Amazon July Prime Day Sale

The official dates for Amazon Prime Day in 2019 have been announced with deals in the United States officially starting between July 15^th and 16^th.  However, there are some deals for Prime Day that are available now. Prime Day 2019 brings a 48-hour marathon of huge discounts but some of these deals are already available on video games, Amazon Echo speakers and 4KTV phones. The Echo Dot has been given a massive 50% discount with the new price set at $24.99 and the second generation Echo is now $69 – a huge 30% off.  Alongside this, the Echo Input and Fire TV Reset are also showing huge reductions, they have been discounted by up to 57% and on July 10^th Prime members can watch Taylor Swift perform live in concert on stream. Specifically, the Echo Dot price is $24.99 – up to 50% off – and Echo (2nd generation) for $69 – up to 30% off. The Echo Input and Fire TV Recast are on sale for up to 57% off, while all Prime members are invited to a Taylor Swift concert stream on July 10. Amazon is determined to get more people to sign up to Prime.  Amazon Prime Day has worked really well in the past and this year the company is expected to make billions of dollars. We’ve taken the opportunity to list all of the best deals of Amazon Prime Day 2019.  This will show you the best (and lowest) prices this July and the page will be constantly updated so be sure to check back often. The bulk of the savings will take place on the actual dates, July 15^th and 16^th.  The promotion starts just after midnight PDT on the 15^th and ends at 11.59pm PDT on the 16^th.  This is based on the company location so check with your time zone, on the west coast of the USA some deals may be available as early as 3am.   The Early Savings List:  Amazon Prime Day 2019 This is where you can find a curated list of all the early deals leading up to the official launch of Amazon Prime Day 2019.  We will be looking at the site and adding new deals each day to make your shopping experience better – and cheaper! If you are thinking of grabbing a deal but wondering if you should hold off until the official launch date, the best idea is to buy the deal now with a view to returning it if you find a better price later.  This is the way to guarantee a saving.   Echo Dot (3rd Gen) $49.99 - $24.99 at Amazon   The third generation of the Amazon Echo Dot speaker has a huge 50% off.  If you are looking for a smart speaker with Alexa where you can not only play music but ask questions, check out the weather and search the web, this is a great choice.   Apple AirPods with Wireless Charging Case $199 -  $179.99 at Amazon   AirPods can be grabbed with a $19 saving on Amazon right now.  These are the latest model of Apple's popular AirPod and the price includes a wireless charging case.   Fitbit Alta HR $129.95 - $75.13 at Amazon   Great reductions on the Fitbit Alta HR which is reduced down to  $75.13. The tracker provides step tracking, heart rate, activity logs and counts the calories burned.  It’s a great price cut if you are in the market for a fitness tracker.   Apple Watch Series 3 GPS, 38mm $279-  $199 at Amazon   Apple’s smartwatch features GPS and heart rate monitoring as well as being waterproof and you can currently save  $80 on Apple Watch Series 3 if you buy on Amazon.   Apple iPad 32GB $329 -  $249 at Amazon   Amazon offers a cool $100 off the latest iPad.  This is a 9.7” tablet with 32GB of storage.  The tablet offers a battery life of 10 hours, and this is the cheapest price we have seen.   Fire TV Recast $229.99-  $129.99 at Amazon   Amazon is offering a $100 dollar reduction in the cost of a Fire TV Recast for a limited period.  This DVR device cuts out the monthly fees of watching or recording Live TV.   Insignia NS-39DF510NA19 39-inch Full HD Smart Fire TV $230- $199.99 at Amazon   Insignia 39-inch is a top of the range smart HD TV. The TV boasts built in Fire TV enabling the user to stream movies and TV shows and has been discounted by $30.   JBL Flip 4 Bluetooth Portable Stereo Speaker (renewed) $110.95 - $69.95 at Amazon   The JBL Flip 4 Bluetooth portable speaker gives up to 12 hours of play time.  This waterproof speaker is currently on sale for  $69.95 via Amazon.   Instant Pot DUO Plus 60, 6 Qt Pressure Cooker $99.95 $79.95 at Amazon   Instant Pot Duo Plus is always a great favorite during Prime Day.  This amazing pressure cooker works with Alexa and combines 9 kitchen appliances.  At present there is a $20 discount on this item.   iRobot Roomba 690 Robot Vacuum $374.99-  $279 at Amazon   Roomba can clean your floors perfectly and if you use the iRobot Home app you can set him to work from anywhere.  This model has sensors to pick up areas where there is a higher concentration of dirt and work harder to clear it away.  There is currently a $95 discount offer on this product at Amazon.   What were 2018’s Best Sellers on Prime Day? Last year around 100million products were purchased by Prime members worldwide as a result of the Prime Day event.   Top sellers included home goods, electronics and Amazon branded devices.  The Fire STV Stick and the Echo Dot were two of the best selling items during the promotion.  Other popular choices included 23andMe DNA Test, LifeStraw water filters, 6-Qt Instant Pot and Echo Dot.   Here are the Prime deals you may have missed: Amazon’s own devices are always some of the best deals.  In particular smart speakers sell in vast numbers, with the Amazon Echo leading the way for price drops:

