Update: May 21, 2020: A new report from The Wall Street Journal claims Amazon Prime Day 2020 will now happen sometime in September. Moving the date two months from its normal July time frame will give Amazon time to set up a system that will allow it to ship a larger variety of products than it currently does, due to the current COVID-19 outbreak. Amazon has not confirmed any Prime Day delay, but it seems likely to do so.
If Amazon Prime Day 2020 does happen in September, it will occur much closer to the traditional holiday shopping season. It will be interesting to see how the retailer markets the shopping event if it pushes back the date to this time frame.
Original story: April 3, 2020: Amazon will likely delay this year’s Prime Day event for at least a month. According to Reuters, Amazon will make this decision in response to the current coronavirus pandemic, postponing the event until August.
The company’s summer shopping sale traditionally takes place in mid-July, but delaying Prime Day will likely lead to massive profit loss. The company expects this decision to cost it $100 million since it will probably have to sell an extra five million devices at discounted prices.
Read also: The best Amazon Prime shows you can stream right now
Last year’s Amazon Prime Day sales eclipsed 2018’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales combined. It also led to the two biggest days for Amazon Prime membership sign-ups in the company’s history.
Unfortunately, this Prime Day delay wouldn’t only affect Amazon. Third-party merchants are expected to take a hit too, which pulled in $2 billion in sales during 2019’s Prime Day.
This would be the first time we’ve seen Amazon delay Prime Day since its inception in 2015. The company has yet to make an official announcement and declined to comment when approached by Reuters.
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