By Dane Tomalin, Director of Product Marketing @ CommerceIQ

Amazon has made it impossible not to notice the difference between previous Amazon Prime Days and Prime Day 2025. For starters, the event is offering more pre-Prime Day deals for consumers who just can't wait. Then there's the actual event itself. Once confined to a single day coinciding with a prime number (like 07/09, or 709), this year it stretches from 07/08 (not a prime number) through 07/10 and 07/11 (also not prime numbers).

For retailers, though, the countless ads, emails, and push notifications have yet to answer the big question hanging in the air: Is Prime Day still prime real estate, or has Amazon squeezed all the juice out of this once-huge event by making it too big?

Black Friday, vol. 2?

It's hard not to compare Prime Day(s) to Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Once the premier shopping holidays in the United States, both have lost some luster in recent years. Consumer perception is that whatever magic once drove them to (literally or figuratively) wait in line at 4 a.m. has disappeared.

There's some truth to that. Adjusted for inflation, Black Friday and Cyber Monday ecommerce sales (in inflation-adjusted terms) have slowed from double-digit growth in the 2010s to mid-single digits post-COVID. The transition from Cyber Monday to “Cyber Week” seems to have stalled these events’ momentum, and that correlation could mean bad news for Amazon Prime Day. 

But the comparison isn’t a perfect analogue, and the data is too noisy to draw confident conclusions. The slide in growth happened during COVID-19 and the years immediately following it (periods when inflation dominated the news in 2021 and 2022). Not to mention, Amazon Prime Day is a relatively recent phenomenon; and one without Black Friday’s legacy baggage and nostalgia. 

What's working against Prime Day?

Historically, when adjusted to constant dollars, Amazon Prime Day has tracked Black Friday/Cyber Monday patterns pretty closely. But Prime Day 2025 is facing some added headwinds:

• Economic uncertainty/anxiety: Consumers have been in a state of near-constant economic anxiety since COVID, and it has only gotten worse with the political and economic uncertainty, inflation, and massive disruption since. The hot economy of the 2010s was enough to boost consumer spirits and spending; COVID drastically changed those consumer perceptions.
• Tariff costs: While tariffs had a much lower impact in Q1 and Q2 than initially feared, things may shift by the start of Q3. The first half of the year benefited from a lack of tariff consistency and implementation, with retailers pre-stocking large quantities of inventory and customers looking to beat cost increases, keeping sales numbers high. That might change by mid-July if inventory levels are lower than expected, tariffs force higher-cost restocking, or consumers have already done their shopping early.
• Consumer distrust: Shoppers have always been wary of the authenticity of major sales events. The common theory was that retailers would hike prices in the weeks before so that the day-of discount appeared larger. This feeling has only intensified in recent years: The word "scam," now common slang for any corporate action that feels inherently deceptive, has doubled in search volume between June 2019 and June 2025.

What's working for Amazon?

Brands and retailers still might (and probably should) be concerned that Prime Day could be losing some of its luster, but they also have good reason to believe reports on the death of Prime Day have been greatly exaggerated. Amazon is convinced that this is a good move; some good reasons to keep faith include: 

• Amazon is a data company first: Don’t forget, Amazon is less a retailer and more a data company that happens to own some storefronts. If Amazon is extending Prime Day, it’s reasonable to assume they have strong data supporting that expansion.
• Big Deal Days extension: Earlier this year, Amazon ran a real-life experiment, extending the Big Deal Days event by a day — resulting in an 8% increase in sales over 2024 (in nominal dollars). A similar strategy for Prime Day might pay off, and, internally, Amazon seems confident that it will result in a significant increase over last year.
• Tactical changes: Amazon is likely to spend more time on Lightning Deals this year instead of broad category discounts. These limited quantity flash sales should work to keep people on-site longer and bring them back more often, helping to shore up Amazon's Share of Browsing against competing events like Walmart's “Walmart Deals.”‍
• Tariffs: These are both a negative and a positive for Amazon. With more firm tariff plans emerging, consumers may once again try to stock up in preparation for price hikes and use Prime Day as a vehicle to purchase enough goods to last them until international markets return to some measure of normalcy.

Will that be enough to keep Prime Day prime?

The short answer? Maybe. At CommerceIQ, we suspect that this will be the largest Prime Day Amazon has ever held, by a wide margin. The real question is whether it will break the trend of stalled inflation-adjusted growth from the last few years.

We suspect it will. The available data doesn't provide strong support for the theory that extending big sales events sacrifices exclusivity. Amazon appears confident about its internal analysis, and absent any clearer numbers, it makes sense to trust that they know what they're doing.

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Sources:

• 2015 Prime Day $0.9 B: Investopedia recap of GMV growth investopedia.com
• 2016 $1.52 B & 2017 $2.41 B: Digital Commerce 360 analysis digitalcommerce360.com
• 2018 $4.19 B: Radial/Digital Commerce 360 PDF radial.com
• 2019 $7.16 B: Digital Commerce 360 post-event report digitalcommerce360.com
• 2020 $10.4 B: Skai summary, citing DC360 skai.io
• 2021 $11.19 B: Supermarket News citing DC360 supermarketnews.com
• 2022 $12.09 B: Digital Transactions/Adobe estimate digitaltransactions.net
• 2023 $12.70 B: Adobe Analytics press note blog.adobe.com‍
• 2024 $14.0 B (proj.): Adobe first-day + projection investopedia.com