• Echo Show $100 off to $129.99
• Echo Spot $30 off to $99
• Echo Dot 50% off to $29.99
• Echo $30 off to $69.99
• Echo Plus reduced to $99

Other Amazon products to enjoy large discounts were the brand’s own Kindle and Fire ranges.  The Fire Stick dropped down to just $19.99 and the Fire 7 tablet was a bargain at $29.99. These types of massive drops are a good reason to wait until Prime Day arrives before making a purchase

• Fire Stick dropped $20 to $19.99
• Fire TV Cube dropped $30to $89.99
• Fire 7 went dropped $20 to $29.99
• Fire 10 from dropped $50 to $99.99
• Fire 7 Kids dropped $30 to $69.99

Other big drops included Amazon’s Ring video doorbell pro which dropped a huge $75 to $174 and the Echo Look camera that was discounted by $100 to just $99.99. In the US there were some excellent discounts available on RCL TVs.  Even the better known brands like Hisense saw great reductions with a 43-inch 4K TV cut by a massive $110 to  $239.99. Also in the US, the Huawei Mate 10 Pro was the best deal on phones.  From a starting price of $799, the sale price was a much reduced $549.   Prime – A Short History The first Prime Day took place four years ago and quickly became a bigger shopping event than even Cyber Monday or Black Friday.  In 2018 89million people logged into Amazon to purchase over 100million items globally.  The event gave Amazon its largest amount of sales for any single day in its history and Prime Day 2019 looks set to surpass the 2018 event. The 2018 event didn’t just improve on sales figures, it also went on longer than the 2017 Prime Day which ran for 30 hours.  By contrast the 2018 Prime Day lasted for 36 hours and in 2019 Amazon have announced that Prime Day will continue for a whole 48 hours, giving Amazon Prime members even more chances to score a great deal.   How can I sign up for Amazon Prime? If you want to participate in Prime Day you have to sign up for Amazon Prime.  Not only will you then be able to join in with the biggest shopping event of the year, you will also be able to access books, movies, photos and many more items all year around.  If you sign up here, you get a 30-day trial completely free and you can cancel at any time.  In order to qualify you do need an Amazon account tied to a credit card.  Once you sign up you get immediate access to all the benefits associated with Prime including free two-day shopping and, of course,  access to join in with Prime Day 2019.   So other retailers besides Amazon participate in Prime Day? Each year we see more retailers promoting their own version of Amazon’s hugely successful Prime Day. As a result you will find many more online and local retail outlets offering discounts on a range of goods including clothing, tech and home and garden goods.  In 2018 Walmart offered free 2-day shipping or free same-day pick up on some items with no requirement to subscribe.  There was also a huge amount of other items discounted including laptops, TVs, Google Home items, kitchen ware, etc.  In addition Target, eBay and Macy’s offered their own discounts throughout the day.  This year it is expected that even more retailers will join in with the event, and some will even extend the timescale to a full week.     Amazon Prime 1-day delivery In a recent announcement, the CFO of Amazon, Brian Olsavky, revealed that the retail giant is planning to offer Prime members free shipping.  The company will invest  $800 million to expand the fulfillment and logistics part of the business in the second quarter of 2019. At present Amazon Prime membership gives free 2-day shipping and/or same-day delivery in some areas.  The future plans mean that more locations and items will fit the free one-day delivery, replacing the need for the 2-day window.  It is unlikely that free delivery will be in place for Prime Day, but there will probably be more items available for same-day and one-day delivery in some zip code areas. .   Prime Day and Whole Foods Last year Prime Day included discounts on groceries as well as electronics, including their Whole Foods Market chain in the promotion for the first time.  There were lots of price cuts on popular food and first time users were offered a $10 Amazon credit if they spent $10 on Whole Foods.  For those who already hold an Amazon Credit Card double rewards were offered on Whole Foods purchases for a full week leading up to Prime Day.  This year we are expecting a lot more discounted groceries alongside the other rewards.   How much money did Amazon make on Prime Day? Amazon doesn’t release this information but predictions were that in 2018 the tech giant grossed approx $3.4billion.  