Amazon to Offer Huge Discounts on ‘Prime Day’

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

July 15 marks “Prime Day” for Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a day on which the e-commerce and cloud company will offer what it says are a number of deals that will exceed Black Friday. However, customers will have to subscribe to Amazon’s Prime service to get them.

Amazon management writes:

Prime Day is a one-day shopping event on July 15, 2015, with more deals than Black Friday. Prime members can shop exclusive deals from electronics, toys, video games, movies, clothing, patio, lawn and garden, sports and outdoor items and more.

Try Prime and get immediate access to deals on July 15.

ALSO READ: Analyst Sees No Tech Bubble: 4 Stocks That Survive and Thrive

Analysts have long wondered whether Prime makes money. The service allows members to stream video from a library of tens of thousands of premium TV shows and movies. The service also allows members to get free two-day shipping and unlimited photo storage. A Prime membership costs $99 a year. It may be that Amazon has created Prime to bring customers to Amazon.com in the hope they will buy goods that are not part of the Prime core service.

One of the puzzles about Prime Day is whether it is meant solely to gain new members. Amazon management wrote:

Prime members can find deals on products across categories including electronics, toys, video games, movies, clothing, patio, lawn and garden, sports and outdoor items and more. Members will enjoy deals on items perfect for summer adventures, their to-do list, family road trips, back to school supplies, and everyday essentials. Prime members can shop on any device, including smartphones and tablets and enjoy deals anytime, and anywhere.

The event may also be a means to get more Amazon customers to use smartphones, which is part of Amazon’s effort to move shoppers off the desktop and onto devices that have become equally or more popular than PCs.

More deals than Black Friday for Prime members, or a means to add customers to Amazon’s critical effort to offer consumers a means to use Amazon more frequently.

ALSO READ: 4 Top Merrill Lynch Internet Picks for the Second Half of 2015

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

Featured Reads

Our top personal finance-related articles today. Your wallet will thank you later.

Continue Reading

Top Gaining Stocks

CBOE Vol: 1,568,143
PSKY Vol: 12,285,993
STX Vol: 7,378,346
ORCL Vol: 26,317,675
DDOG Vol: 6,247,779

Top Losing Stocks

LKQ
LKQ Vol: 4,367,433
CLX Vol: 13,260,523
SYK Vol: 4,519,455
MHK Vol: 1,859,865
AMGN Vol: 3,818,618