Will Amazon Prime Day Deliver?

Amazon Prime Day has finally arrived, but will the deals offered live up to all the hype?

Since it was first announced earlier this month, speculation has surrounded the offerings Amazon would make available during its “global shopping event,” which will reportedly provide Amazon Prime members with access to more deals than Black Friday.

Prime Day officially started today at midnight PST, giving members access to thousands of deals, with new deals becoming available as often as every 10 minutes. But yesterday (July 14), Amazon offered a sneak peek into some of the deals consumers could expect to see upon the launch of the sales event today.

While some of the prices and discounts offered may be attractive to consumers, such as up to 70 percent off select kitchen tools, a Chromebook laptop for $199, a 32-inch TV for $75, a 40-inch TV for $115 and $60 off the Fire HD 7, some of the items listed in Amazon’s press release may fall a little short of the company’s “amazing” deals claim.

For example, Bose headphones are expected to be sold “at the lowest price ever on Amazon,” but no further details are provided to tell what that price is or how much of a savings consumers are actually receiving. Another item on the list, an offer to “save up to 50 percent on select tools for the DIY auto enthusiast,” may only appeal to a very specific niche of shoppers.

While the sneak peek does show how committed Amazon is to providing Prime members with a wide array of discounts and offers, the fact remains that with constantly changing deals taking place throughout the day, many Prime members may still not have the opportunity to truly take advantage of what many are calling Amazon’s version of Black Friday in July.

Regardless, it’s safe to say Amazon may significantly beef up Prime membership numbers with an event like today’s, considering the company has continued to urge those new to its service to start a free 30-day trial in order to participate in Prime Day.

Amazon Prime has long been the eCommerce company’s bread and butter, helping drive sales in some instances by facilitating more shopper conversions.

On average, Prime members spend more on Amazon than non-Prime members, and a recent report from website traffic measurement firm Millward Brown Digital confirms the idea. The research suggests that, when compared to non-Prime members, Amazon’s Prime customers are converting on those purchases 74 percent of the time, while the non-Prime member’s estimated conversion rate stood at 13 percent. The research also showed Prime members’ conversion rate is 22 times higher than the typical eCommerce conversion rate in the U.S.

But one of the most interesting results seen so far from Prime Day, is how the event quickly spurred other retailers to keep competition fierce with their own July sales events.

Walmart announced its online sale, which is taking place today, as well as the reduction of its free shipping threshold from $50 to $35 for the rest of summer. It also confirmed plans to apply sales – or its well-known “rollbacks” – to more than 2,000 items on Walmart.com, the retailer said on its blog. Target also held its annual “Black Friday in July” event, which is a sale the retailer has offered since 2010. Best Buy will also have a similar sale going on July 24-25.

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Patrick Gauthier, VP of External Payments at Amazon, will lead retailers and industry disruptors in the discussion on how “the future of payments is about what happens before checkout” at Retail Reinvention in Chicago on Aug. 4-5. 

For more information and to register with the July 15 PYMNTS Prime Day pricing of $249 click here.

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To check out what else is HOT in the world of payments, click here.

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