The Prime Effect: How Brands Can Win With Amazon … and Beyond

Prime Day may be an Amazon.com event, but its impact is no longer confined to the online retail giant. It’s become a market-wide retail moment that reshapes what consumers buy, where they buy it, and what they expect to pay — creating new challenges and opportunities for brands across every channel.

Despite record-breaking sales during Prime Day in June, average order value fell 11 percent as shoppers used the event to replenish household essentials rather than splurge on big-ticket items. That behavior reflects the broader shift toward value identified in Ibotta’s 2026 State of Spend survey: consumers are growing increasingly cautious, deal-driven, and willing to switch brands or retailers to make every dollar work harder.

An overwhelming 78 percent of shoppers now expect other retailers to offer similar promotions. As the next Prime Day event approaches and competition intensifies, the question for brands is no longer whether to participate, but how to capitalize on the “Prime effect” across the retail ecosystem.

These three tactics can help cut through the noise:

1. Launch promotions across your own channels and retail partners.

Prime Day creates a market-wide expectation for value. Brands that aren’t running their own promotions ahead of or in parallel with the event risk material declines, even if Amazon isn’t a primary channel.

We analyzed purchases made at other retailers during Prime Day and found that, across categories, non-promotional items declined 8 percent to 12 percent during the Prime Day window compared to the category baseline — nearly twice as steep as the decline in 2025. Conversely, Ibotta redemption data shows that brands on offer during Prime Day outperformed the baseline, with sales per day increasing 59 percent for promoted items vs. 4 percent for nonpromoted items.

2. Turn deal seekers into loyal customers.

Our research shows that only a quarter of the cart (26 percent) is made up of first-time purchases, with the rest reserved for habitual purchases. Prime Day is an ideal opportunity to drive household penetration and move into the secure 74 percent of go-to items in the cart.

Amazon used its most recent Prime Day to drive grocery adoption, offering subscription discounts and running a sweepstakes. Brands can apply the same approach by pairing promotions with limited-edition or new products that increase perceived value and engagement.

Prime Day isn’t just a chance to meet consumer expectations for value; it’s a chance to convert deal seekers into brand loyalists. For most shoppers, it takes only one successful trial to become a repeat customer.

3. Activate first-party signals to make every offer work harder.

Using first-party purchase signals to tailor the timing, message and value of an offer can help brands engage existing customers more efficiently than relying solely on paid advertising.

Depending on the shopper, that might mean prompting replenishment of a household staple, re-engaging a lapsed buyer, encouraging a repeat purchase, or recommending a complementary product. The goal is to make promotions more relevant across the consumer journey and measure whether they generate truly incremental sales.

Prime Day has evolved into a testing ground for a new kind of consumer: one who is hyperfocused on value and increasingly using artificial intelligence to discover products, compare options and monitor prices. Brands have an opportunity to learn which combinations of audience, offer, and message generate truly incremental sales. Those insights will become increasingly valuable as AI enters the shopping journey.

Prime Day may last only a few days, but brands that use it to reach new shoppers, earn a place in habitual carts, and learn which offers drive incremental behavior can influence what shoppers — and AI agents — add to their carts for months to come.

Chris Riedy is the chief revenue officer at Ibotta, a leading performance marketing platform.