The Prime Day Countdown Continues

Last year, no one really knew what to expect out of Prime Day. Amazon had always been one for good deals and great shipping services, but how the eCommerce giant would handle its own pseudo-holiday was a trickier thing to nail down.

This year, Amazon isn’t letting anybody stay in the dark.

Ahead of the official start of Prime Day on July 12, Amazon has been spending the days leading up to the retail holiday by leaking a handful of deals each morning. And while 2015’s Prime Day was criticized for offering meager deals on a wide selection of generally useless merchandise, the teaser deals announced so far — $200 off a hoverboard, $75 off headphones and $25 off a wood watch for men — seem calculated to assuage customers’ fears well before July 12 arrives.

The improved quality of deals this Prime Day isn’t the only message Amazon is trying to get across during the lead-up. According to The Oregonian, the inclusion of more third-party sellers in the event will lead to twice as many deals to be had as there were last year. But even if the deals this time around still don’t seem up to snuff for shoppers, LawGeex VP of Marketing Shmuli Goldberg told Retail Dive last year that those critics might be missing the whole point of Prime Day in the first place.

“I see a lot of reports have come out saying that people haven’t got the deals they expected,” Goldberg said. “But look at the amount of deals on Prime Day, in every single category. This wasn’t just Black Friday, with deals at the high end — televisions, mobile phones. The deals were spread through the whole range. And I believe that the reason Prime Day was what it was is that, once Amazon gets a customer in, they’re a customer for life.”