What’s in this article:
- Amazon Prime Day has finally been announced for 2021: June 21-22
- Here’s what other brands can learn from the tech giant about this day, as well as attracting and retaining new customers
Amazon Prime Day has become a holiday-like annual marketing event that keeps people guessing where on the calendar it will land. This year, it’s back in the summer season (in the northern hemisphere.)
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In 2020, Amazon shifted its Prime Day from its usual summertime slot to October. As we saw in The Prime Directive for October, the date set for the mega-sale events that prompt a host of retailers to offer their own promotions was delayed to October 13-14.
Due to the huge demand for online orders during the height of the pandemic, Amazon decided it was better to give sellers more time to gear up for such an event. The October date also made it appropriate to position the sale as a signal for a holiday shopping season stretched out to an earlier starting point.
But for 2021, we’re shifting back into normal patterns when summer bargain hunting becomes an end in itself. Yet, Amazon does like to keep people guessing about the actual date of Prime Days, which has shifted in length, just as it shifted in duration.
The first Amazon Prime Day took place on July 15, 2015, as a special day-long sale to mark Amazon’s 20th anniversary. The volume of sales on that date eclipsed the sales of the previous Black Friday, which had been the biggest to date.
Because it was so popular, Amazon decided not just to bring it back each year but keep it growing. The 2018 Prime “Day” sale extended to 36 hours, and in 2019 it grew to a full two days, a length it will retain for 2021.