Amazon’s annual shopping extravaganza will take place Oct. 13-14, the company announced late Sunday. The event was delayed this year due to the pandemic.
Prime Day offers sales on hundreds of items for members of Amazon’s Prime subscription service. It began in 2015 and has become a reliable revenue boost for the company.
Amazon typically holds Prime Day in July but the company’s e-commerce business has been disrupted by a surge in orders from customers avoiding traditional retail due to the pandemic.
The company is using this year’s Prime Day to show support for small businesses. Amazon said it will give Prime members a $10 credit to use on Prime Day when they spend $10 on items sold by select small companies, starting today and lasting through Oct. 12. It is also spending $100 million on promotional activities to help them increase sales and reach.
Amazon is offering early deals already, such as two Echo Dots for $39.98 (note: the new Echo Dot, announced last week, comes out Oct. 22).
Prime Day is coming to Turkey and Brazil for the first time. The deals are also accessible to Prime members in the U.S., U.K, U.A.E, Spain, Singapore, Netherlands, Mexico, Luxembourg, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, China, Canada, Belgium, Austria, and Australia.
Last year, Amazon sold more than 175 million items on Prime Day, a 75% increase from the previous year. Amazon didn’t say how much Prime members spent over the two-day period but it did note that “independent small and medium-sized businesses” sold more than $2 billion of items during the event.
