Seattle — Surprise, surprise: Consumer electronics will be featured prominently in a sales promotion.
This particular event is no ordinary one, however: It’s Amazon.com’s one-day, members-only, 20th anniversary Prime Day celebration, which the e-tailer promises will have “more deals than Black Friday.”
Topping a sneak-peek list heralding tomorrow’s thousands of “Lightning Deal” flash sales is, once again, CE. Most prominently, tech offers will include a 50-inch 4K TV bundle for under $1,000, Amazon said, which could be a foretelling of Ultra HD pricing come Christmas.
Other traffic-drivers will include a Chromebook laptop for $199; a 32-inch LED TV for $75; a 40-inch 1080p LED TV for $115; a “brand-name” 32-inch smart HDTV for under $200; and a host of proprietary Amazon gear, including $15 off the Fire TV Stick over-the-top streaming dongle, $30 off the Kindle e-reader, and $60 off the Fire HD 7 tablet (regular and Kids Edition).
Industry observers, including TWICE guest columnist Tom Caporaso, CEO of FreeShipping.com parent Clarus Commerce, believe the promotion is mainly designed to grow and protect the Amazon Prime motherlode. The $99/year affinity program yields eye-popping conversion rates, he noted, and could blunt customer trials of new membership programs from beta discounter Jet.com, as well as a forthcoming three-day shipping service from Walmart.
“Prime Day is a shrewd marketing ploy, but it will also serve Amazon in ways that go beyond simply celebrating Amazon’s debut,” Caporaso observed.
Indeed, a new study from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) shows that Amazon’s 44 million U.S. Prime members, comprising 47 percent of its domestic customers, spend on average about $1,200 on the site, compared with about $700 a year for non-members.
For Amazon, that’s certainly cause for celebration.
