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The Almighty Buck

Prime Day Loses Its Spark As Sales Nosedive 41% (pymnts.com) 128

Amazon's Prime Day sales plunged 41% on the first day compared to last year's kickoff, with experts attributing the drop to shoppers delaying purchases in anticipation of better deals during the extended four-day event. From a report: Momentum Commerce reported that figure for Tuesday (July 8), with Momentum's Founder and CEO John Shea saying that the sales numbers for this year's longer event could still surpass those of last year's shorter one, Bloomberg reported Wednesday (July 9). Shea attributed the drop in first-day sales to consumers putting items in their shopping carts but holding off on completing the purchase in case better deals come along, according to the report. Last year's shorter event encouraged shoppers to head to checkout to ensure they wouldn't miss out on the discounts, Shea said, per the report. Amazon Prime Vice President Jamil Ghani remains optimistic, telling Bloomberg Television the company was "pleased by the engagement" with shoppers during the event and that it is "very early." He said the company extended the duration of Prime Day because shoppers wanted more time to discover the deals.

According to numbers provided by Adobe, Prime Day's kickoff surpassed Thanksgiving 2024's $6.1 billion in eCommerce spend. The software company also found that 50.2% of sales came through a mobile device and that buy now, pay later orders for Amazon's Prime Day were up 13.6% year over year.

Prime Day Loses Its Spark As Sales Nosedive 41%

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  • by TheMiddleRoad ( 1153113 ) on Thursday July 10, 2025 @03:05AM (#65509090)

    Oh, sure, there's the crypto scam and the AI apocalypse, but normal people are struggling. The government is cutting jobs left and right. School PhD programs and research have been gutted. What for?

    For stupid and beyond!

  • by Njovich ( 553857 ) on Thursday July 10, 2025 @03:17AM (#65509098)

    saying that the sales numbers for this year's longer event could still surpass those of last year's shorter one

    They should just double the length of this 'day' every time, just to keep growth numbers in. Can't wait for the decade long prime day.

    And here I was thinking days were getting shorter [usatoday.com].

  • by bassclarinet604 ( 7322904 ) on Thursday July 10, 2025 @03:20AM (#65509100)
    Canadians are keeping our money at home. Shop local. And why is one online companyâ(TM)s big sale news anyway? Maybe we just have all the crap we need and spending money like this just because thereâ(TM)s a sale is an out of date trend. Save money for rent and groceries. And get rid of that twit running your country thatâ(TM)s messing up your economy and pissing off your neighbours at the same time.
    • Canadians are keeping our money at home. Shop local. And why is one online companyâ(TM)s big sale news anyway? Maybe we just have all the crap we need and spending money like this just because thereâ(TM)s a sale is an out of date trend. Save money for rent and groceries. And get rid of that twit running your country thatâ(TM)s messing up your economy and pissing off your neighbours at the same time.

      And yet, there you are, buying products of that country, and using it to post spittle to Slashdot.

      • Comments like his were provoked, amply. Our President started talking about taking over their country to make it a state, [fraserinstitute.org] and slapping them with senseless tariffs when we have been great trading partners. Why? It's insanity.

        And you think a bit of criticism and voting with their wallets is an overreaction?

        • Comments like his were provoked, amply. Our President started talking about taking over their country to make it a state, [fraserinstitute.org] and slapping them with senseless tariffs when we have been great trading partners. Why?

          Trump has an irrational obsession with trade deficits. He simply can't comprehend why a country with 40 million people doesn't buy the same amount of stuff as a country with 340 million people. And even though Canadians on average spend over 7 times as much per capita on US goods compared to what Americans spend on Canadian goods, he insists that Canada is "ripping us off".

          My wife and I have an ongoing argument over whether Trump is an evil genius who is just taking advantage of a gullible base, or an actu

    • by sinij ( 911942 )

      Canadians are keeping our money at home. Shop local.

      95% of good sold at Amazon are made in Asia. Good luck substituting these, as not even US could do it.

    • by RobinH ( 124750 ) on Thursday July 10, 2025 @07:58AM (#65509406) Homepage

      Canadian here. I do appreciate all the pro-Canada stuff at home now, which is a drastic change from a couple years ago where the media was literally telling us not to fly Canadian flags on Canada Day because it made some communities (obviously indigenous peoples) feel uncomfortable, and just because people in the trucker protests were flying it. We should *never* have given up the flag as a symbol of unity, and it's good to see it back.

