In 2017, Amazon celebrated Prime Day on Tuesday, July 11, and put over 100,000 items on sale, exclusively for Amazon Prime customers. As the clock ticks down to the 2018 event, we wanted to share some background on Prime Day and give you a preview of things in store for this year’s shopping extravaganza, which will be the fourth annual event, and is expected to be bigger, better, and potentially longer than last year’s shopping bonanza.
What is Amazon Prime Day?
Prime Day, which first launched in 2015 in commemoration of Amazon’s 20th anniversary, is an annual “deals event” solely for Prime members. Amazon describes it as a “global shopping event, offering more deals than Black Friday.”
As the name suggests, the event is only open to Amazon Prime members ($119 per year or $12.99 per month). The primary purpose of Prime Day is to promote the subscription service, which just underwent a price increase.
If you don’t have a Prime account, you can sign up for one or get a free trial here. Students with an active .edu address can also save 50 percent with a student Prime membership ($59 per year or $6.49 per month). Customers will save money on the latest tech products, and find deals and discounts on hundreds of thousands of products, with multiple new deals launching hourly across an entire spectrum of products.
When is it?
Experts are predicting this year’s Prime Day will fall the week of July 9. The actual deals, however, typically start a couple of weeks in advance and lead up to one of the biggest online shopping days of the year.
What’s New for 2018?
Amazon has gotten progressively better at managing inventory since the debut Prime Day in 2015, which was marked by complaints that it ran out of inventory on some of the most popular items. Some of the promotions are so good, however, that it’s safe to assume that “Lightning Deals” won’t last long. Tom’s guide says, “it might be a little easier to catch some of the more popular deals than it has been in previous years,” but the expression “if you snooze, you lose” is also appropriate.
Along with deals on a host of Alexa-exclusive deals, with hundreds of discounts that you can only get by ordering with your voice on devices such as the Amazon Echo Spot, Echo, or Echo Dot, look for Amazon to include some Whole Foods deals this Prime Day, as Amazon has been making a huge push to lower the grocery store’s prices.
Let’s talk numbers…
Prime Day has been a tremendous success for Amazon. Last year, the 30-hour event saw year-over-year sales growth of more than 60% compared to the 2016 event. According to Amazon, “tens of millions” of Prime members made a purchase on Prime Day 2017. The event was the biggest shopping day for many of Amazon’s devices including the Echo, Fire tablets, and Kindle devices, and the most purchased item on Prime Day 2017 was the Echo Dot.
Studies have shown that Prime customers spend more than twice what non-members do, so it’s no wonder Amazon is so aggressive in driving membership growth.
This year’s “Christmas in July” will undoubtedly be Amazon’s biggest Prime Day yet.
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