Amazon says members bought 300 million items on Prime Day

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Amazon (AMZN) released the results of its Prime Day 2022 event on Thursday, saying Prime subscribers purchased some 300 million items worldwide during the two-day sales event.

That’s a significant uptick from Prime Day 2021 when users bought 250 million items through the retailer. Amazon didn’t release total sales numbers for the event.

The company, however, said customers spent $3 billion on small business items during its Support Small Businesses to Win Big sweepstakes, which took place during the three weeks leading into Prime Day.

In 2021, Prime members spent $1.9 billion on small business items in the two weeks before Prime Day as part of the company’s Spend $10, Get $10 promotion.

“Prime Day is a celebration of our Prime members, who look forward to this event every year, and we’re thrilled to have delivered incredible savings to them once again,” Amazon Worldwide Stores CEO Doug Herrington said in a statement.

According to the retailer, customers worldwide purchased more than 100,000 items per minute during the event, with top sellers coming from beauty brands like Laneige and NuFACE, and products like the Apple (AAPL) Watch Series 7 and Levi’s (LEVI) apparel.

Amazon’s e-commerce sales have slowed significantly since the height of the pandemic when customers turned to the online retailer for goods ranging from cleaning supplies to toilet paper.

Amazon reported sales of $116.4 billion during Q1 2022, a 7% year-over-year increase. However, that pales in comparison to Q1 2021, when the company reported a 44% sales increase, topping out at $108.5 billion.

The slow-down, coupled with a Q1 loss per share of $7.56, has hammered Amazon’s stock price, which was down 34.9% to $108.28 year-to-date at the start of trading on Thursday.

Amazon’s rapid expansion during the pandemic has put CEO Andy Jassy, who just celebrated his first full year at the helm of the company, in a tight spot. The former head of Amazon’s AWS business, Jassy is now tasked with cutting back on spending, while ensuring that he can continue to offer the same level of service that Amazon’s customers have become accustomed to.

According to Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky, the company has too many workers due to the massive number of employees it hired during the pandemic. That, Olsavsky said during Amazon’s Q1 earnings call, has led to lower productivity and a $2 billion hit to the company’s pocket.

According to Bloomberg, Amazon is even looking to get rid of, or sublet, some of its warehouse property in a bid to lower costs