Prime Day has quietly become one of the most important days on the e-commerce calendar, a two-day sprint that can shape a brand’s entire quarter. This year, we ran the numbers across our portfolio, compared them against 2025, and came away with a clear headline: it worked. Here’s what happened, and what we’re taking into the rest of the year.
Up More than 12% Year Over Year
Across our portfolio, Prime Day sales grew 12.3% year over year, excluding one large partner that intentionally shifted its promotional strategy and spend this season. Including that partner in the blended average, growth came in at just over 5%, still up, but a less complete picture of what actually happened on the ground.
Why show two numbers? Because one large partner deliberately pulled back and rebalanced how it promoted this year. That’s a valid strategic choice, but it drags the blended average down and hides the real story: the rest of the portfolio had a genuinely strong event. The 12.3% figure is the one that reflects what our promotional playbook delivered.
What drove it: broader, smarter participation
The single biggest difference between this year and last is that more brands showed up, and they promoted with more intent.
Last year, promotional participation was thin, a couple of brands ran a single coupon each and largely left it there. This year, the majority of the portfolio came to the table with a deliberate offer, and the mix of tactics was far more sophisticated. A few patterns stood out:
- Trial and small sizes were discounted to win new customers. Coupons on trial-size and entry SKUs ranged from roughly 15% to 30%. These are acquisition plays. The goal is to lower the barrier to a first purchase, not to protect margin.
- Large sizes leaned on Subscribe & Save. Several brands paired their trial-size coupons with Subscribe & Save discounts of up to 30% on larger pack sizes. This is the retention half of the strategy, get a shopper onto a recurring order and you’ve bought lifetime value, not just a one-day spike.
- Hero SKUs got the deep cuts and the visibility. Best-deal placements and price drops as steep as 33% went to a small number of high-velocity products, where the extra exposure and momentum pay for the margin sacrifice.
- Select SKUs got light, targeted coupons. Not every product needs a headline deal, modest 5% coupons on chosen SKUs kept brands present in the event without over-discounting the catalog.
The Real Lesson: Match the Promo to the Job
If there’s one takeaway worth carrying into your own planning, it’s this: the best-performing brands didn’t run one blanket discount. They were strategic in which promotion went to each listing.
A few principles we’d underline for next time:
Showing up compounds. The lift this year tracked closely with participation. Brands that sat out or ran a token offer left growth on the table.
Use Prime Day for lifetime value, not just top line. Subscribe & Save conversions during the event keep paying out long after the deals end.
Read the shoulders, not just the days. The weekends on either side carry real volume, plan and measure the full window.
Don’t discount everything equally. Reserve your deepest cuts for the SKUs that can turn extra visibility into velocity.
The Bottom Line
A double-digit year-over-year improvement is a genuinely strong result. The product of broader participation, smarter promotional segmentation, and a plan that treated acquisition and retention as two different jobs. Prime Day 2026 was a win, and the playbook behind it is one we’ll be running and learning from in the future.