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“Search, Not Discounts, Decided Amazon Prime Day 2026’s Beauty Winners: Market Defense Report”

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SEATTLE, July 8, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — One in four consumers purchased beauty or cosmetics during Amazon Prime Day 2026, and most of them compared prices with Walmart. Market Defense’s Annual “THE BEAUTY POWER PLAYERS: Amazon Prime Day June 2026 Report” uncovers what drove shoppers to Amazon’s earliest Prime Day in five years, and how strategic deal shopping reshaped how beauty brands competed for the cart.

“Prime Day 2026 had a clear message for the beauty industry: shoppers arrive knowing exactly what they want — and increasingly, what they want is prestige. The Power Players this year rewrote the rules — prestige won big, with Armani Beauty claiming the top fragrance spot and Tarte unseating Maybelline in makeup. K-beauty dominated skin care, with medicube commanding nearly 16% share.  This report gives you the power players, the category shifts, and the moves behind the brands that made Prime Day their biggest moment of the year.” —Vanessa Kuykendall, Chief Engagement Officer, Market Defense

A record event, with a new rhythm

This year, Prime Day ran June 23 to 26, the earliest start in the event’s history and the first June Prime Day since 2021. The numbers tell the story:

The four days surrounding Prime Day 2026 shattered U.S. e-commerce records, reaching $26.4 billion — surpassing the combined Black Friday and Cyber Monday total of $26.05 billion from November 2025.Prime Day posted 9.3% YoY growth in 2026, a significant deceleration from last year’s 30.3% surge — a sign the event is maturing. As more retailers run competing sales events during the same window, Amazon’s dominance is steady but no longer explosive.Beauty ranked 4th in cart share at 26%, up from 25% in 2025.Prime Day drove a +71% surge in beauty search volume during the event week, rising from 102.4M to 174.8M searches.The Beauty shopper was harder to impress this Prime Day. Search was roughly flat YoY (-4%), click rate dropped from 34.7% to 30.4%, and purchase rate fell from 5.0% to 4.5%.Prestige beauty is winning on Amazon. Tarte unseated Maybelline at #1 in makeup brand share of sales for the first time, Armani Beauty claimed #1 in fragrance, and professional brands swept the hair care ranks. Categories that were once dominated by mass brands are now battlegrounds for prestige.

Who shopped? Seasoned consumers showed up with a plan

Prime Day 2026 was a low-ticket, high-volume event, and the shopper had a Walmart tab open.

Suburban high-income women over 45 made up 51% of all buyers, with the 65+ group alone at 31%, up from 29% last year.Deal satisfaction dropped to 59%, down from 68% last year. Shoppers came in with sharper expectations and left with a more critical eye.69% of items sold for under $20, while just 3% were priced above $100.Average spend per item: $23.23, down from $24.59 last year. Average household spend: approximately $143, with the average order at roughly $47.Shoppers came armed with a price comparison. 41% placed 3 or more separate orders, and 53% compared prices at Walmart and Target before buying on Amazon — while 49-50% cross-shopped Walmart throughout the entire event.

Fierce competition fueled the frenzy

Prime Day was not the only game in town. Nearly every major retailer ran a parallel event, creating the most concentrated deal week in recent retail history:

Walmart: the weeklong Walmart Deals event (June 22 to 28) pulled roughly half of Prime Day shoppers (49 to 50%) into cross shopping.Target: Target Circle Deal Days ran head to head with Prime Day (June 23 to 26) and engaged 32% of Prime Day shoppers.TikTok Shop: Deals For You Days stretched June 17 through July 2, its longest summer event yet, with discounts up to 65% on peak days that landed squarely on Prime Day.Ulta Beauty: the Big Summer Beauty Sale ran June 19 through July 11 with up to 40% off across makeup, skin care, hair, and fragrance. The beauty retailer cheekily titled their promo code “PrimeTime.”

Beauty’s winners were built on search

Branded search is gaining ground. One in five estimated beauty purchases on Prime Day 2026 started with a brand name search — up from 17.4% a year earlier. Shoppers increasingly arrive knowing exactly what they want.

For beauty brands, that shift in Search behavior changes everything about how deals are planned, paced, and promoted.

“The single most searched beauty term on Prime Day was the brand name “medicube”. Not sunscreen, not mascara, a brand. For as long as I’ve done this work, generic terms owned the top of search and brands fought for position underneath them. That flipped this year, and I don’t believe it flips back. Put that next to growth cooling from 30% to 9% and the message is uncomfortable but clear: Amazon is done growing your business for you. The meaningful growth is now share you take from a competitor, by name, because the shopper typed yours instead of theirs.” —Dave Karlsven, SVP, Partnerships & Growth at Market Defense.