      But it's important to realize that Canadians are very much alone in the way we're handling the US and their off-the-rails ruler. The rest of the world is just more used to dealing with crazy leaders, and they don't give the US a fraction of the headspace that Canadians do.

      I've spent years working all over the US as an automation professional, so I got to meet lots of Americans. What Canadians don't realize is that Americans think about Canada about as much as Canadians think about Mexico, which is to say, almost never. I've met people in Port Huron (a border town in Michigan) who've never been to Canada, and have never even considered going to Canada. But then again I've met people in Detroit who've never been to Chicago, or one man who'd never left Texas.

      But the idea that Canadians' boycott of US products and travel is having any more than a tiny impact mostly on border communities and a couple vacation destinations is naive.

      To an American, they have so much more occupying their headspace right now, that most Americans are completely unaware of anything related to Canada, and they just don't care. Their media is extremely polarized. Both media sides are telling their viewers that it's the end of the world.

      The crazy thing is that the average American, and even the average Canadian, have pretty similar, centrist, and reasonable views about all of this. The majority favor stopping people from just walking over the border. They think that a person who overstays their visa should leave. They're ok with a managed level of immigration every year. They don't like the idea of breaking up a family that's been living here for 20 years either.

      It's the political parties and media organizations who are out of touch with the silent majority. The sides have become so polarized that neither side represents the majority centrist opinion that I outlined above. That means people feel like they need to vote for open/permeable borders, or crazy crackdowns. Between the two, and after years of feeling like nobody did anything about the problem, I can see why they voted for someone who promised to take action. But that doesn't mean that *this* is what they wanted. They just really didn't want the *other* thing even more.

      I feel sorry for them, honestly. At least I can say that in the last election in Canada, that the polarization seemed to fade away. The left wing party ran a guy who's literally a banker, and many on the left are accusing of being conservative. But this is just because all centrists are now viewed as far-right by the left, and far-left by the right. And that's what people are sick of.

      Back to your point. Yes, Trump pissed off Canadians. It just doesn't matter. Since 1990 we've been living in an increasingly globalized world, where everyone drastically reduced military spending and should have meant more money to spend on making everyone's lives better, and for the developing world that was true, but for everyone living in western democracies all we got was more and more inequality as the increasing wealth only went to the top few percent. That world is now over. The Russian invasion of Ukraine shattered that reality. Military expenditures are doubling again, and Canada, after starving its military for the past many decades, is poorly situated to participate in this new world, and the US knows it. That's why, in the last Canadian election, both big political parties had the same military policy for Canada: drastic increase in spending, particularly in arctic infrastructure and defense. And this is exactly what the US wants... the allies have to spend more on defense, and that's exactly what they're getting. That's what'll have an impact. Boycotts won't move the needle.

      • by Luthair ( 847766 )
        The media never said not to fly a flag, that is complete nonsense.
      • I agree with almost all your points, but not sure about the conclusion. Boycotts work if they can be sustained, because the only thing the US (read, the elites in control) cares about is the economy. If Canada decoupled entirely from the US (which admittedly is impossible), the US would react. The US wants Canada for its resources, and every act so far has been economic warfare, not military.

        Now military policy matters too, because that's how you stay independent. If Canada refused to give anything to the
  • by thesandbender ( 911391 ) on Thursday July 10, 2025 @04:00AM (#65509132)
    At least in Japan. The "deals" are "you save 40% on this item we marked up 39.999999%", deliveries are often delayed by days with no notification or reason and especially lately is more "you'll get it when you get it.". It's gotten to where if I know I need something, I just go to the store and buy it.
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Same in the UK. Very few genuine deals, and if you wait a month or two the same items are usually cheaper anyway.

      • In Germany too.

      • by mccalli ( 323026 )
        Interestingly I've found that there are good deals...just not at Amazon. It's from stores making sure they can compete/are still relevant during Prime day. For example I'm a musician who's into synths: this is a good deal [andertons.co.uk] on a well-regarded (if a bit controversial) synth. There are other examples for other niches - I get emails from smart home tech manufacturers for instance and they seem to do ok.
        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Similar thing here. AliExpress always has a sale to compete with Prime Day and it's usually decent. Not quite as good as Singles Day in November, but not bad.

