Amazon Tries to Lure Father’s Day Shoppers With Low-Price Deals

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 13, 7:47AM EST · Published May 20, 9:45AM EDT

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It may be a case of loss leaders used as means to lure customers. Or they goods that are cheap to buy in bulk and therefore can be marked up sharply. Either way, Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) has launched sub-$100 promotions to attract Father’s Day buyers weeks ahead of its June 19 date.

Among the advantages of Amazon’s promotion, for Amazon, is the plan to catch shoppers early. If these shoppers buy at Amazon, they are less likely to go to retail competitors, a way to dry up demand there.

Amazon’s tactic is to appeal to those with modest budgets. A high-speed modem for $89.93. A blood pressure kit for $64.99, a means to get older people or those with health problems. A Bluetooth tracker for $24.99. A wireless headset for $69.99.

One of the most notable aspects of the gifts is that each can be shipped free, if customers are members of Amazon Prime. Amazon gets a customer to take a $99 Prime upgrade for the free shipping, free data storage, song listening, premium TV and movie streaming service, which likely “tethers” people who are Amazon customers, even if they are only at the e-commerce site for the first time. Prime members are Amazon loyalists.
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The less than $100 program is placed next to a “hobbiest” section, which is filled with much more expensive gifts, from a $1,299 drone to a $499 camera. If Amazon can get Father’s Day customers to click in the right direction, they are suddenly in a section of the site where the e-commerce company sells a number of high-priced products.

The sub-$100 gifts are, in many cases, not just sub-$100 gifts.

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.