This Year’s Beauty Power Players:

Medicube held the #1 overall beauty spot for the second consecutive Prime Day, growing share from 9.3% in 2025 to 13.23% in 2026.Medicube is also the #1 branded search term in skincare YTD at 1.99 million monthly searches, up 47.6% from last year.K-beauty is no longer a niche win, it’s a search-wide movement. Korean beauty brands captured 10.5% of all beauty search during Prime Day 2026, up from 6.5% in 2025, and drove nearly 19% of the entire Prime Day beauty search lift.Two ingredient-led skincare brands broke into the overall top 10 best-selling beauty brands for the first time at Prime Day 2026: Anua and The Ordinary.Value beauty found an opening in hair care. Native Coconut & Vanilla Shampoo and Conditioner Set claimed the #1 spot, displacing Olaplex, which held the position last year.Men’s hair health is now a dominant search story. Minoxidil for men was the #1 branded search term in hair care during Prime Day 2026, pulling 1.21 million monthly Amazon searches YTD, up 23.5% from last year.Eyes led makeup this Prime Day. Six of the top 10 best-selling makeup products were eye products, with mascara the #1 non-branded search term and lash clusters the #2, pulling 1.4 million and 1.79 million monthly Amazon searches respectively.Tarte Cosmetics placed two mascaras in the overall beauty top 10 and a concealer in the makeup top 10 — three products across two top 10s in two different formats, the broadest single-brand product presence of any makeup brand this Prime Day.Sol de Janeiro’s Cheirosa 62 claimed the #1 best-selling fragrance on Amazon for the third consecutive Prime Day, placing two products in both the fragrance and overall beauty top 10 simultaneously.Men’s fragrance owned the Prime Day leaderboard. Nautica, Afnan, and RASASI claimed 3 of the top 10 fragrance best sellers, up from just 1 in 2025, a shift that tracks a global category growing nearly 9% annually, with 62% of men aged 25-40 now calling fragrance a daily essential.

Why did some brands win while others watched?

Prime Day 2026 was harvest time, not planting time. The winners planted in the weeks and months before the event, building demand off Amazon and investing in search visibility, then harvested on day one when traffic peaked.

Bidding wars got brutal: some category cost per click rates hit $60 during the event.AI-referred traffic jumped 89% YoY and converted 40% better than email or paid search.Brands that waited for traffic to come to them watched it go somewhere else.

“Prime Day 2026 reinforced that the cost of growth on Amazon continues to rise. With U.S. e-commerce sales surpassing $26 billion during the event, brands faced higher advertising costs, greater promotional intensity, and increased pressure on margins. The opportunity for the rest of 2026 isn’t simply to spend more, it’s to spend smarter, allocating capital toward highest-return products and operating Amazon as an integrated business rather than a collection of disconnected functions. Efficiency has become one of the most durable competitive advantages in today’s marketplace.” —Karan Raturi, Chief Operating Officer at Market Defense

Some brands already found that balance during Prime Day 2026.

“A big takeaway from this Prime Day was that momentum compounds — brands that came into June having built consistent growth through Spring translated that baseline into something remarkable: doubling or even tripling their pre-event growth rate.  That kind of amplification doesn’t happen by accident.  What separated the winning brands was how they prioritized the event, focused discounts on hero skus at the same depth or deeper than last year — at a minimum of 25% off — and leveraged an omni-channel approach prior and during the event.  At Market Defense, we worked with our brands on TikTok shop, influencer and affiliate marketing programs that delivered 7-10X ROAS, email, social and PR tactics that drive discovery and demand in the run up to and during Prime Day.  60% of our entire portfolio activated some form of off-Amazon marketing for the event.  Building the right omni-channel strategy is the right foundation for our ads team to build upon – delivering a boost in ad sales, more efficiently, without overbidding and keeping TACOS in check on par with last year.” — Amy Rudgard, SVP, Client Strategy at Market Defense

The full findings, category by category, are available now in Market Defense’s complete “THE BEAUTY POWER PLAYERS: Amazon Prime Day June 2026 Report”: Amazon Prime Day June 2026 Report

About Market Defense

Market Defense is a leading digital commerce platform and commerce media agency, helping the world’s most ambitious consumer brands accelerate growth across today’s most important marketplaces and digital commerce channels. As a strategic growth partner, the company delivers seamlessly connected marketplace operations, retail media, paid media, social commerce, influencer marketing, and full-funnel growth solutions across Amazon, TikTok Shop, Walmart, Google, Meta, and other leading commerce platforms. With a global operating model spanning every major commerce region, Market Defense enables brands to launch, scale, and optimize their marketplace businesses through a single, integrated partner.

Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Seattle, Market Defense and its subsidiaries partner with over 100 of the industry’s most recognized and fastest-growing brands, including SLIP, Guthy-Renker, Davines, Lattafa, Phlur, Neal’s Yard Remedies, Donnamax, Warner Bros., Grown Alchemist, and Viking Culinary. By combining deep marketplace expertise, proprietary technology, and data-driven execution, Market Defense enables brands to unlock sustainable, profitable growth while delivering a seamless consumer experience across every stage of the digital commerce journey.

Commerce, seamlessly connected.

For more information about Market Defense and its suite of services, visit https://marketdefense.com/

Media Contact: Kayla Clayton
Director, Enterprise Marketing
Kayla.Clayton@marketdefense.com

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SOURCE Market Defense LLC

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Insurance Expert Kathy Powell Highlights What Auto Insurance Is Really Designed to Protect In HelloNation

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The article explains how auto insurance protects more than a vehicle by helping drivers safeguard their income, savings, and long-term financial stability.

AUBURN, Ala., Aug. 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — What does auto insurance really protect: the vehicle or a driver’s financial future? A new HelloNation article explores this question for drivers seeking a clearer understanding of their coverage. The article features insights from Kathy Powell, Insurance Expert of Auburn, AL. Powell also teaches Risk and Insurance at Auburn University.

The article explains that while many people associate car insurance with vehicle repairs, its true purpose is financial protection. Auto insurance is designed to safeguard income, savings, and long-term financial stability in the event of an accident or unexpected loss. Understanding how each component works helps drivers ensure they are properly protected.

Liability coverage is highlighted as one of the most important features of an auto insurance policy. It pays for injuries or property damage when a policyholder is at fault in an accident. Without sufficient liability coverage, even a minor crash could lead to costly legal claims or significant out-of-pocket expenses.

The article also outlines how collision coverage and comprehensive coverage protect the vehicle itself. Collision coverage pays for damage after an accident, regardless of fault. Comprehensive coverage protects against non-accident events such as theft, fire, vandalism, or severe weather. Together, these coverages help drivers avoid large repair or replacement costs.

Medical payments coverage is another key element discussed in the article. It helps cover medical treatment for the driver and passengers after an accident, regardless of who caused it. Medical costs can add up quickly, making this coverage an important source of financial support during recovery.

Uninsured motorist coverage is also emphasized as essential. This coverage protects drivers when they are involved in an accident with someone who does not have insurance or has insufficient coverage. It can pay for medical expenses and vehicle repairs that would otherwise be the policyholder’s responsibility.

The article encourages drivers in Auburn to review their auto insurance policies regularly. Life changes such as purchasing a new vehicle, adding drivers, or relocating can affect coverage needs. Optional benefits like roadside assistance and rental car coverage may also provide added convenience during unexpected situations.

Overall, the article reinforces that auto insurance is not just about repairing a car. It is a financial safety net that helps drivers manage risk, protect their savings, and maintain stability after accidents or injuries.

“What Is Auto Insurance Really Designed to Protect?” features insights from Kathy Powell, Insurance Expert of Auburn, AL, in HelloNation.

About HelloNation
HelloNation is America’s Good News Network, a premier media platform built on the idea that good news travels faster when real people tell real stories. Through its community-focused publications and innovative “edvertising” approach, HelloNation delivers content that informs, inspires, and spotlights the leaders making a meaningful impact in their communities.

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SOURCE HelloNation

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The Apex Institute Breaks Down Where AI Spending Is Actually Going in 2026

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Everyone is talking about AI models. Almost nobody is talking about where the money actually goes to keep them running, or the careers sitting inside that layer.

Most AI spending does not go to the model. It goes to the infrastructure underneath it, the compute, storage, networking, security and monitoring required to keep a model running at all. That is where corporate budgets are concentrated, and it is where the hiring follows. Public attention sits on the model. The money sits one layer down.

BOWIE, Md., Aug. 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Every week brings another headline about billions flowing into artificial intelligence. Almost all of that coverage points at the same thing: the models, the chatbots, the demos.

Tayo Lusi, founder of The Apex Institute cloud and AI infrastructure program, says the more useful story is happening underneath, in a layer nobody puts in a headline.

“People think AI spending means someone building a better chatbot,” Tayo said. “Most of that money is not going toward the model. It is going toward the servers, the storage, the security and the systems required just to keep that model running at all.”

