Prime Day may have arrived late to Aussie shores but it was a great time for it to kick off in 2018. It launched in Australia just when Amazon started to increase the duration of the major sale event from a mere 24 hours to much, much longer. And that meant, in 2019, we got a shopping spree that lasted a whopping 65 hours – starting on schedule at midnight on July 15 and ending only when it did on the US West Coast.
However, there are some doubts about Prime Day 2020. With the current global pandemic causing people to stay at home and indulge more in online shopping, Amazon’s shipping infrastructure is struggling to cope. Moreover, a recent Reuters report suggests that instead of taking place as usual mid-year (in July), Prime Day this year could be delayed to August at the earliest.
That said, we’re not expecting it to be cancelled outright, so when it does take place, we’re expecting big discounts on Amazon, if not bigger than last year.
Leading the raft of deals during Prime Day 2020 will be Amazon’s own products, including all the Echo and Kindle products, not to mention Ring security devices. Amazon is also one of the most convenient places to score a discount on the Oculus VR headsets and, now, lay your hands on official stock of Samsung devices, Xiaomi phones and Instant Pots.
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Across the almost-three days of Prime Day last year, over 340,000 Aussies visited Amazon per day, with 40,000 of them making purchases. If that’s the kind of traffic Amazon can handle, we won’t be surprised if the e-commerce giant ups the ante in 2020.
What is Amazon Prime Day?
Amazon Prime Day began in the US in 2015 as a celebration of the company’s 20th anniversary, with more deals on offer than Black Friday back then. Today, Prime Day is Amazon’s mid-year sales event where members of Amazon Prime get exclusive discounts on a wide range of items. While it began as a one-day sale, 2018 saw the offers last for 36 hours, while 2019 saw a recording-breaking 65-hour event for shoppers in Australia.
Why does Amazon have Prime Day? It's presented as a neat ‘thank you’ to its paying members, but one that involves giving Amazon more money and shifting a lot of stock at the same time.
Prime Day isn’t just about selling Amazon-branded products – many other brands and third-party sellers also save their best deals for Prime Day, completely aware that thousands of extra shoppers will be hitting the online store.
To make the most of Prime Day you’ll need to get yourself an Amazon Prime membership which, in Australia, will set you back just AU$6.99 a month or AU$59 a year – half the cost of the US subscription. While you’re paying for the privilege of free, swift delivery (although that’s currently being slowed down to make space for the essential items people are ordering), signing up for Prime means you’ll also have free access to Amazon’s streaming services, including Prime Video, Prime Music and Twitch. Members also get free access to Prime Reading and Prime Photos for all their ebook and storage needs.
When is Amazon Prime Day 2020?
Amazon hasn’t confirmed the date for this year’s big sale event, but Prime Day has never been pushed beyond July before. That said, the current coronavirus pandemic has made things a little uncertain. Amazon is already struggling to cope with online shopping demands in most markets, Australia included, so scheduling Prime Day as per tradition in July again may be difficult.
According to Reuters, though, Amazon is likely going to postpone the shopping event at least to August, if not later in the year. Depending on the continuing impact of the Covid-19 virus, Amazon Prime Day 2020 will now likely be a little later in the year than previously which, in turn, will have an affect on the savings offered, although how that will manifest is currently unclear. It could see shoppers being offered even wilder discounts to clear the stocks, or it could mean that third-party sellers don't have the same savings in place as we move closer to Black Friday.
How long will Prime Day 2020 last?
Well, it's hard to say with any degree of certainty, and in light of the recent rumours of Prime Day 2020 moving back in the year it could be even longer than expected. Prime Day a few years ago was only that, a day, but in 2018 it moved to 36 hours, and last year was a whopping 65 hours of deals for Aussies.
We're fully expecting Amazon to move to a Prime Week any year now, and with a rumoured AU$100 million worth of devices that will need to be shifted thanks to the delay, it could well be this year. That said, we can't see Amazon reducing the amount of time Prime Day lasts for, so expect Prime Day 2020 to last at least 65 hours this year, if not longer.
Are Prime Day deals competitive?
