It's back .... Amazon Prime Day
Everyone knew Amazon Prime Day was coming, now we know when and how.
Amazon will host its second annual summer sales blitz, known as Prime Day, on July 12. The online giant created the mega-shopping event, aimed at members of its Prime loyalty program, last year. It was held on July 15 and marked the retailer's 20th anniversary. Amazon said the event broke sales records that it previously set during Black Friday 2014.
To maximize participation, Amazon is offering 30-day free trial Prime memberships up to July 12. There will also be special “countdown deals” every day for Prime members July 5-11. Specific Prime Day discounts Amazon is already announcing include a deal inventory of TVs in the U.S. that will be nearly twice Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined, as well as U.S. toy deals all day.
New and existing members in the U.S., U.K., Spain, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, Canada, Belgium, and Austria will be offered special deals across nearly all products and categories. New discounts will be offered as often as every five minutes, with more than 100,000 global deals promised by the end of the day.
In addition, Amazon will offer special deals for users of Amazon Echo, Echo Dot and Tap devices. Other new features include discount tracking and shopping through the Amazon app, enhanced ability to sort offers by category, and nearly twice as many small business sellers participating globally as did in 2015. The retailer is also offering special promotions for users of the Prime Music, Prime Photo and Prime Store Card features.
The 2015 edition of Prime Day found Amazon selling more units than the biggest Black Friday ever and having more new members try Prime worldwide than any single day in Amazon history. Customers ordered 34.4 million items across Prime-eligible countries, breaking all Black Friday records with 398 items ordered per second.
Walmart has already announced its own competing July sales event built around its ShippingPass service. Like Amazon Prime, ShippingPass offers unlimited free two-day shipping, but for $49 instead of $99 annually. ShippingPass does not offer as many additional features (such as content streaming) as Prime, nor does it have as wide an assortment.
Amazon also has a certain cachet in the e-commerce world that no other retailer can duplicate. Even with social media buzz in 2015 expressing some consumer disappointment with the quality of Prime Day deals, the retailer still has a devoted following somewhat analogous to Apple’s. Thus while Walmart and other large online retailers may be able to boost their own sales with special summer events, they are not likely to put a significant dent into Prime Day’s success.
“Prime Day is a unique opportunity to discover new items and great deals, on top of our already low prices,” said Greg Greeley, VP, Amazon Prime. “Following last year’s record sales, we have dramatically increased the inventory behind many deals. In fact, in the U.S. we have nearly double the TV units compared to Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined. Even with this massive selection we know many of the Prime Day offers will sell out, so members should download the Amazon shopping app to receive notifications on their favorite deals.”