• by Liz Aviles , Op-Ed Contributor, Yesterday

For years, retail tentpoles like back-to-school and Black Friday were treated as accelerants—short, sharp moments designed to spike demand, clear inventory, and drive short-term sales. That model no longer holds.

Tentpole events have outgrown their “flash sale” roots. What used to be 48-hour bursts are now orchestrated, multi-retailer seasons that pull demand forward, reset loyalty, and redefine how shoppers plan and how brands must perform. 

Consider how Prime Day has changed. In 2025, Amazon extended the event to four days (July 8 -11) and layered in daily themed drops. Walmart and Target stacked overlapping promotions into the same week. Target’s Circle Week ran July 6–12, with early access for paid Circle 360 members on July 5. Walmart positioned its Deals Days event around Walmart+ membership benefits, including early access and exclusive offers for Walmart+ subscribers, reinforcing membership as a central loyalty driver during the tentpole window.

In just four days, U.S. online shoppers spent an estimated $24.1 billion across all retailers  (Adobe Analytics, July 2025). Although Adobe’s report does not reflect individual spending on Amazon, Walmart, or Target, it does show eCommerce spending is up roughly 30% year-over-year—with more than half of purchases made on mobile.

Headline numbers showed growth, but the underlying dynamic matters more: incremental sales came from duration, not intensity. Daily averages diluted even as totals rose. Shoppers didn’t splurge more in a single moment—they paced their spending across days, comparing prices, waiting for deeper drops, and moving freely across retailers.

Tentpole events are the new retail calendar and battleground. Brands can no longer afford to treat these moments tactically—finalizing plans weeks out, chasing discounts, and optimizing only for return on ad spend (ROAS). Winning them takes careful planning and relentless execution before, during, and after the event.

Tentpoles Shape Shopper Behavior

Beyond short-term lift, retailers are deliberately using tentpole events to shape future shopping behavior, turning what used to be promotional spikes into recurring relationship-building moments. These retail platforms are training consumers when to shop, where to shop, and why to stay loyal—long after the event ends.

Target’s Circle Week and Circle 360 early access show how promotions increasingly double as membership engines, rewarding early access and giving shoppers fewer reasons to shop elsewhere. Walmart’s focus on app usage, live formats, and Walmart+ during Deals Days reflects the same goal: deepen habitual engagement. Amazon reinforces this behavior through personalized discovery, prioritizing products and brands that have earned shopper interaction ahead of Prime Day.

Tentpoles have also changed how people shop. Across major tentpoles, several consistent behaviors stand out:

Spending Is fragmented

People didn’t shop Prime Day in one big checkout—they came back multiple times and placed smaller orders across the event window. For example, Numerator’s 2025 Prime Day insights report showed that the average order value (AOV) of each checkout was relatively small ($53), but the same household spent much more over the course of the event ($156) with household essentials such as apparel and shoes, home, health/wellness and beauty goods outperforming other categories.

Shoppers Want Frictionless Convenience And Financial Flexibility

At over 53%, mobile now accounts for more than half of where spending takes place. Additionally, buy now pay later (BNPL) has reached 8.1% of orders (~$2 billion). These are two major shifts brands must build into creative by clearly communicating benefits and value and rewarding variant clarity—how quickly a shopper can understand the differences between versions of the same product—over storytelling.

Price Comparison and Cross-Retailer Shopping Are The Norm 

During the same tentpole period, more than half of Prime Day shoppers price-compared before buying, and roughly half also shopped at Walmart's event. This multi-retailer behavior reinforces the need for price, stock, and deal-timing parity—making cross-retailer consistency and inventory planning essential.

The tentpole economy requires a different playbook. If tentpoles now function as retail seasons, brands must plan for them like campaigns—not promotions. 

Planning must start earlier—and run longer. Winning brands lock assortment, inventory, and deal guardrails roughly 90 days out, then seed demand in the 10–14 days leading into the event. This early activity improves algorithmic surfacing when traffic spikes and gives brands room to pace media rather than front-load spend.

Pacing matters more than peaks. Conversion increasingly concentrates in the final third of elongated events, as shoppers finish comparing offers and retailers deepen discounts. Holding 20–30% of media and deal flexibility for the final 24–36 hours has become a structural advantage.

Assortment discipline beats breadth.The strongest performers lead with best-selling repeaters and value architecture and use bundles and “Subscribe & Save” to sustain post-event retention. For example, Prime Day baskets skewed toward everyday items and affordable price points (two-thirds under $20). 

Plan for higher media intensity—and evolve success metrics.Pacvue data (via eMarketer) shows retail media spend up 48% YoY during the four-day Prime Day window, outpacing average brand sales—a reminder that competition for visibility is outpacing consumer spend. Expect higher CPCs; measure success by incremental revenue, new-to-brand share, and repeat—not just ROAS. 

It’s a tentpole economy.

Holiday tentpoles have already elongated, with Cyber Week bleeding into earlier and longer promotional windows. October events increasingly “pre-heat” holiday demand, pulling spend forward and reshaping inventory risk.

As economic uncertainty persists, consumers are likely to continue shopping in planned bursts, anchored around retailer-defined moments rather than continuous browsing. That makes tentpoles even more central—not less—to annual growth strategies.

Amazon may still set the rhythm, but Walmart and Target are sharpening loyalty, app engagement, and timing in ways that further entrench this model. Shoppers are more deliberate, more mobile, and more willing to wait for the right moment.

The brands that win in this environment will not chase discounts. They will engineer moments—planning earlier, pacing smarter, and building loyalty that lasts beyond the sale.

In the tentpole economy, success is no longer about reacting to the sale—it’s about owning the calendar. The brands that win engineer demand through preparation, pacing, and precision, rather than chasing it once the moment arrives.