The history of Prime Day

Amazon’s 2021 Prime Day event kicked off at midnight on June 21 and ran through June 22. The two-day event featured deals in the U.S., the UK, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Spain, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Portugal, the Netherlands, Mexico, Luxembourg, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, China, Brazil, Belgium, Austria, and Australia. The shopping extravaganza delivered Prime members over 2 million deals across every category, along with the best in entertainment benefits and never-before-seen exclusives across Prime Video, Amazon Music, and Prime Gaming.

Prime Day 2021 was the biggest two-day period ever for Amazon’s third party sellers, nearly all of which are small and medium-sized businesses, growing even more than Amazon’s retail business. Prime members in 20 countries shopped more this Prime Day than any previous Prime Day, and scored deep discounts across home, fashion, beauty, and electronics. Members purchased more than 250 million items worldwide and saved more than any Prime Day before.

Prime Day 2021 highlights

• The two weeks leading up to Prime Day 2021 were a boon for small business sellers with the Amazon-funded Spend $10, Get $10 promotion. Customers spent over $1.9 billion on more than 70 million small business products during the promotional period, more than a 100% year-over-year increase on sales compared to the Prime Day October 2020 promotion.
• Fire TV Stick 4K with Alexa Voice Remote was the most popular item purchased during Prime Day with customers purchasing more Fire TV 4K streaming media players on Prime Day this year than any previous Prime Day.
• Best-selling categories worldwide for Prime Day 2021 included tools, beauty, nutrition, baby care, electronics including Amazon Devices, apparel, and household products.
• Top-selling products worldwide for Prime Day 2021 included iRobot Roomba 692 Robot Vacuum, Keurig K-Slim Coffee Maker, Apple Cider Vinegar Gummy Vitamins by Goli Nutrition, and Crest 3D White Professional Effects Whitestrips.
• Prime members worldwide saved while gearing up for back to school, purchasing more than 600,000 backpacks, 1 million laptops, 1 million headphones, 240,000 notebooks, 40,000 calculators, and 220,000 Crayola products.
• Tens of millions of customers viewed Prime Day product demonstrations and try-on hauls, heard directly from creators, and more during Amazon Live livestreams throughout Prime Day.
• Amazon Music promotions drove more sign-ups for Amazon Music Unlimited globally than on any other Prime Day.
• This year’s Prime Day show was a three-part immersive musical event featuring Billie Eilish, H.E.R. and Kid Cudi. Artists performed in their own episodes as a part of a series available on Prime Video.

After holding Prime Day in India in August, Amazon had a two-day Prime Day event across 19 additional countries on October 13-14, delivering big sales for small businesses and big savings for Prime members in the U.S., the UK, the UAE, Turkey, Spain, Singapore, Netherlands, Mexico, Luxembourg, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, China, Canada, Brazil, Belgium, Austria, and Australia. Amazon is on track to invest $18 billion this year to help small and medium-sized businesses succeed in its store, and designed this Prime Day to support small businesses even more—including funding a promotion that helped drive over $900 million in sales for small businesses in the two weeks leading up to Prime Day.

This Prime Day delivered the two biggest days ever for third-party sellers, nearly all of whom are small and medium-sized businesses. Sellers saw record-breaking sales, surpassing $3.5 billion in total across 19 countries. Prime members around the world saved over $1.4 billion during the event and got a jump start on their holiday shopping.

Prime Day 2020 highlights

• Independent third-party sellers—most of whom are small and medium-sized businesses—surpassed $3.5 billion in sales on Prime Day—a nearly 60% increase over Prime Day 2019, growing even more than Amazon's retail business.
• Top-selling categories for third-party sellers include Bedding, Wireless Accessories, Nutrition & Wellness, Arts, Crafts & Sewing, and Health Care.
• Tens of millions of customers supported small businesses in the two-week lead-up to Prime Day, generating more than $900 million in sales for small and medium-sized businesses included in the Spend $10, Get $10 promotion.
• In the two weeks leading up to Prime Day, customers shopped from small businesses across all 50 U.S. states, with small businesses included in the promotion in Utah, California, and New Jersey seeing the biggest sales per capita.

Prime Day started at midnight PT on Monday, July 15 and—for the first time ever—ran for 48 hours. There were 18 participating countries including the U.S., the UK, Spain, Singapore, the Netherlands, Mexico, Luxembourg, Japan, Italy, India, Germany, France, China, Canada, Belgium, Austria, Australia, and—new this year—the United Arab Emirates.