          I've been waiting for them to get those sub-£100 Ecowitt weather stations back in, like they did last November.

          • I finally threw away my Ecowitt weather station and bought a Tempest. The ecowitt units were just too buggy; Tempest just works and can be fully local for integration into Home Assistant.

            • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              Thanks for the tip. Is your Tempest an ultrasonic wind sensor?

              • Yes, and boy does it do a better job. Rain accuracy is a little more complicated with the pizeo sensor, but plenty accurate for my needs. (It isn't as good in very light and very heavy rain apparently, and liquid sunshine is the rain du jour here.)

            • Interesting.... What did you find buggy about it? I have one and wrote my own python publisher to MQTT for it. It has been running 24x7 for 6 months at least now without a single glitch. My only beef with it is that the heating unit affects the temperature reading in the winter as it cycles on and off, so had to get a different standalone temp sensor as well to make it accurate in cold weather. You could see the jumps in the graph as it warmed and cooled itself.
    • Unfortunately I've been finding that things I used to just go out and buy are no longer available locally or same day. That really puts a damper on weekend projects.
    • by msauve ( 701917 )
      >The "deals" are "you save 40% on this item we marked up 39.999999%",

      Sounds like a good deal. 10000 yen item marked up 39.99% to 13999, then discounted 40% to 8399.
    • Plus the store is often cheaper than Amazon. Literally half of Amazon's items are third party sellers that buy shit elsewhere and mark it up. Sure Amazon is convenient but it's not saving me any money.

      • Literally half of Amazon's items are third party sellers that buy shit elsewhere and mark it up.

        And they're not even buying in bulk! I look at aliexpress all the time, and occasionally alibaba. If they would buy even 50-100 of many items from alibaba, they would be able to sell them at the same price as aliexpress. They are just individuals and cannot afford to stock in quantity, which explains their prices... and shitty service.

    • When Prime "Day" went to 3-4 dayS - that was a sign that it wasn't anything special. Enshittification.
  • Nice (Score:5, Funny)

    by dohzer ( 867770 ) on Thursday July 10, 2025 @04:03AM (#65509136)

    That's tariffic news!

  • by GotNoRice ( 7207988 ) on Thursday July 10, 2025 @05:12AM (#65509214)
    might be a reason why less people are buying. Did Amazon think that they could just declare a "Spend tons of money at Amazon day" without actually offering good deals? Because that is what seems to have happened.
  • by devslash0 ( 4203435 ) on Thursday July 10, 2025 @05:54AM (#65509242)

    It's become common knowledge that Amazon ramp up the prices a week or so before any event like this (Prime Day, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, etc.) and then they "generously" offer you "discounts". It's all a scam scheme, designed to make you part with more of your money, to encourage you to go on a spending spree while not actually getting any benefit.

    • Like black friday - "Oh look, it's 50% off" - er, that still makes it 5% more than last month.
    • by asylumx ( 881307 )
      You do know that Amazon doesn't set prices for the vast majority of products it sells, right? The sellers set those prices.
    • It's become common knowledge that Amazon ramp up the prices a week or so before any event like this (Prime Day, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, etc.) and then they "generously" offer you "discounts". It's all a scam scheme, designed to make you part with more of your money, to encourage you to go on a spending spree while not actually getting any benefit.

      I wouldn't know, I didn't bother checking Prime's deals this year because I'm in a "don't buy stupid shit" phase now. I'm only recently starting to recover from the damage he did to my job by creating supply-chain chaos. I'll put it this way- I'm a BIG Nintendo fan but I have no real hope of getting a Switch 2 this year.

  • Big surprise (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Thursday July 10, 2025 @05:59AM (#65509252)
    I think people are realising that these "sales" are no different than any other day on Amazon. And the majority of content on "sale" is Chinese OEM garbage.
    • And the majority of content on "sale" is Chinese OEM garbage.

      Oh, cmon now. You say that as if you barely recognize a single fly-by-night brand name anymore.

      Don’t you remember playing with all those toys from XXzzizz industries when you were a kid? And who could forget the Froxfftjjd fridge? Those SixZzrUs lawn darts were the real pokey ones..

      • Don’t you remember playing with all those toys from XXzzizz industries when you were a kid? And who could forget the Froxfftjjd fridge? Those SixZzrUs lawn darts were the real pokey ones..