Amazon has a plethora of offers on its site each day and those are usually some of the best prices you can find on consumer tech. Whether you’re after a Samsung Note 10 or a Philips Hue smart lighting system, chances are you’ll get them cheaper on Amazon than any other Aussie retailer. It’s even more the case with Prime Day deals.
You can easily score about 35% off on Amazon’s own devices during Prime Day which, for the rest of the year probably don’t drop more than 28% or thereabouts. If you’ve managed to score a $500 discount on Samsung or Huawei devices during one of Amazon’s regular deals, then it’s highly likely that the discount will be much deeper come Prime Day. It’s the perfect time to snag a Nintendo Switch or find the lowest prices on the best premium headphones – cheaper than any other retailer who will likely be scrambling to price-match.
What were people searching for on Amazon Prime Day 2019?
According to analytics experts Hitwise, Amazon saw an increase in traffic across all major categories on the Australian site, with the Electronics & Computing showing a 359% growth in reach between 2018 and 2019, with Amazon-branded items being the most popular products on the site, followed closely by the Nintendo Switch. There were nearly 100,000 page views for all NIntendo-branded items, including consoles and games.
With Samsung now having partnered with Amazon to sell its products on the e-commerce platform in Australia, it was no surprise that the South Korean brand clocked up over 95,000 pageviews during Prime Day 2019.
The other big winners in Australia included Sony, Sandisk, Corsair and Philips.
What to expect from Prime Day 2020
We’re not expecting shopping trends during Amazon Prime Day 2020 to change very much. The Nintendo Switch is still going to disappear within minutes of being discounted, and this could happen to the Switch Lite too if you aren’t quick enough.
Of course, Amazon’s Echo devices will likely be flying off the shelves like before, and we’ll still see the Paperwhite beating out the other Kindles in terms of sales. You can even expect to pocket some decent savings on Ring’s range of security devices, including the Doorbells and the cameras.
Premium headphones have been very popular on Amazon over the last couple of years and 2020 will likely see that continue, particularly for Sony and Bose headphones. With the Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 one of the more expensive ANC cans on the market, Prime Day will be a great time to get a set for less.
With more TVs available on Amazon Australia now, we think Prime Day 2020 would be an ideal time to upgrade your home entertainment system, especially if you’re in the market for a good 4K smart telly.
It will also be a good time to get yourself a new fitness wearable, be it from Garmin’s very premium GPS sports watch range or more affordable options from Fitbit. Likewise, cameras and drones will see a price drop, too, so keep that credit card handy.
Prime Day: why does it matter more to Amazon?
There are some crucial differences between Prime Day and Black Friday. The first is that Prime Day is Amazon’s own day. It’s right there in the name which, of course, refers to Amazon’s Prime membership program and associated services. Amazon doesn’t own Black Friday, and that means ultimately it’s just another retailer shouting for attention – a massive retailer with a really loud voice. Black Friday is a sales event for the entire retail sector. With Prime Day as its own take on November sale period, it makes it much harder for rivals to muscle in on something that Amazon has effectively created from thin air.
The second and more important difference is that Black Friday doesn’t create new spending. It just moves it slightly. As we’ve discovered in recent years, the money people spend over the Black Friday period is money they were probably going to spend anyway: all Black Friday really does is concentrates pre-Christmas shopping in the last week of November.
Prime Day spending is different in two ways. First of all, people aren’t spending the money they’d already planned to spend on Christmas presents. And secondly, they’re buying mainly for themselves, not for others.
There’s another key benefit for Amazon. Its global bestsellers on Prime Day weren’t just Amazon devices; they were Amazon devices that connect to Amazon services. Fire TVs, Kindle Fires, Echo devices, Alexa remotes. Each one of them connecting to Amazon Prime, and each one of them requiring a Prime membership to buy in the first place. So when Black Friday rolls around, Amazon will have a whole bunch of Prime members for whom shopping on Prime is the default, and who might want to enhance their Amazon-powered smart homes with Amazon-branded Black Friday deals.
Prime Day means that, for Amazon, Christmas now comes twice a year.
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