With Days to Go, Amazon Pushes Last-Minute Deals

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 12, 4:39PM EST · Published Dec 19, 6:20AM EST

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Two-day shipping soon will be too late. Shoppers have run out of time. Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) is taking a final stab at sales with “Last Minute Deal” programs:

Black Friday and Cyber Monday may be over, but we’ve still got the deals going here at Amazon. You’ll find all our top holiday deals right here so you can get great gifts at amazing prices. Some deals are in limited supply, but don’t worry if you miss one because we have hundreds of deals each day.

Amazon is trying to take low inventories out of the equation. And, for desperate shoppers, it may work. It is an appeal that would not have been effective a few days ago. As far as gifts go, something is better than nothing.

Some offers still have an Amazon hallmark, which is its “Deal of the Day.” The marketing method is not unique, but it does mesh with the appeal to people who have run out of time. Shop at the last moment and save money.

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Another advantage for Amazon is that last-minute deals allow it to push the inventory of its own products. Among the most prominently featured items are the Kindle, Fire Tablet and Fire HD Tablet. Some carry discounts as high as 20%.

The last-minute deals area also is a means to push the Prime service. The deals are a conduit to market the Amazon credit card as well. Each of these are, based on most evaluations, are ways for Amazon to make additional money. The Amazon Prime Card comes with no interest charge for six months. After that the “standard variable purchase APR is 26.24%.”

Even if people do not elect to get the credit card, Prime is Amazon’s anchor program to maintain customer loyalty. Feedvisor’s Amazon User Study 2016 showed that a third of Prime members shop at Amazon once a week.

Last-minute deals and several ways for Amazon to make more money.

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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.