Holiday shoppers arrive early as the Amazon Prime Big Deal Days event sees strong numbers

Adobe reported U.S. online shoppers spent $9.86B during Amazon's (AMZN) Prime Big Deal Days on October 6–7. The sales tally is up 8.5% from last year, when the event brought in $9.09B, which was a 7.3% gain from the preceding year. The sales total landed just under the pre-event forecast of $9.9B. The numbers cover all U.S. retailers holding sales events, not just Amazon (AMZN). They come from direct online transactions across more than 1T visits to retail sites, 100M products, and 18 categories.

Discounts drove most of the demand, as Adobe said shoppers "prioritized getting the best value for their dollar." Markdowns peaked at about 20% off the list price. Notably, strong deals on computers, TVs, electronics, toys, and apparel led many buyers to choose pricier items. Across all categories, the share of spending on the most expensive goods rose 21% compared with the year-to-date average.

By category, the biggest jumps over average daily sales in September were in toys (up 158%), video games (90%), electronics (85%), and personal care (73%). Shoppers also used the event to stock up on everyday items. Compared with last year, sales rose 55% for household cleaning and paper products, 45% for personal hygiene products, 45% for pet food and 25% for basic apparel.

On a broader scale, Adobe highlighted that the event is likely to have pulled holiday shopping earlier. Remarkably, more than a third of shoppers said they finished at least half of their holiday shopping during Prime Big Deal Days, and plans to shop on Black Friday and Cyber Monday fell from last year.