June.

This timing gave Amazon an additional sales boost in the second quarter, but the benefit will reverse when the company reports third-quarter results.

BofA expects North American retail revenue to decline by roughly $1 billion sequentially in the third quarter because Prime Day sales were pulled forward into June.

The timing could create an approximately 4-percentage-point headwind to year-over-year North American growth comparisons.

AWS expectations remain high

Investors will also be closely watching Amazon Web Services.

AWS revenue increased 28% year over year to $37.6 billion during the first quarter, its fastest growth rate in 15 quarters.

Bank of America raised its second-quarter AWS growth estimate to 33% from 31%, which would put revenue at roughly $41 billion.

Wall Street is expecting about $40.5 billion and approximately 31% growth, but investor expectations may be higher.

BofA said its conversations suggest investors could be expecting AWS growth of around 34%, meaning Amazon may need to outperform published consensus estimates to impress Wall Street.

The bank expects AWS growth to accelerate further to approximately 36% in the third quarter.

Amazon faces increased retail rivalry and AI costs

Amazon’s growth outlook raises another question: how much the company will need to spend to sustain it.

Amazon has said it expects approximately $200 billion in capital expenditures in 2026, much of it tied to cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure.

Bank of America believes the figure could increase to around $210 billion, partly because of higher memory costs and continued demand for computing capacity.

For the second quarter alone, BofA expects capital expenditures of roughly $49 billion.

That level of spending has increased investor scrutiny across Big Tech, particularly as companies race to expand AI infrastructure before the investments generate clear returns.

For Amazon, however, the upcoming earnings report will also reveal something more fundamental about its original business.

Prime Day still generates record levels of online spending, but shoppers now have more places than ever to chase the same deals.

Amazon’s challenge is no longer simply getting consumers to spend during Prime Day, it’s making sure enough of that spending still happens on Amazon.

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