Dive Brief:
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Amazon announced Thursday that its second Prime Day 24-hour summertime mega-sale will take place on July 12.
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New and existing Amazon Prime members in U.S., U.K., Spain, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, Canada, Belgium and Austria will find more than 100,000 deals deals across nearly all departments and categories, the online retailer said in a press release.
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The U.S. sale goes live at 3:00 a.m. Eastern time, with new deals as often as every five minutes throughout the day. In addition, Amazon will offer countdown deals for Prime members every day from July 5 through July 11.
Dive Insight:
Amazon’s first Prime Day was met with a fair bit of scorn because so many items were run-of-the-mill household goods and so many deals evaporated as merchandise quickly sold out. Amazon played coy on when and if it would repeat Prime Day this year, perhaps in a move to make it a bit harder for rivals to join in and compete, as Wal-Mart did last year; the e-retail giant has upped the ante this time around, boosting its inventory of desired items.
"In the U.S. we have nearly double the TV units compared to Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined," Amazon Prime Vice President Greg Greeley said in a statement. Amazon also promises twice as many marketplace sellers participating as last year, along with easier sorting by category.
The run-of-the-mill items are still there as well, which in fact serves to show any new Prime trial customers the breadth of assortment Amazon offers. Giving U.S. shoppers the opportunity to access Prime deals in the days leading up to the event could also help Amazon rack up that many more memberships.
Prime Day debuted last July 15 in celebration of Amazon's 20th anniversary. No official Prime Day sales numbers have been released, although Amazon said the event surpassed its Black Friday 2014 sales by 18%. Sales were also 266% higher compared to transactions completed on July 15, 2014, according to Internet Retailer. That midsummer sales spike is part of what makes Prime Day a brilliant idea: It's a Black Friday-like event taking place at a time when shopping is not otherwise top of mind for consumers the way it is during the back-to-school season or over the holidays.
In addition to driving sales, Prime Day inspired more new members to try out Prime services than any other day in Amazon history, the company said. And that seems to be the real point of the event. Prime Day by definition is reserved for members; to access deals, customers must have at least a trial membership. It's no wonder Amazon is working all kinds of levers to increase its Prime membership base: Prime members are younger, wealthier and stickier than non-members.
“I think this is a real fantastic way for Amazon to make hay during the dog days of summer,” Rob Garf, a retail strategist with cloud-based e-commerce platform company Demandware, told Retail Dive last year. “This provides a way for Amazon to drum up demand and increase their Prime members. I could have reversed those—the major reason is not necessarily sales but to attract new customers.”