What part of AI spending does nobody talk about?

The infrastructure layer. An AI model, however advanced, does not run on its own. Every deployment needs a set of unglamorous things that cost real money:

Compute and storage capacity, at a scale most companies have never run before.Systems that scale up instantly when demand spikes, and back down without burning budget when it does not.Security layers protecting the data moving through the model.Monitoring that catches problems before they become outages.People who know how to build and maintain all of the above.

None of that shows up in a product demo. All of it has to exist before the demo works.

How does that change where the real AI jobs are?

If the money is concentrated in infrastructure, the hiring concentrates there too. That is the pattern showing up now, even while the news cycle is dominated by AI job losses.

Cloud infrastructure, AI systems support and the security work around them are the roles companies keep opening. They are not cutting that spending. They are increasing it, because demand for AI capability keeps outrunning the infrastructure needed to support it.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects continued growth across computer and information technology occupations, with infrastructure and security roles among the areas expected to keep expanding.

“Everyone keeps asking if AI is going to take these jobs,” Tayo said. “It is the opposite. Someone has to build and run the infrastructure all of it sits on, and there are not enough trained people to do it.”

Get the free Cloud Engineering Career Path Roadmap and see which infrastructure skills to learn, and in what order.

Why does public perception point the other way?

Because fear travels faster than budget data. The public conversation about AI is built on job losses, automation and uncertainty. Corporate spending tells a different story.

That gap matters, because people are making career decisions on the wrong half of it. They read the headlines and conclude the safe move is to avoid tech entirely.

The spending points the other way. The steadier place to stand may be inside the exact layer the money is flowing into.

Why are skilled tech workers still missing this?

Because most training, and most career paths, were built around the application layer. That is the part closer to the product or the model, not the infrastructure underneath it. Three things follow from that:

The talent pool for infrastructure roles is smaller than the budgets behind those roles.Those roles sit open for months, which is why they tend to carry premium pay.Experienced engineers keep competing in the crowded layer while the open one goes unfilled.

The gap is not intelligence or effort. It is that nobody told most people which layer to aim at.

What does training built around this layer look like?

It means teaching cloud engineering, DevOps and AI infrastructure directly, rather than the more visible layer closer to the model. That is what The Apex Institute is built around.

Building and running cloud infrastructure that scales under real load.The security and monitoring work that surrounds any production AI system.Producing a project you can defend in an interview, which the free Cloud Project Portfolio Blueprint walks through.Knowing what the role pays before you negotiate, using the free Cloud Engineering Salary Benchmark.

“We are not trying to train people for the part of AI everyone already knows about,” Tayo said. “We are training people for the part the money is actually flowing into, which happens to be the part almost nobody is talking about.”

Students in the program have reported more than $11 million in combined job offers across 41 people. Individual results vary and are not typical.

Is this only happening in the United States?

No. Companies worldwide are making similar infrastructure investments as they adopt AI at scale, so the demand for skilled infrastructure talent is a global trend rather than a regional one.

That connects to a longer term plan for nonprofit initiatives in developing countries, teaching foundational cloud and infrastructure skills to people who have had no access to programs like this. If the spending is global, the chance to build a career from it should not depend on living near a tech hub.

What should you do with this information?

Pick the layer deliberately instead of by accident. If you are already in tech, audit whether your skills sit in the crowded layer or the funded one. If you are outside tech and were talked out of it by headlines, the infrastructure layer is the part the headlines are not describing.

Then build one real thing and learn to explain it. That combination is what gets interviews, not another certificate.

Ready to build a career in the layer the money is going to?

Get the free Cloud Engineering Career Path Roadmap and start with the right skills in the right order.

Book your free career strategy call and find out where you would fit in this layer.

About The Apex Institute

The Apex Institute is an IT career training company that trains working professionals in cloud engineering, DevOps and AI infrastructure, helping them move into the roles employers are struggling to fill as AI adoption accelerates. Students have reported more than $11 million in job offers to date. Individual results vary and are not typical. Learn more at apexedu.io.

Media Contact

Tayo Lusi

contact@apexedu.io

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-apex-institute-breaks-down-where-ai-spending-is-actually-going-in-2026-302858262.html

SOURCE The Apex Institute

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The Apex Institute on Why the Traditional Tech Job Is Disappearing, and Who Gets Paid Next

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The nine to five software job with one employer and one title is quietly becoming the exception. What is replacing it looks very different.

BOWIE, Md., Aug. 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — For decades a tech career followed a familiar shape. Get hired, hold a title, climb a ladder inside the same company for years. That shape is breaking apart, and not because people stopped wanting stability.

