Talk about your Christmas in July.
Amazon said Monday it will roll out its first super-sized summer savings day to mark its 20th anniversary — and it’s promising even bigger savings than those offered on Black Friday, the tradition kick-off to the Christmas shopping season, and Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving when many people go online to shop for deals.
The e-commerce giant is calling its special sales day Prime Day, after its $99-a-year program that gives customers free two-day shipping and free access to streaming movies and TV shows. It will take place July 15.
Discounts will be rolled out as often as every 10 minutes, Amazon promised.
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The catch? you have to be a Prime member to take part in the sale.
It’s Amazon Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos’ way of getting more people to sign up for Prime, the 10-year-old promotion in the nine countries that have the Prime loyalty program, including the US, UK, Spain, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, Canada and Austria.
Amazon doesn’t release the number of Prime members it has, but Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, estimates there are 35 million to 40 million in the US.
Pachter said he sees the move as an “experiment” by Amazon to gauge how shoppers will react to the sale.
“Black Friday is an event because it kicks off the holiday shopping season,” he said. “I don’t think an event in mid-July will have much impact, and view it as more of a test by Amazon during a slow period to see how a special Prime shopping day is received by its customers.”
Once people sign up for Prime, they buy more from Amazon — about twice as much, according to one study.
And that is one reason Bezos is planning such a big blow-out.
Date: July 6, 2015