Dive Brief:
- For the first time, Amazon’s Prime Day event will last for four days, from July 8 to July 11, the e-commerce giant announced Tuesday. The sales event is exclusive to Prime members.
- This year, the company is introducing a “Today’s Big Deals” section, which features a themed daily drop of products. Deals will refresh as quickly as every five minutes on items from brands like Samsung, Kiehl’s and Levi’s, according to a company press release.
- Amazon tapped basketball icon LeBron James to star in the “What’s next?” Prime Day ad campaign, where he imagines possible next career moves like chef, barber or lounge singer.
Dive Insight:
After teasing the event in April, Amazon Prime Day is back — but this time it is running for 96 hours.
Prime members can also access three weeks of early deals across some categories including grocery, household and swimwear. Additionally, customers with access to Alexa+ can ask Alexa to let them know when an item goes on sale during the event.
Beyond James’ Prime Day ad campaign and his The Shop men’s grooming brand, which will have deals during the event, Amazon is touting other celebrity-created brands like The Honest Company, Lemme and InBloom.
Amazon has also added new perks to its Prime for Young Adults membership. Prime subscribers ages 18 to 24 can earn 5% cash back on their purchases for a limited time, “plus new shopping features that make discovering personalized savings easier than ever,” Jamil Ghani, vice president of Amazon Prime, said in a statement.
Prime Day has proven fruitful for Amazon in the past, but the trade war could drive further interest from budget-conscious consumers. Over half of consumers shopping this year’s event say they intend to stock up on everyday essentials, while nearly half (45%) say they intend to buy products they believe will become more expensive later in the year because of tariffs, according to a report from Tinuiti released last month.
Last year, a number of other retailers, including Walmart, Target and Best Buy, joined in by hosting their own summer sales around the same time as Prime Day. Yet, most shoppers (84%) who made purchases during those events only bought items at Amazon, according to an Earnest Analytics report. Only 16% of consumers bought items from Amazon and one other retailer’s promotional event.