Dive Brief:

• Sixteen percent of consumers who made purchases from Amazon during the retailer's two-day Prime Day event this week bought groceries, according to preliminary survey data released by market research firm Numerator.
• Amazon-branded products accounted for 33% of groceries the retailer sold during the promotional period, which spanned June 21-22, Numerator reported, citing early figures representing nearly 31,000 Prime Day orders.
• Nearly two-thirds of Prime Day shoppers tracked by Numerator only purchased goods from Amazon during the sale, which occurred earlier than usual in 2021 after being delayed until October last year because of the pandemic.

Dive Insight:

Prime Day has solidified its place as a major retail force since Amazon first held the event in 2015, with other retailers staging their own large-scale sales during the same period in an effort to take advantage of the buzz.

Target and Walmart, which both held highly publicized sales to coincide with Prime Day, used deals on groceries to try to steal some of Amazon's thunder, CNBC reported. Target offered $10 gift cards to customers who spent at least $50 on groceries with curbside pickup or Shipt delivery during its Deal Days sale, while Walmart included food in its Deals for Days promotion this year for the first time, according to CNBC.

Still, in a sign of the market power of Amazon's Prime Day, 64% of shoppers in the Numerator survey who made Prime Day purchases from Amazon did not place orders with another online retailer during the two-day sale period, and just 19% compared Amazon's prices with those at other retailers. The vast majority said they knew Prime Day was going on before they began shopping, and almost all said the sale was their main reason for making purchases.

The early findings from Numerator indicate that shoppers spent less per order this year during Prime Day than they have in the past. The average Prime Day 2021 order was $44.75, per Numerator's preliminary data. Meanwhile, shoppers spent an average of $54.64 per order in 2020 — when Amazon delayed Prime Day to October due to the pandemic — and $58.91 during the event in 2019, which took place in July.

The percentage of Prime Day 2021 shoppers who made grocery purchases (16%) was well below the proportion that bought items in other categories. By comparison, 28% percent of shoppers bought consumer electronics or health and beauty items, while, at the low end, baby items drew purchases from 8%, Numerator reported.

However, the fact that a third of category sales were in Amazon's grocery brands, according to early receipts, indicates the growing strength of the retailers' private label grocery assortment. Brands like Happy Belly and Amazon Kitchen are expanding, with products available online and in physical stores like Amazon Fresh. In April, Amazon rolled out its latest private label grocery brand, Aplenty, which is centered on snacks and savories.

More than two-thirds of the participants in Numerator's research who made Prime Day purchases in 2021 and 2020 said they spent less or about as much this year as they did last year. Twelve percent of the shoppers Numerator tracked said they spent "significantly more" during Prime Day 2021 than they did during the sale last year.