U.S. online sales during Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime Day shopping event jumped 8.5 percent from last year to nearly $12 billion, as inflation-hit Americans pounced on discounted essentials and electronics, showed data from Adobe’s Digital Economy Index.
Amazon said on Thursday the two-day shopping event, on July 12 and 13, was its biggest ever globally, with members of its Prime loyalty program purchasing more than 300 million items, or 100,000 products a minute.
Shoppers have been hit hard by decades of high-inflation in recent months, which retailers including Walmart Inc. and Target Corp. said has led to restrained purchases of discretionary products.
Soaring prices of everything from food to clothes spurred consumers to take advantage of deep discounts from several large U.S. retailers that piggyback off Amazon’s Prime Day….