It's official: Amazon Prime Day is growing to a day and a half.
Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) announced Tuesday that its highly anticipated annual sales event will return on July 16.
The promotion, which advertises steep discounts and special offers to subscribers of the e-commerce giant’s Prime membership service, will begin at 3 pm ET and run for 36 hours through July 17. That is a six-hour bump from last year’s 30-hour Prime Day event.
Prime has more than 100 million members. The online ecommerce giant raised the price 20% in May, to US$119 a year, but nothing it seems can dent the popularity of the program.
“Prime Day 2018 will feature 50% more Spotlight Deals and more than one million deals globally,” the company said in statement.
Members will also enjoy the biggest deals yet on Alexa-enabled products, including Echo, Fire TV, and Fire tablets — and in the run-up to the event members can save US$100 on the Echo Show, which is a screen device outfitted with Amazon's virtual assistant, Alexa and also includes a 5MP front-facing camera so you can make video calls.
“Prime members will enjoy a day (and a half) of our best deals, with 36 hours to shop more than one million deals worldwide,” said Jeff Wilke, Amazon CEO Worldwide Consumer.
Putting the Prime Day stamp on Whole Foods
Amazon's Prime Day deals are reaching into the aisles of Whole Foods to integrate the grocery chain that the ecommerce giant bought last year for US$13.7bn.
Members with an Amazon Prime Rewards Visa card will get 10% cash back on purchases up to US$400 from July 14 to July 17.
Read: Amazon throws down the gauntlet by buying online pharmacy PillPack
Prime members can also taste the savings on the natural and organic products they love in Wholefoods on Prime Day with an additional 10% off hundreds of sale items throughout stores.
“New this year, members can shop exclusive Prime Day Launches from hundreds of brands worldwide, enjoy exclusive savings at Whole Foods Market and experience surprise entertainment events unboxed from giant Smile boxes in major cities,” said Wilke.
This looks set to be the biggest Prime Day yet with not just the US, UK, Europe, Mexico, Japan, China, Canada, India and Singapore getting involved. Amazon Prime Day Australia is finally a thing as Amazon has also launched Prime as a service Down Under, just in time for Prime Day.
Amazon first launched Prime Day on 15 July 2015 in celebration of its 20th birthday.
While Prime Day brings in more revenue for Amazon, it also helps boost its much talked about Prime memberships.
Amazon shares eased 1.16% to US$1,693.96 on Wednesday.