Prime Day - slower start, Haul surprise, picking up to finish strong?

AOV and HH spend are down ~17% YoY (per Numerator), but total spend is up (Adobe had Day 1 up ~5%). More households, more orders, smaller baskets, cheaper items, spread across four days instead of two.

We think Amazon Haul’s (the Temu clone) unexpected push might be the cause. It offers slower free shipping for a $25 cart min. It’s likely pulling AOV down and checkout counts up. It’s interesting Amazon is stretching delivery times in both directions: same day <1hr and slower with Haul. Sales have been a bit soft for some brands compared to historicals, but last year (the first 4-day PD) the YoY growth showed up on Days 3-4 when the procrastinators finally checked out.

A few things our team noted today:

🛑 Don’t spend where you don’t have to - if a SKU is going to sell out anyway, pull the discount and let it ride.

🌉 Save budget for the evening. Evening CPCs drop as competitors run out of budget.  Will likely see more on day 4 on a full-promo exhaustion basis.

😇 The email + social halo is key. One disengaged- DTC purchasers email segment drove ~30% of a brand's Prime Day sales, and multiple brands saw lifts from pre-event TikTok/Instagram engagement.

🏬 Brand stores are more important than they used to be. Campaigns driving traffic to refreshed storefronts are converting well. People will click extra if they enjoy the journey.

🦸♀️ Use AMC to look at what NTB shoppers tend to purchase and push discounts to those SKUs. Your normal heroes might not be the best fit for attracting new blood to your brand.

📈 Don't sleep on the lead-out (cart abandoners, "missed it?" coupons, etc)! That's where you bank more ROI and ride your traffic spike into next week.

Tomorrow should be exciting. We’ll see if last year’s final day spike was a fluke or the new normal.