Amazon sees disruption in consumer spending from chaotic news cycle

Driving the news: "When high profile things happen [like] the assassination attempt a couple of weeks ago, you do see that people shift their attention to news," he said in response to an Axios question on a call with reporters.

• The events distract from typical consumer patterns — a challenge that "probably most companies" that sell or provide goods and services face, he added.
• "A lot of times, purchases will defer and people will come back and buy what they were going to buy. And other times — that won't happen," he added.

Context: Amazon, which reported its second quarter earnings prior to the call, issued a revenue forecast for this current quarter that was below expectations.

• Olsavsky raised the idea of distracted consumers when asked earlier about the disappointing guidance, and said that the company's "having a little bit of trouble with our forecasting capability," because there's a lot of events like the political conventions and the Olympics taking attention away.

The big picture: Like other major retail and goods companies, including McDonald's and P&G, Amazon has seen consumers continuing to trade down on products based on price, CEO Andy Jassy told investors on a separate call.

• Even so, shoppers have been continuing to pile up on items in their carts, albeit at lower prices.
• "Our North America unit growth is meaningfully outpacing our sales growth because our continued work on [low] prices and deliveries resonated," he said.

What we're watching: Shares of Amazon fell more than 7.7% after hours.

This story has been updated with details from Amazon's earnings call with investors.