Amazon Celebrates 20-Year Anniversary With Prime Day Sales
SEATTLE, July 15 (UPI) — Amazon is celebrating its 20-year anniversary on Wednesday by launching ‘Prime Day,’ an opportunity for shoppers to snag up discounted goods.
Amazon claims that its online event will surpass Black Friday in terms of e-commerce volume. The deals the site will offer, however, are only offered to customers who have the Amazon Prime membership.
Sales will begin throughout the day as often as every 10 minutes. The landing page for the event will list which deals are currently active, which ones a user will have missed and which ones are coming up (along with a timer counting down to their launch). Deals include a 40-inch LED TV for $115, a Chromebook for $199 and $60 off a Kindle Fire HD 7.
The company will also be tweeting about the day’s happenings.
Individuals without Prime memberships, who wish to cash in on a Prime Day deal, are offered a free 30-day trial of the service. The company is also promoting a number of sweepstakes and giveaways. Listening to any song on Prime Music during Prime Day, for example, will give the user a chance to win up to $25,000.
Amazon Prime is an enhanced Amazon shopping membership that provides free two-day shipping within the contiguous United States, discounted one-day shipping rates and other benefits such as access to the company’s Prime Music streaming service and Prime Photos, which offers unlimited photo storage.
Shopatron CEO Ed Stevens says that Amazon Prime Day will not supplant Black Friday. The critic claims that consumer discretionary dollars in July will not change and that increased consumer spending is contingent on sentiment, such as that which accompanies the holiday season. The critic adds that Prime Day is an ordinary sales gimmick akin to a Labor Day blowout sale at a car dealership.
On a blog post to Walmart.com, President and CEO Fernando Madeira said that Amazon’s method of making consumers spend money to save money did not make sense. Madeira added that Walmart will be promoting its own deals all week long in addition to dropping the minimum purchase value of online goods eligible for free shipping to $35 instead of $50.
Target has also launched a Black Friday sale in July with deals running through Monday. Best Buy also planned a sale for July 24 and 25.
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