Inside the Growth of Amazon Prime Day

Amazon Prime Day officially outgrew its name in 2018 when the site-wide discount initiative extended to 36 hours. The retailer pushed the boundary even further this year with a 48-hour offering to its Prime members.

Deals on everything from electronics to kitchenware and everything in between are offered exclusively for Amazon Prime members, who pay $119 per year for free shipping and additional perks.

Five Years of Deals

Prime Day, which started in 2015, is the company’s largest sales initiative of the year behind Cyber Monday.

Amazon announced in April 2018 that there were more than 100 million Prime members worldwide. It has not announced its current membership total. The savings extravaganza will take place in 18 different countries this year.

Employees In Prime Time

The two-day event ended at midnight across the U.S. on Tuesday, July 16. Some experts estimate Amazon will generate more than $5 billion in total revenue through the discount offers. Because the discounts are only available to Prime members, the event is also a boon to enrollment in the subscription service.

While Amazon fulfillment centers will be busy with orders, but there are still concerns at the company. Employee strikes have taken place Monday and Tuesday over working conditions and expectations.

One initiative Amazon is undergoing to improve worker morale and better position the company going forward is a six-year retraining program. The $700 million investment will help prepare its existing employees for more technologically-driven jobs of the future.

“There’s also a question of when they make an investment in their existing workers, if that makes these workers much more valuable to other firms,” University of Washington Associate Professor of Economics Rachel Heath said. “So, it’s a bit of a gamble for these firms to train workers, where there’s no guarantee that they’ll then stay with the company.”

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