Amazon has had its most successful Prime Day in the event’s history, with the tech giant raking in an estimated $11.2bn (£8.0bn) in sales during the two-day event. 

The tech giant said Prime members in 20 countries made more than 250 million purchases across the two days, with demand for electronics being particularly high. 

In the two-week lead-up to the online shopping event, Amazon said that customers spent $1.9bn (£1.4bn) with more than 70 million small business vendors. It attributed this to its Spend £10, Get £10 promotion, which rewarded shoppers who were supporting small businesses with an Amazon voucher. 

Sales across the two days were highest in the US, where Amazon customers spent $7bn (£5.0bn) – $500m more than was spent during the last Prime Day event. Customers around the rest of the world spent $4.2bn (£3.0bn). 

The retailer said the best-selling item, both in the UK and globally, was the Fire TV stick 4K with Alexa voice remote, which had its most successful Prime Day yet.

A record number of Fire TVs from brands such as Toshiba were also purchased in the run-up to and across Prime Day.

Amazon also reported strong sales across beauty, nutrition, tools and baby care. The retailer also said that customers geared up for back to school, buying 600,000 backpacks, 1 million laptops, 1 million headphones, 240,000 notebooks, 40,000 calculators and 220,000 Crayola products. 

In the UK, top sellers varied from vacuum cleaners and toothbrushes to toilet roll and whisky, illustrating Amazon’s reputation as a one-stop-shop across all categories.

The retailer claimed that Amazon Smile, its initiative that allows customers to support their favourite charity at no extra cost, also doubled its donations across the two days.

UK country manager John Boumphrey said: ”For the first time this Prime Day, we offered a double donation promotion through our charity initiative AmazonSmile, which saw more UK customers shopping through Amazon Smile than ever before.

“This year, Prime Day has also been good news for small businesses, with even more customers than last year taking advantage of our Spend £10, Get £10 promotion, providing a much-needed boost to small business sellers across the country.”