The new report estimates that AI will be a bigger part of the online shopping process than ever before during Amazon’s Prime Day sale, which began Tuesday morning. This year, Amazon’s annual sales for four days (from July 8th to 111th) are projected to drive $23.8 billion in online spending to US e-commerce retailers as other companies run their own competitive sales along with popular shopping events.
With the e-commerce department regularly releasing quotes for online shopping events such as Black Friday, Adobe offers online commerce views by tracking transactions online. The company’s analysis includes over 1 trillion visits to US retail websites, including Sku 100 million across 18 product categories.
This year, Adobe predicts Prime Day will be equivalent to “two Black Fridays.” The $23.8 billion spent over four days was $9.6 billion more than last year’s growth rate of 28.4%, compared to the previous year’s equivalent.
Mobile accounts for the majority of the equation, accounting for more than half (52.5%) of sales, but this year, generation AI will also play a role.
During the Prime Day event, Adobe estimates that traffic from generated AI sources will increase by 3,200% year-on-year. This is a much smaller source than other channels, such as paid search and email, but Adobe believes it will continue to grow as consumers see value when using AI for shopping.
The company said it had seen an early surge in chatbots and browsers powered by Gen AI during the 2024 holiday season.
The company also cited a survey of 5,000 US consumers. This indicated that people were using Gen AI for their research (55% of respondents), product recommendations (47%), deal discovery (43%), gift ideas (35%), unique product search (35%), and shopping list creation (33%).
Of those who used Gen AI, 92% said they would improve their purchasing experience, while 87% said they were more likely to use AI for more complex purchases.
Similar to Google’s Gemini-Enhanced product search, AI providers are taking advantage of this trend by integrating AI into shopping, and Openai is adding shopping capabilities to ChatGPT.
Adobe’s forecast shows that Prime Day is focused on discounts for consumers, and apparel has the biggest deals. Needs to return to school will also drive sales this year.
