Has Amazon Prime Big Deal Days really extended the Holiday Shopping Season?

Prime Big Deal Days has increasingly become the unofficial starting gun for Holiday promotions. And it is no longer just an Amazon event. Walmart, Target and hundreds of retailers and DTC brands now launch promotions around the same period.

Prime Big Deal Days has clearly succeeded in creating a major shopping moment in October. Ecommerce sales rise, retailers across the industry launch competing promotions, and our own client data shows the effect extending well beyond Amazon. Interestingly, October ecommerce growth has also been stronger in the years since Prime Big Deal Days was introduced in 2022, compared with the years prior

But, much of that growth is truly incremental versus demand simply being pulled forward from later in the Holiday season?

In other words, does Prime Big Deal Days actually extend the Holiday Shopping Season?

Being fanatically analytical there are six data points that Team NetElixir tracks to try and answer this question.

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1. Prime Big Deal Days Lift in Online Purchases

This year, we will measure the ecommerce sales lift on October 6 and 7. We will compare that with the prior two days, the same days of the week the following week (October 13 and 14), and the Y/Y change during Prime Big Deal Days in 2025.

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2. Post-Event Payback

We will track daily sales for our clients from October 8–17 to see if there is a slump after Prime Big Deal Days.

This one is especially important. A big spike on October 6–7 followed by a corresponding decline afterward may simply mean that we pulled future purchases forward rather than created incremental demand.

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3. Category Mix

Are consumers simply replenishing essential purchases to take advantage of the high discounts? Or are they making gifting and discretionary purchases?

Interestingly, data aggregated by Numerator shows that just 23% of Prime Big Deal Days shoppers purchased Holiday gifts, while 28% bought everyday items such as groceries/household goods, 25% specifically stocked up on sale items, and 45% bought something they had already been waiting to purchase on sale!

Are the Prime Big Deal Days really the beginning of Holiday shopping, or the beginning of Holiday deal-seeking?

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4. October Incrementality

Quite simply, event-week lift minus post-event softness.

This may ultimately be the best indicator of whether Prime Big Deal Days actually expands the Holiday Shopping Season or simply rearranges when consumers spend.

There are also two broader factors that I believe we need to overlay on our analysis.

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5. The Impact of K-Shaped Consumer Demand

There is growing evidence that higher-income consumer groups are driving a disproportionate share of retail spending growth, while spending among lower-income groups has been much weaker.

PwC's post-Holiday analysis shows how dramatically this translated into Holiday 2025. High-income households' share of total Holiday spending jumped from 31.7% in 2024 to 38.5% in 2025.

PwC actually argues that "K-shaped" understates the phenomenon and describes it as more of a Pac-Man-shaped economy. The lower cohorts aren't necessarily collapsing. They are largely flat while the affluent consumer races ahead.

This raises another interesting question for Prime Big Deal Days. Which part of the K is actually driving the growth? How resilient will the lower cohort spending be this year?

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6. Changes in the Macroeconomic Environment

Finally, we need to understand the environment in which consumers are entering this Holiday season.

Inflation, gas prices, unemployment, consumer sentiment and geopolitical uncertainty can all influence both the willingness and ability of consumers to spend.

And the 2026 consumer is entering Holiday under a very different set of circumstances. If the consumer was cautious last Holiday season, this year they are definitely feeling the pressure.

Consider just one very visible expense. Average gas prices in September increased from about $3.10/gallon last year to $4.40/gallon this year. That's a ~42% increase!!

Every additional dollar spent filling up the car is a dollar competing for the same household wallet that funds gifting and other discretionary purchases. Combine that with historically low consumer sentiment, the mid term election effect, and the question becomes even more interesting.

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Will a more pressured consumer use Prime Big Deal Days to start Holiday shopping earlier? Or simply use the discounts to stretch an already tight wallet?

Over the next couple of weeks, we will be watching the data closely to see what story emerges.

My hypothesis going in? Prime Big Deal Days has unquestionably extended the Holiday promotional season. Whether it has truly extended the Holiday shopping season is a very different question.

Sometimes the most interesting insights come not from confirming what we believe, but from questioning what we have come to accept as true :)

Let's see what the consumer tells us.

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Happy Prime Big Deal Days 2026!

#ecommerce #Holiday2026 #Retail #PrimeBigDealDays #NetElixir

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