Amazon Prime Day Set for June 21-22 -- 2nd Update
03 June 2021 - 3:27AM
Dow Jones News
By Dave Sebastian
Amazon.com Inc. said it would hold its Prime Day on June 21 and
22 in the U.S. and other countries, returning the annual sales
event to a midyear timetable.
The event this year is scheduled a bit earlier than the normal
July date, which aims to capitalize on a seasonal shopping lull
with sales on millions of items. Other retailers have in past years
held competing events near Prime Day with deals to attract
shoppers. Walmart Inc. on Wednesday said it plans to hold a sales
event called "Deals for Days" from June 20 to 23 featuring items in
stores and online.
This year's Prime Day comes just before Amazon founder Jeff
Bezos plans to step down as chief executive. Andy Jassy, head of
Amazon's cloud computing business, is set to assume the CEO role on
July 5, while Mr. Bezos becomes executive chairman.
Amazon held last year's shopping fest in October as the Covid-19
pandemic and a rise in online shopping during lockdowns strained
delivery networks and caused delays earlier in the year. The later
event provided a jump-start to the holiday shopping season and
fueled a record quarterly sales figure for the online retailing
giant.
Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail, said that
having Prime Day return to earlier in the year compared with
October last year is a good thing for the industry as a whole.
Having it in the fall last year "added a lot of pressure to
delivery and fulfillment operations that were already under stress
as the holiday approached," he said.
The e-commerce giant on Wednesday said it would offer its Prime
members more than two million deals in categories including
fashion, home, beauty and electronics. The deals will be available
for Prime members in the U.S., U.K., the United Arab Emirates,
Turkey, Spain, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Portugal, Netherlands,
Mexico, Luxembourg, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, China, Brazil,
Belgium, Austria, and Australia, Amazon said.
Amazon didn't disclose detailed financial figures for last
year's event, but the company said third-party businesses on its
platform sold more than $3.5 billion during last year's Prime Day,
a nearly 60% increase from the prior year.
Amazon logged a big lift to its bottom line during the Covid-19
pandemic, and it has been on a hiring spree ahead of Prime Day. The
company's profit since the pandemic started has exceeded $26
billion, more than the previous three years combined. Its profit
tripled during the first quarter to $8.1 billion.
Suzanne Kapner and Sarah Nassauer contributed to this
article.
Write to Dave Sebastian at dave.sebastian@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 02, 2021 13:14 ET (17:14 GMT)
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