        Hahaha someone please mod this funny!

    • I gave up buying on sales years ago. I buy when I need to buy something. I never consider the sale price in that decision. I buy the best thing my budget allows to meet the need the moment of the need.

      This has drastically cut my spending. Who cares if I paid $400 more for a TV if it's the best TV I can buy and I need to replace a failed TV. Why would I buy a TV simply becuase it was on sale?

    • by havana9 ( 101033 )
      People realised this for brick-and-mortar shops, too. At least in brick and mortar shops sometimes the sales are real and the stuff they sell isn't all made in China.
  • by aaarrrgggh ( 9205 ) on Thursday July 10, 2025 @06:28AM (#65509294)

    I just didn't really need any more crap. I looked, but nothing was really compelling enough for me to hit "buy."

    A big part of that is squarely on Amazon's shoulders, becoming a broker for knock-off stuff of indeterminant quality. We bought a lot of stuff last year, some of which was useful and others that ended up being a bigger pain than they were worth. I was actually needing some "retail therapy" as well, so I am a pretty easy mark right now.

    • by asylumx ( 881307 )
      This is the take that makes the most sense IMO. Amazon's quality in many ways has gone down - the products aren't compelling, there are way too many knockoffs to weed through, the search results are way off from the search terms because of how Amazon has monetized them.

      I was in the same boat as you this morning after I read this headline, but after spending an hour on there I think all I bought was a kindle book that was on sale for $2.99.
  • by sinij ( 911942 ) on Thursday July 10, 2025 @07:59AM (#65509412)
    What killed original ebay is a flood of low-quality products/listings in every search category. Amazon is almost there, with sponsored links, tainted ranking, and in-line video ads. Amazon shopping experience used to be convenient - quickly search for a product, order it, get it delivered in a few days. They introduced a lot of friction into product search, they play obvious games with the order process, and delivery is not guaranteed to be quick anymore.
    • I still go to eBay if I want something used.

      Otherwise I go straight to AliExpress as they have the same trash sold on Amazon, but for less.

      • by sinij ( 911942 )
        I still use eBay for classic car parts and various hard-to-find items, but only for categories that are not swamped with Chinesium knock-offs.
        • by DarkOx ( 621550 )

          What kind of classic car parts if I may ask?

          I find ebay almost impossible to use for that. Generally speaking anything OEM by the manufacturer is in far far worse condition than represented or have starting prices something like 10X what they'll go for at the Owners club swap meet if you wait for summer, or catch a classified listing in the club mag.

          As example, you'll see things like steering wheel assemblies that look great on the outside but an ebay seller won't tell you the plastic switches inside for t

      • I've noticed that lately I get modded down by people solely because I'm criticizing a business.

        This can only be because they have stock in it.

        Allowing anonymous moderation when scores are capped and not everyone gets points enables abuse, and there's no other reason to do it.

        This of course is not the fault of the new owners. Slashdot moderation was always broken by design. Like US Government, the design depends on most of the actors being benevolent. Look at how well that works.

  • Wut?

    "According to numbers provided by Adobe, Prime Day's kickoff surpassed Thanksgiving 2024's $6.1 billion in eCommerce spend.

    Adobe sells software on Amazon? $6.1B ?
    • One of Adobe's products is a retail analytics platform.

      • hmm.. thank you, that makes a bit more sense...

        So now I'm wondering why Amazon doesn't have the wherewithal to collect and analyze their own sales figures?
        and is using Abobe products to do that?

        it's a bit offtopic, but still curious.
  • by Computershack ( 1143409 ) on Thursday July 10, 2025 @08:07AM (#65509422)
    A lot more people are using price trackers and now seeing that the deals aren't all they appear. The stuff that people want has been price pumped in the run up so it can be dropped so Amazon can claim you're making a saving. However often you'll find it has been cheaper. Also a lot of the time many of items sold in a the Prime Deals can be found at the same price or lower elsewhere. Often the only things that really are dirt cheap and a true price drop is stock that Amazon and sellers can't sell so they fire sale it to get rid of it.
  • I have spent only a $100 or so and only on things I would have bought later in the month anyway. Most were discounted 5% or less. Mostly ordered now because well it is "slightly cheaper" and hell I have app open.