What Amazon has confirmed is that third party sellers had moved around $1billion worth of products in that one day. On its own behalf Amazon limited its comments to confirming that it had surpassed the previous Prime Day and topped both Cyber Monday and Black Friday in terms of sales.   Why did Amazon crash on Prime Day? Did the crash cost it money? There was so much traffic on the site on Prime Day that Amazon struggled to cope.  The pressure of traffic also affected Prime Video and Twitch with shopping carts suddenly becoming magically empty, with non-working links or failure to access the site.  Most of these issues were within the US, although in the UK there were issues with Prime Video that continued until the evening. While Amazon stresses that the losses caused by this were minimal, the worst outage continued for 63 minutes and it is calculated that this probably lost the company around $100million worth of sales. The cause of the outages appears to have been a lack of servers to cope with demand that then caused a series of failures.  These knocked out key services and meant that Amazon had to pull the switch on international traffic to try to bring the load down to manageable levels.  This all happened within 15 minutes of the start of Prime Day. The other main issue facing Amazon on prime day was that workers were striking and there were various boycotts in place. Prime Day was chosen to highlight what the workers believe are terrible working practices, knowing that it would get them a large amount of publicity.  Hours and conditions were the focus of the strike in Spain and Germany where workers downed tools.  Activists were urging customers to boycott the event over its poor treatment of workers and its tax arrangements.  There was also a large surge in the number of health and safety complaints within the UK. Amazon denies these allegations, pointing out that safety incidents actually decreased during Prime Day.  They offer public tours so that people can see for themselves that they have a good workplace safety practices in place.  They concluded that the publicity was simply fake news, that most people responding to the boycott campaign did not work for the company at all.   What improvements could Amazon have made on Prime Day? First of all, it should have been able to anticipate and cope with the load on all of its services.  Considering that Amazon provides a cloud service for many high profile sites it was embarrassing for the company that it couldn’t cope with its own visitor load. However, the main issue was not the tech.  Some of the deals were ridiculous with people finding better deals on eBay than on Amazon.  There was also inconsistency with Amazon’s own pricing, for example, on Prime Day there was $50 off a set of headphones, The Prime Day price was reduced to $249, yet Amazon sold the same speakers for $169 just three weeks after the event. However, even with these factors going against them Amazon still managed to break all the records with Prime Day 2018.   What does all this mean for Black Friday and Cyber Monday? Amazon is now prioritizing Prime Day over and above Black Friday.  According to a report in Digitalcommerce360.com, Prime Day deals tend to be around 67% lower than those on Black Friday. Of course, Amazon will still take part in the Black Friday and Cyber Monday events, with great discounts on offer.  However,  Prime Day is more important to the company so we are expecting bigger discounts for this event, especially on Amazon devices.   Prime Day: why does it matter more to Amazon? Firstly, Prime Day is Amazon’s own, the name refers to its Prime membership program and the services that are associated with it.  Black Friday is a generic event in which Amazon is only one of many retailers taking part.  It is a lot harder for rivals to involve themselves in an event which is specifically named for, and created by Amazon. Probably the most important difference is the nature of the spending.  Black Friday is money that people were going to spend in the run up to Christmas anyway, the last Friday in November is chosen as a way of concentrating that spend into one day by offering the best deals. Prime Day spending is new spending.  This is not a pre-planned event for purchasing gifts; most purchases are those people buy for themselves.  Not only that the best discounts are for Amazon’s own devices and you need to sign up for Prime membership in order to take part.  When Black Friday comes around Amazon already has a lot of members signed up and ready to spend again at this important retail event. Another great benefit for Amazon is that on Prime Day they didn’t just sell their own devices but that these were connected to other services, each of of these is, in turn, connected to Prime and require a membership bringing regular monthly funding in its own right.