Amazon.com Kicks Off Prime Day Shopping Event
It's that time of the year again: E-commerce giant Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) is kicking off its fourth annual Prime Day -- a member-only shopping holiday the company made up to offer deals to its subscribers. After setting records during last year's Prime Day, the company's recent momentum suggests it will shatter records again this year.
This year, Prime Day -- or "Prime Day (and a half)" as the tech titan is calling it -- will last 36 hours, up from 30 hours in 2017. It officially kicks off at 12 p.m. PT.
"[W]ith more than one million deals worldwide, there's something for everyone -- from tech enthusiasts to home chefs to fashion lovers," Amazon said in a press release today.
What to expect
With Prime Day 2017 sales surpassing sales on any previous shopping event in the company's history, including the Black Friday and Cyber Monday, it's no surprise Amazon isn't holding back this year. This year's shopping event will feature 50% more of its spotlight deals and over 1 million deals globally.
Some compelling deals include:
- Up to 50% off athleisure shoes and activewear
- Premium brand 65-inch 4K smart TV for $649
- Up to 35% off select monitors, laptops, and routers
- Up to 50% off jeans
While Prime Day gives third-party sellers a good opportunity to sell products in higher volumes at lower prices on the company's e-commerce platform, Amazon has also used the shopping day to sell its own devices, products, and services at steep discounts. Indeed, the company said Prime Day 2018 will include twice as many deals on Amazon devices as were featured last year. In addition, overall savings on Alexa-enabled devices are the biggest Amazon has offered yet, according to the company.
Here are some notable discounts on Amazon-branded products and services:
- Up to 50% off Amazon-branded apparel
- Up to 30% AmazonBasics items
- $30 off of Echo Spot and second-generation Echo devices
- $60 off the Amazon Cloud cam
- $75 off Ring Video Doorbell Pro (Amazon acquired Ring earlier this year)
- Four months of Amazon Music Unlimited for $0.99
Why it matters
The success of Prime Day is undeniable. Last year, sales increased 60% compared to Prime Day 2016 as "tens of millions" of members made purchases, the company said in a press release last year. In addition, the shopping event brought in more Prime Members for the company than any other single day ever.
The Amazon-branded shopping holiday is also unsurprisingly good for Amazon devices. The company sold more of its own devices on Prime Day 2017 than any other sales event. Amazon Echo, Fire, and Kindle devices all saw record sales. Sales of Echo devices roared higher -- up seven times over their sales the year before.
Prime Day 2018 comes at a time Amazon is firing on all cylinders, with revenue soaring 43% year over year in its most recent quarter. Combining the success of last year's Prime Day with Amazon's overall momentum, the shopping event will likely set new records.
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