Was it good for you?
There are no big surprises from Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days last week: the second major Prime event of the year continues to gently herald the start of the Q4 shopping season, and bring success and valuable data to those brands that use it well.
It’s the fifth ‘October Prime Day’, having debuted as the Prime Early Access Sale in 2022. Over the last six years it has gradually reshaped the way everyone shops in the run-up to the holidays.
Here’s our run-down of October Prime Day 2026, and how you can use it for planning Black Friday and beyond.
October Prime Day 2026: A chance to stock up on essentials
Once again, the facts and figures from October’s Prime Big Deal Days show that shoppers use this sales period to stock up on essentials, rather than making big-ticket purchases: according to Numerator, 68% of items sold were priced under $20, compared to only 2% priced above $100. Those are very similar figures to the summer Prime Day (at 69% and 3% respectively).
On the other hand, according to Adobe Analytics’ tracking of all online sales during the October Prime Day period, the share of the most expensive goods increased by 21% across all tracked categories compared to average levels for the year to date.
Particularly in electronics and personal care: the share of the most expensive products in these categories was up 45% and 34% respectively.
Christmas shopping at October Prime Day 2026
Since the event’s inception in 2022, Prime Big Deal Days has been thought of as the jumping off point for Q4. Amazon itself this year billed the event as a chance to “save big on autumn and Christmas shopping”, but only 20% of shoppers polled by Numerator bought holiday gifts, compared to 23% in 2025.
On the other hand, 57% said they will ‘definitely’ shop for holiday items from Amazon in the next three months. This underlines how important remarketing in this period is.
The top categories and items bought during October Prime Day 2026
The most commonly shopped-for categories were, in order:
- Beauty/cosmetics
- Apparel
- Health/wellness
- Household essentials
- Home goods
- Groceries
- Pet products
- Toys/Video games
- Consumer electronics
- Books, videos, and other media.
The top-selling items were:
- Premier Protein 30g Protein Shakes
- Lysol Disinfecting Wipes
- Scott ComfortPlus Toilet Paper
- Dawn Powerwash Spray
- Dunkin’ Refreshers Singles To Go.
Both of these lists are very similar to the summer Prime Day.
Numerator reports that the average price per item through the event was $23.19: almost identical to the summer Prime Day figure, which was $23.23.
Numerator’s figures:
- Prime Day orders: 80,872
- Households Shopping: 34,573
- Items Purchased: 160,964
- Verified Buyers Surveyed: 5,346
Loyalty for Amazon’s summer and October Prime Days
The loyalty for Amazon’s Prime Days is remarkable. 55% of shoppers polled by Numerator said that they had also shopped during the summer Prime Day; 35% of shoppers said the sale was their primary reason for shopping. 55% said that they were very or extremely satisfied with the deals offered by Amazon. And 91% said they were aware of the Prime Big Deal Days before shopping.
As far as shoppers’ perception goes, the deals are still as good: 12% said they thought the deals were better in July, 13% said they were better in October, and 58% said they are about the same.
October Prime Day 2026: the copycats
As with the summer Prime Day, October Prime Day has caused the likes of Walmart, Target and scores of individual retailers to follow with their own sales events.
Numerator reports that the majority of Prime Big Deal Days participants (55%) compared prices and products at other retailers before making their Amazon purchase. The most common comparisons were to Walmart (66%), Target (40%) and club stores like Costco or Sam’s Club (27%).
People actively shop multiple sales on October Prime Day. 24% of those polled by Numerator said they would shop Target Circle Deal Days, and 33% said they would shop Walmart Deals.
According to Adobe Analytics, October Prime Day and its copycat events drove sales worth almost $10 billion in the US.
Mobile continues to grow for October Prime Day 2026
Interestingly, Adobe reports that mobile sales in this period have grown 12.8% year-on-year, now accounting for over half (52%) of all online sales during October Prime Day.
It also says that Buy Now, Pay Later accounted for 6% of orders: more flexibility in payment options is worth brands’ consideration, especially for big-ticket sellers.
October Prime Day 2026 for e-Comas clients
At e-Comas our clients saw staggering results over Prime Big Deal Days 2026.
One longstanding client of ours in the baby sector saw event sales of €21.4k, a 50.5% increase over their 2025 Prime Big Deal Days sales of €14.2k.
Another client, a homeware brand that signed with us last autumn, saw whopping event sales of €28.2k compared to €9.9k in 2025 – an increase of 184% – driven by both e-Comas’s work to grow their traffic, and an increase in their average order value.
Using an expert eCommerce agency that combines smart data analytics with full operational support is how you get the best results.
How to use October Prime Day 2026 for Black Friday and beyond
The great value of Prime Day is often in the data you can amass from the higher traffic, and the opportunities that represents for remarketing.
Rather than the purchases themselves, which after discounts, often leave you with negligible margins.
The Black Friday weekend is only six weeks away. We expect more shoppers actively gift-shopping by then: use your data to make sure your prices are attractive without destroying your margins.
Look at which products moved fast, which keywords converted, which ads worked, whether your budget lasted as expected, and whether you forecasted your inventory correctly.
But don’t assume your October Prime Day big hitters will be the same as your Black Friday big hitters.
Compare this year’s data to last October Prime Day as well as last Black Friday weekend: if your October Prime Day data is similar to last year’s, your Black Friday data is likely to trend the same way.
As always, we also recommend looking at the lead-in and lead-out phases around your events for good data on conversion rates and ad effectively. The Amazon Tentpole Phase Analysis report in Amazon Marketing Cloud gives amazing insights on the main KPIs across the lead-up, main event and lead-out times.
We’ve used this report to check a client’s Purchase Rate across Prime Day, and found that most traffic came through the lead-out phase, while higher ROAS was recorded during Prime Day. However, the highest Purchase Rate came from the combination of the three phases.
That means that shoppers who saw our ads throughout the three phases were the most likely to convert.
Use Clarisix for reading October Prime Day 2026 and other events
At e-Comas, we built Clarisix to answer the question every brand asks after Prime Day: did we actually make money?
Clarisix brings your sales, profitability, advertising, inventory, content and customer data into one data model. You see the margin you actually keep after fees, advertising, returns and product costs, not just the revenue.
For Prime Day, you can compare revenue, units sold, ad sales, conversion rate, new-to-brand rate and ACOS against last year’s event or any previous period, all in one view.
Coming soon: Custom Events. You’ll be able to define the periods that matter to your brand, or pick a ready-made event like Prime Day, Black Friday weekend or back-to-school, and analyse it the same way.
Start your 30-day free trial. No credit card required. clarisix.com
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