Amazon is planning to delay its annual, mid-year Prime Day shopping event until August, at the earliest, leaked internal documents have reportedly revealed.
Reuters claims it has obtained notes from an internal meeting, which suggests the e-commerce giant is shelving its usual July bonanza due to ongoing concerns over the coronavirus. The notes reportedly say that Amazon is now facing a $100m loss on devices that it may have to sell at a discount, Reuters writes.
It’s not clear how Amazon would lose money on these devices, considering the company sells everything at a massive discount on Prime Day anyway.
Amazon has held a Prime Day event (usually over 48 hours) every year since 2015, as a means of boosting sales during the typically quiet summer months. No date had been announced for this year’s Prime Day, but last year it took place on July 15.
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If Amazon is unable to hold the event – which is also designed to boost Prime membership numbers because discounts are only available to them – in August then it might only be a delay of 2-3 weeks.
However, the company is probably erring on the side of caution with this prediction and it’s possible Prime Day won’t happen at all, considering the Black Friday sales event will take place at the end of November.
Amazon has already decided to prioritise the delivery of essential goods via Prime, with those seeking regular stuff now waiting up to a month for the delivery of those items. So, meeting Prime Day demand while the pandemic is ongoing would seem impossible.
While this doesn’t appear to matter, in the grand scheme of things, there will be a knock on effect if Prime Day is postponed, or indeed cancelled. A huge number of online portals rely on revenue gleaned from directing shoppers to the best deals, while there are countless seasonal Amazon staff members the company counts on during the Prime Day event.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
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We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