    Even last year it seems like there were some actual deals. This year it seems like they are just pushing crap they sell on Haul/Woot to the top of the algorithm in the main Amazon store, at no real discount over what it goes for on the bargain branded sites the other 348 days of the year.

  • Install the camelcamelcamel extension in Firefox and get price history graphs in Amazon pages which will show you exactly how. They raise the prices gradually leading up to prime day and then give you a "discount" that is often not the lowest price for the year.

  • by Inglix the Mad ( 576601 ) on Thursday July 10, 2025 @08:31AM (#65509478)
    So the wealth should be trickling down... any... day... now... any day.

    I saw it written elsewhere best: Art Laffer should go down in history as the penultimate economic terrorist. No other single person has enabled a larger wealth transfer than he did with his napkin doodle to falsely justify gutting the social safety net to give billions to the top 2%.
  • by blackomegax ( 807080 ) on Thursday July 10, 2025 @08:32AM (#65509480) Journal
    Consumerism needs to die, and all the chinese junk amazon sells is no good for anyone
    • I also worry about counterfeit products on amazon. I don't worry *as much* if it's sold by Amazon, but their volumes are so high, who knows? Heck, at this point, Walmart seems more trustworthy than Amazon, and I never thought I'd say that! I miss Kmart of the 1970s. The stores were CLEAN. The stuff was actually pretty well made - I had a telescope I got as a geek-kid for Christmas and had sharp and good resolution. But that was sort of before we concentrated on 'cheap' rather than 'good.'
  • are offering their own sales and shipping deals as part of Anti-Prime Days

    https://www.publishersweekly.c... [publishersweekly.com]

  • Prime Day deals used to be much better than what you got the rest of the year, now you often get the same, better or close to Prime day pricing throughout the year. s a result, people no longer see it as some special shopping opportunity and thus no FOMO.
  • Fake discounts (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DaFallus ( 805248 ) on Thursday July 10, 2025 @09:05AM (#65509552)
    Most of the "sales" are just items being sold at their regular price with a fake discount slapped on in an attempt to trick people into thinking they're getting a good deal.
  • Like Amazon, but that's given. Anyway, checking out their deals the gist of them seems to be that one can get deals on crap that practically no one wants in the first place, whereas appealing stuff is being sold at the usual prices. Prime Day has become a scam.
  • Branded products are always cheaper in specialized stores, so Amazon has turned into a crappy Aliexpress with a 200% markup.
  • As in, I was hoping people would boycott during Prime Day. I know I am. I've kinda come to the point where I barely buy anything through Amazon unless I can't find it anywhere else. Who needs these giant corporations sucking up more of the economy? What good does it actually do those of us living our lives out here in the real world?

  • All of the things that interested me on Prime day were the same price or slightly cheaper elsewhere.
  • I just got a $200 Amazon card for my work anniversary last month and was looking forward to finding some deals. I didn't buy a single thing :(

  • I skipped Amazon. I found a Fender guitar I liked and saw it was sold/shipped by a brick and mortar company in Texas. So I went right to their store front and purchased it so they got every penny of the sale and Amazon got jack $H!T!

    I'd rather support a small business than Amazon! I don't need to help pay for another multi-million dollar wedding for Jeff!
  • The deals on electronics aren't great. I'd imagine tariffs have something to do with that. Most seem like they're doing the jack the price up then reduce it scam. 1TB Samsung SSDs for $75, which is about what they normally go for not on sale. Junk like that.

    There are good deals on movies, though. Scored UHD Jurassic Park and The Maltese Falcon for $10 each. The way I calculate it, if I rent it twice for $4 a pop, buying it has just about paid for itself. Also, a nice four-movie Alfred Hitchcock UHD box set

  • I follow deal sites in my RSS feed. I pay for Amazon Prime. If something I needed had got my attention in Prime Day Iâ(TM)d have purchased it but for the most part itâ(TM)s just more clutter that I donâ(TM)t need.

  • But prime day had millions and billions of "deals." Who has time to find all these "deals"? I did get 2 deals yesterday. Why? Because I forgot it was prime day, and bought some things I was going to buy anyway, and it turned out there was a prime day "deal" on them. Woo-hoo!

  • I'd rather buy from makers than from drop shippers.

  • I really haven't seen much that I would call a deal. Plus now that I'm "winning" so much, I seem to have a lot less disposable income.

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