Amazon’s record Prime Day masks a darker truth: Americans are spending more and getting less

Americans are expected to spend a record $26.3 billion during Amazon’s four-day Prime Day sale — and almost none of it feels celebratory. The summer of “butter yellow,” the shade of consumer anxiety, comes with an earlier-than-ever flagship event for the Fortune 1 company, which says a lot about spending in fear.

This year’s event, which kicked off Tuesday and runs through Friday, is on pace to eclipse Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined. But beneath the record-breaking headline is a set of numbers that tells a quieter, more unsettling story about the state of the American consumer in the summer of 2026.

The average Prime Day order this year is $48.36 — down from $58.37 at the same point last year. That’s roughly a 17% drop per transaction — meaning more people are buying, but each is st...