American Shoppers Spend More Than $26B Over Prime Day

U.S. retailers drove $26.4 billion in online spend during Amazon Prime Day (June 23-26), representing 9.3 percent year-over-year (YoY) growth. Sales outpaced Adobe’s initial forecast of $26.3 billion. Amazon Prime Day and its accompanying shopping events at competitive retailers is changing the shape of the summer shopping season, which is beginning to rival the holiday period. As a comparison point, consumers spent $32.45 billion across Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2025. Mobile continues to be the dominant transaction channel, driving 54.2 percent of online sales during the Prime Day event, which represents $14.2 billion of overall spend and an all-time high.

An interesting theme to emerge from the Prime Day event was shoppers continued to embrace artificial intelligence-powered chat services and browsers to research products and find deals. AI traffic to U.S. retail sites (measured by shoppers clicking on a link) increased 89 percent YoY across the Prime Day event. 

Once these individuals landed on a retail site, they converted 40% more than non-AI channels (e.g., paid search, email, social media). This is a notable shift from the Prime event last year, where AI traffic converted 23 percent worse. And while the overall volume of AI traffic remains modest compared to other major channels, the data shows the impact of AI in the shopping journey, shortening the time it takes for consumers to confidently get the information they need.

Total Retail's Take: The results from this year's Prime Day event suggest that consumers remain willing to spend when presented with compelling value, even as economic uncertainty persists. For Amazon, the event reinforces its dominance in e-commerce and the loyalty its Prime members have to the retailer. For the broader retail industry, Prime Day yielded some interesting trends to watch, namely that promotional events, AI-powered shopping, retail media, and loyalty ecosystems will be critical factors that define competition throughout the second half of 2026.

Furthermore, summer is becoming a second holiday shopping season that consumers are looking to extract value and score deals from retailers looking to move inventory and drive sales in what traditionally had been a slower period on the retail calendar. Amazon has set the precedent with it summer sales event, and like other trends, many retailers are following its lead.