Amazon's Prime Day Is a Summer Sale Once Again

Following a pandemic-driven delay until October 2020, Amazon announced its next two-day Prime Day sale will return to the summer. In fact, Prime Day 2021 will arrive just hours after the summer solstice at midnight PDT on June 21 for Prime members in 20 countries, including the U.S., China and Australia. However, Amazon has postponed Prime Day in Canada and India because of “the increasing impact of Covid-19.” Top line According to a blog post, Prime Day 2021 will include over 2 million deals globally across every product category, including over a million deals from small- and medium-sized businesses. Amazon also teased “never-before-seen exclusives” from Prime Video, Amazon Music and Prime Gaming. That likely includes four months of free access to Amazon Music Unlimited, as well as free access to the game Battlefield 4, which are two of the deals highlighted in the post. Prime members will not have to wait until June 21 to start shopping, however. As of June 2, the ecommerce giant said it has “early exclusive offers and deals” from brands like Black+Decker, Dewalt Tools, Insignia Smart TVs, JBL Headphones, Le Creuset, Lego, Mattel and, of course, Amazon itself. Between the lines The festivities this year will rope in a popular retail trend: livestreaming. On June 7, celebrities Kristen Bell, Karamo Brown and Mindy Kaling will “be joined by some of their favorite small business owners to discuss their products and inspiring stories” on Amazon’s Live platform. Thereafter, Amazon Live will highlight additional deals from small businesses. Once again, Amazon hopes to grease the wheels of consumer spend by offering a $10 Prime Day credit when customers spend $10 with select U.S. small businesses from June 7 to 20. The blog post noted Amazon is offering similar small business promos in the U.K., Spain, Germany, Italy, France and Japan. The ecommerce platform is also offering 10% back on select small business purchases for its credit card holders. Bottom line Prime Day 2021 will be Amazon’s seventh annual sale. Amazon has never been particularly forthcoming about how much it sells on Prime Day, instead calling out other details, like that Prime Day 2020 was the “two biggest days ever” for third-party sellers. Those merchants sold $3.5 billion worldwide, marking a 60% increase from 2019. Research firms like Statista peg worldwide spend for Prime Day 2020 at $10.4 billion, which it estimates was up from $7.2 billion the year prior. But Prime Day has become an increasingly important moment for other retailers, too. In 2020, for example, discount website RetailMeNot found more than 350 retailers offered their own coordinating promotions, which was up from 250 in 2019. That included some of Amazon’s biggest competitors, like Walmart and Target. The return to June this year makes a lot of sense. Retailers—Amazon included—had hoped to jumpstart an early holiday shopping season last year with deals in October, but customers weren’t quite ready for it. What’s more, mid-summer sales have historically helped retailers create buzz during an otherwise slow period sandwiched between the upcoming and previous holiday seasons when consumers are more likely to spend on experiences like vacations.

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It's Official: Amazon’s Prime Day Is a Summer Sale Once Again

Early deals are already available

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