Amazon is hosting its second Prime Day shopping event in a year today in an effort to boost its flagship e-commerce products and reverse declining sales.
The promotion is aimed at attracting new Prime members, as well as cementing the value of Amazon’s existing subscribers around the world, as membership prices have risen more than 40% in some regions this year. Amazon’s sales fell for two consecutive quarters in 2022. That’s a sharp contrast to the explosive growth at the start of the pandemic, when demand hit record highs and sales were up about 40 percent from pre-pandemic levels.
Analysts forecast that the event could add an additional $4.1bn in sales for Amazon in the fourth quarter, which is expected to bring quarterly sales to about $158bn, up 14% from a year earlier.