Every year, Amazon holds a “record” Prime Day, and every year the company boasts about the performance of the annual sales event in a press release. The self-congratulatory announcement isn’t exactly absurd—given its size, any year-over-year growth is noteworthy.
Last year, while Amazon didn’t disclose the total number of items sold, it did note that independent sellers “sold more than 200 million items during the Prime Day event.” In 2023, Prime members “purchased more than 375 million items worldwide.” In 2022, that number was more than 300 million, and in 2021, it was north of 250 million.
But this year, what stood out to this longtime Amazon watcher is that the company didn’t disclose anything about the number of items sold. The last time it made that choice was 2020, when nothing normal was happening anywhere in the world, and Prime Day was moved from summer to October. Before that, you have to go back to the second-ever Prime Day in 2016 to find a wrap-up that didn’t provide any update on the number of “units” sold.
It’s unclear exactly why Amazon decided to withhold that number for 2025, but this Prime Day was odd for a few reasons. Sellers, and brands big and small, had to come up with different strategies to contend with tariff chaos. And they’re trying to woo increasingly pessimistic consumers. Those factors could be weighing on the company’s decision to withhold exact numbers.
When asked about this year’s missing metric, Amazon spokesperson Jessica Martin pointed Fortune to an Amazon blog post that shares facts about historical Prime Day events, but otherwise declined to comment on the absence of specific product sales tallies for 2025.
To be sure, it’s possible that this Prime Day was a success. An outside analysis from Adobe estimated that sales across online retailers overall increased by more than 30% during this year’s four day Prime Day period, compared to last year. And Amazon said in this year’s recap that the four days of Prime Day 2025 outsold any other four-day period that included previous Prime Days. But historically, the event hasn’t run longer than two days. That means that previous years have included two prime days and two regular days, while this year included four prime days. It’s unclear why the company would change the basis of comparison.
We’ll see if Amazon provides any more details in future earnings reports later this year. Until then, the missing metric raises questions about just how successful Prime Day really was.
Are you a current or former Amazon employee with thoughts on this topic or a tip to share? Contact Jason Del Rey at [email protected], [email protected], or through messaging apps Signal and WhatsApp at 917-655-4267. You can also contact him on LinkedIn or at @delrey on X, @jdelrey on Threads, and on Bluesky.
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