Prime Day 2019 was once again the largest shopping event in Amazon history with more than one million deals exclusively for Prime members. Over the two days of Prime Day, sales surpassed the previous Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.

Prime Day 2019 highlights

• Members worldwide purchased more than 175 million items, from devices to groceries and more, throughout Prime Day.
• Prime Day was the biggest event ever for Amazon devices—top-selling deals worldwide were Echo Dot, Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote, and Fire TV Stick 4K with Alexa Voice Remote.
• Prime members in the U.S. received tens of millions of dollars in Prime Day savings by shopping from Whole Foods Market—best-selling Prime Day deals were organic strawberries, red cherries, and blueberries.
• Millions of people around the world streamed Prime Day events including the Prime Day Concert presented by Amazon Music and headlined by 10-time GRAMMY Award-winning artist Taylor Swift.

Prime Day 2018 was the biggest global shopping day (and a half) in Amazon history, lasting 36 hours from start to finish.

Prime Day 2018 highlights

• Members worldwide purchased more than 100 million products during Prime Day.
• Best-sellers worldwide were the Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote and Echo Dot—making this, with 12-hour early access to device deals, the biggest event ever for Amazon devices.
• Small and medium-sized businesses selling on Amazon far exceeded $1.5 billion in sales this Prime Day.
• Customers purchased more than five million items in each of the following categories: Toys, Beauty, PCs and computer accessories, Apparel, and Kitchen products.
• For the first time, U.S. Prime members celebrated Prime Day with a week of savings at Whole Foods Market. Members saved millions of dollars at Whole Foods Market with Prime Day deals, of which the best-selling deal was organic strawberries.
• Members purchased more than 300,000 Instant Pot 6 Qt 7-in-1 multi use pressure cookers.

Prime Day started on July 11, 2017 and lasted 30 hours—because only Amazon could put 30 hours in a day.

Prime Day 2017 highlights

• Echo Dot was the most popular Prime member purchase.
• Tens of millions of Prime members made a purchase on Prime Day 2017, more than 50% higher than the prior year.
• We added Mexico and China to the growing number of countries enjoying Prime Day.
• More than 3.5 million toys were purchased by customers worldwide.
• Tens of millions of customers used the Amazon App on Prime Day, with customer orders on the app more than doubled compared to 2016.
• Prime members’ most popular purchase was the Echo Dot, which was the best-selling product from any manufacturer in any category across Amazon globally.
• Instant Pot DUO80 7-in-1 multi-use programmable pressure cooker was a top seller in the U.S. and Canada.

The second Prime Day event surpassed Prime Day 2015 by more than 60% worldwide, and more than 50% in the U.S. Customers in the U.S., the UK, Spain, Japan, Italy, Germany, Austria, France, Belgium, and Canada enjoyed shopping Prime Day 2016.

Prime Day 2016 highlights

• Prime members saved more than double on deals over Prime Day 2015.
• More than two million toys and more than one million pairs of shoes were purchased by customers.
• It was the biggest day ever for Amazon Devices globally and a record Prime Day for each Amazon device category including Fire TV, Fire tablets, Kindle e-readers, and Alexa-enabled devices.
• 215,000 Instant Pot 7-in-1 multi-functional pressure cookers were sold.
• Prime members purchased an average of one Alexa-exclusive deal per second during Prime Day, using their voice.
• Small businesses and sellers on Amazon offering deals to Prime members saw orders nearly triple, year-over-year, on Prime Day.

Amazon turned 20 and on the eve of its birthday, the company introduced Prime Day, a global shopping event. Our only goal? Offer a volume of deals greater than Black Friday, exclusively for Prime members.

Our first Prime Day was July 15, 2015, lasting 24 hours, and spanning nine countries including the U.S., the UK, Spain, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, Canada, and Austria.

Prime Day 2015 highlights

• Customers bought more items than on Black Friday 2014, our biggest Black Friday ever at the time.
• More than 34.4 million items were ordered across Prime-eligible countries, with 398 items ordered per second.
• Customers ordered hundreds of thousands of Amazon Devices—making it the largest device sales day ever, worldwide.
• 24,000 Instant Pot 7-in-1 programmable pressure cookers were sold.
• Amazon sellers using Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) enjoyed the biggest day ever with record-breaking unit sales growing nearly 300% worldwide.