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Amazon on Thursday announced that its latest Prime Day sales event is set for July 12 through 13. The company says the event will begin at 3 am EST and run for 48 hours across 20 countries. As in past iterations of the event, you’ll need to be a subscriber to Amazon’s Prime service to receive access to the offers.
The annual promotion primarily drives sales and Prime subscriptions for Amazon during a relatively slow time of year for its e-commerce business. The event is often filled with many junk sales, in the sense that many of the items can be found at similar prices throughout the year, and many of the offers available apply to relatively generic products. That said, there are usually a few diamonds in the rough. Good deals often rival prices you typically find around the holiday season, plus various discounts on products you may buy anyway.
Amazon did not provide too many specifics on offers it will promote but noted that many of its own gadgets and services will be discounted before the event and that “select products” from Sony, Bose, Beats, and iRobot, among others, will see price cuts during the promotion. The company also said it would make more than 30 video games available at no extra cost through its Prime Gaming platform.
Every year around Black Friday, Prime Day, or just a regular day, Amazon has come under fire for poor (and sometimes illegal) treatment of workers, aggressive union-busting tactics, smear campaigns, and recently lying to Congress about its use of seller data, among the company’s many misdeeds. In recent years, striking Amazon workers across the world have stopped working during various tentpole events due to poor protection from COVID-19, unfair pay and low wages, tax evasion in different countries, and unsafe work environments, to name a few. Amazon’s opposition to unions and worker protections didn’t prevent a successful unionization campaign in Staten Island, as other worker movements in the company are brewing worldwide.
Little has changed for workers critical of Amazon’s practices. Still, the company has started to increase efforts to spotlight small businesses to address some of the criticisms Amazon sellers have voiced. This year Amazon is implementing a sweepstakes reward system for supporting small businesses and a Prime Member stamp card that earns you $10 toward a future Amazon purchase. The sweepstakes runs from June 21 to July 11 and give customers a chance to win for every $1 they spend with eligible small businesses. Amazon says the prizes range from a trip for two to the next Super Bowl, to VIP passes, to unnamed musical festivals in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
The stamp card awards you $10 once you’ve completed the following four actions between now and Prime Day: stream Prime Video, listen to Prime Music, borrow a Prime Reading or Kindle Unlimited book or add one to your library, and make a Prime-shipping eligible purchase.
You can also check the Amazon app on your phone to see your recommended products for which you can opt into deal alerts. These are based on your shopping history and liked products.
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