Tayo Lusi, founder of The Apex Institute cloud engineering program, has watched the shift play out across his students. He says the work did not shrink. It got restructured.

Why did the traditional tech job model break?

Because the economics underneath it changed.

The old model assumed a company needed large permanent staff to build and maintain everything it used.That held when infrastructure was expensive, slow to build and needed constant in house attention.Cloud computing changed the math. A much smaller group can now build, scale and maintain the same systems.Outside specialists get brought in per project instead of added as permanent headcount.

Companies did not abandon full time roles out of preference. The economics moved and hiring followed.

What is replacing the traditional tech job?

Project and contract based infrastructure work. A skilled engineer solves one specific, high value problem for a company, then moves to the next.

“People hear contract work and think it sounds less stable,” Tayo said. “In cloud and infrastructure right now it is often the opposite. Companies pay a premium for someone who can walk in, solve a specific problem and walk out, because that is faster and cheaper than a long hiring process for a full time role.”

This mirrors a broader economic shift toward project based work. Tech is simply the clearest example, because the skill is in short enough supply that companies will buy it in whatever structure moves fastest. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects continued growth across computer and information technology occupations through the decade, with the sharpest demand around infrastructure and security.

How does this change the way you have to think?

It blurs the line between employee and business owner. A traditional employee waits for a role to open and applies. Someone working in the newer model has to understand what problem they solve, describe it clearly, and find the companies that need it.

That shift is uncomfortable, because the old model never asked for it. It is becoming required now.

Get the free Cloud Engineering Career Path Roadmap and see what to learn, in what order, for the market as it works today.

Is this disruption or opportunity?

Both, depending on the skill set you bring to it.

Under the old model, pay moved once a year at whatever your employer decided. In a project based market, what you earn tracks more closely to the value you can demonstrate and how many companies need it at that moment. That can cut in either direction, and it rewards people who can prove their work. Across the program, students have reported more than $11 million in combined job offers among 41 people. Individual results vary and are not typical.

The catch is that this structure rewards different skills than the old one. Technical ability alone is not enough. Explaining what you do in terms a business will pay for matters as much as the technical work. The free Cloud Engineering Salary Benchmark helps you work out what your skills are worth, and the free Tech Salary Negotiation Scripts cover holding that number in the conversation.

How should you train for the tech job market that is actually here?

A program that only teaches technical skill is preparing you for a market that is shrinking. Training for the growing one means adding three things.

Proof of work. Documented projects with a clear before and after, which the free Cloud Project Portfolio Blueprint walks through.Communication. Describing what you built in language a business understands.Operating like an independent professional, not only an applicant.

That is the gap The Apex Institute built its training around. Students learn cloud engineering, DevOps and AI infrastructure alongside how to document and present that work so it translates into contract opportunities, not just job applications.

“We are not trying to prepare people for the job market that existed ten years ago,” Tayo said. “We are trying to prepare them for the one that is here right now, whether that shows up as a full time role or a string of high value contracts.”

What does this mean if you already have a tech job?

It does not mean quitting. It means noticing that the security of a title is not the same as the security of a skill. A title protects you until the company reorganizes. A documented skill in cloud and AI infrastructure travels with you into whatever the next structure is.

The practical move is to start building proof while you are still employed. One real project, documented properly, gives you something to point at whether the next step is an internal promotion, a new employer or a contract. People who wait until a layoff to start building that record are trying to learn a new market and find income at the same time, which is the hardest possible version of this.

Is this shift happening outside the United States?

Yes, which is part of why the mission is not limited to one country. As work becomes less tied to a single employer, careers built on these skills become less limited by geography. Long term plans include nonprofit initiatives in developing countries teaching the same foundational cloud and infrastructure skills, so the opportunity is not restricted to people living near a major tech hub.

Ready to build for the market that is replacing the traditional tech job?

Get the free Cloud Engineering Career Path Roadmap and start in the right order.

Book your free career strategy call and get an honest read on where your skills stand.

About The Apex Institute

The Apex Institute is an IT career training company that trains working professionals in cloud engineering, DevOps and AI infrastructure, helping them move into the roles employers are struggling to fill as AI adoption accelerates. Students have reported more than $11 million in job offers to date. Individual results vary and are not typical. Learn more at apexedu.io.

Media Contact

Tayo Lusi

contact@apexedu.io

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-apex-institute-on-why-the-traditional-tech-job-is-disappearing-and-who-gets-paid-next-302858261.html

SOURCE The Apex Institute

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