July is the new December as consumers expect big bargains during the dog days of summer

The trend: July used to be a time for relaxing at the beach and a relatively sleepy period for most retailers. But Amazon’s Prime Day sale (and the counter events it subsequently spawned) has transformed the dog days of summer into prime time for deal hunting.

• Online searches for “deals” have spiked in mid-July, even surpassing searches for “vacation” in recent years, per Google.

How we got here: Amazon launched its first Prime Day sale on July 15, 2015, to celebrate the retailer turning 20. The event was an immediate hit with consumers buying more items than they did on Black Friday 2014, which at the time was its biggest-ever Black Friday.

• The sale evolved into a 48-hour event in 2019 before sprawling out even further with Amazon’s rollout of “early deals.”
• Prime Day has grown into one of the most important events in the retail calendar for Amazon; we expect this year’s Prime Day event will generate $13.41 billion in global sales for Amazon, up 6.8% from 2023.
• Prime Day’s massive scale has driven scores of earned media and conditioned consumers to shop during the summer. For example, 66% of US consumers are likely to make a purchase on Prime Day this year, per Skai.

Counterprogramming Amazon: Other retailers initially sought to counterprogram Amazon by launching their own events around the same time as Prime Day. But as consumers grew conditioned to shop during the summer, several shifted their sales ahead of Prime Day to capture a larger share of consumers’ discretionary spend.

• Best Buy kick-started this year’s events in late June with its Member Deals Day that offered discounts on thousands of items for the paid tiers of its membership program.
• Target Circle Week, which features discounts on summer and back-to-school essentials, runs from July 7-13 for members of its free Target Circle loyalty program.
• Walmart’s Walmart Deals sale, which the retail giant promises will be its “largest savings event ever” across categories such as electronics, home, toys, and travel, runs from July 8-11. Walmart+ members can access the discounts five hours ahead of the general public at noon ET.

The growing array of summer promotions drove Google to launch a revamped deals destination featuring a carousel that showcases relevant promotions and markdowns from the last 24 hours.

• Google also introduced a “Member Pricing” feature that enables consumers to see how much a product regularly costs, as well as how much it costs for subscribers of a retailer’s membership program.

The big takeaway: It’s an ideal time to launch promotions given that consumers have come to expect to score deals in July.

• One in five (20%) even use the events to get a head start on holiday shopping, per Google.