Amazon’s annual shopping event, Amazon Prime Day, will officially kick off at 3AM ET / 12AM PT on Tuesday, July 12th, and run through Wednesday, July 13th, the company announced today. We knew it was going to be July, thanks to a prior earnings call, but now Amazon Prime subscribers know when to set their clocks for.
This year’s Prime Day is a few weeks later than it occurred last year, but it’s maintaining its summer timing, as opposed to during the height of the pandemic in 2020 when Amazon delayed the event until October. And if you’re in the market for toys, tech, home goods, or pretty much anything else, it may be one of the best times to save money outside of the Black Friday / Cyber Monday holiday shopping season. It’s almost a guarantee that we’ll see some of the lowest prices to date on Amazon’s own products, as well as discounts on an assortment of other tech. Early deals start on June 21st, when Amazon will offer up to 55 percent off a range of Amazon devices, including the latest Kindle Paperwhite, the fourth-gen Echo Dot, and a number of other products.
Amazon didn’t provide exact details regarding what will be on offer, but it did say that the 48-hour sale will feature “the lowest prices ever” on select products from Beats, Bose, Sony, iRobot, and a number of other well-known brands. If past years are any indication, however, we can expect many of the deals to take the form of robot vacuums, noise-canceling headphones, and 4K TVs, as well as other types of electronics. Amazon will also be offering a wealth of additional promotions during Prime Day, including free games through Prime Gaming, discounts on services like Amazon Music Unlimited, and more.
Like previous years, Prime Day deals are available to Prime members living in the US as well as a number of other countries, including Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, the UK, Poland, and Sweden. Amazon also says it plans to hold Prime Day events in India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt later this summer.
Despite the positive fanfare surrounding the event, Prime Day is arriving at a turbulent time for the company. Since the massive influx of online shopping during the pandemic and through 2021’s Prime Day and holiday season, there were numerous reports of the awful working conditions facing Amazon’s warehouse workers and delivery drivers. Now, the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) is working to get more warehouses unionized as Amazon continues to see more scrutiny from the New York state government over its treatment of workers.
The harsh reality is that, while Prime Day most certainly will bring about a deluge of deals and discounts, it also increases the workload on warehouse workers and delivery drivers, who have been known to skip breaks to meet quotas. We’ll just have to wait and see if this year is any different, especially with New York inching ever closer to cracking down on Amazon’s production quotas.
Update June 15th, 1:47AM ET: Updated with additional information regarding the specific deals Amazon plans to offer, as well as the various promotions it will be running.
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