When Is Amazon Prime Day 2019?

Amazon Prime Day 2019 begins on Monday, July 15, at 3 a.m. ET on the East Coast (midnight on the Pacific Coast, where Amazon is headquartered), when Amazon will start rolling out a bevy of Prime Day deals on all manner of merchandise, including items from Amazon’s Whole Foods supermarket chain. And for the first time, Amazon Prime Day will actually run for two full days this year, stretching through Tuesday, July 16.

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Heck, even pop superstar Taylor Swift is in on the gig. Via Prime Video, members can watch a free live concert on July 10 as a windup to Amazon Prime Day 2019. Swift will be joined by Dua Lipa, SZA, Becky G and host Jane Lynch.

Amazon is stringing out its annual event over 48 hours, expanding from 36 hours in 2018. The rationale is simple: Sales have grown exponentially every year Amazon has staged Prime Day. Global market intelligence firm Numerator projects the percentage of U.S. households purchasing something on Amazon Prime Day will increase to between 20% and 22% (versus 16% in 2018 and 9% in 2016).

In past years, Prime Day been a mashup of Amazon offloading its proprietary gadgets, including Echo personal assistance devices (“Hey, Alexa…”), Kindles and their ilk, plus a flea-market array of baubles, gewgaws and bric-a-brac. Naysayers note Prime Day is Amazon’s version of a summer garage sale, unloading a lot of silly and unsold inventory along with the occasional treasure.

Some of the deals on tap for Amazon Prime Day 2019 include:

• Toshiba Fire TV edition high-def 43-inch TV at $179.99, down from $299.99. It has Amazon’s proprietary Fire TV built in.
• A ChefMan Turbofry healthy oil air fryer for $79.99.
• Kygo Life Bluetooth headphones for $229.
• The Proscenic M7 robot vacuum cleaner that works with Alexa for $459.99.
• Vital Proteins Blackberry Blast collagen powder for $36.
• Inglourious Basterds 10th anniversary gift set for $19.98
• Rent Jordan Peele’s Us and other movies for $2.99, a $3 discount.
• Hankering for your Amazon Prime deliveries to be stowed in your garage? Get a Chamberlain myQ smart garage door opener and Amazon Cloud Cam for $100, half price. It pairs with Key for Amazon so the delivery person can stow the package in your garage.

Many Prime Day items are already listed on Amazon.com and some can be preordered by those of us who spend $119 a year for a membership that includes these many Amazon Prime perks. Nonmembers can sign up for a 30-day trial and tap the sales on Amazon Prime Day 2019 as well.

But Amazon also has a target on its back. Target stores are bulking up sales aimed directly at Prime Day, with the big retailer noting shoppers can pick up online orders at Target stores – no waiting for boxes to arrive and no annual membership fee. Target is hoping to at least repeat what happened last year on Amazon Prime Day, when its one-day summer sale that coincided with Prime Day was one of its best online shopping days of the year, says Mark Tritton, Target’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer.

EBay is also taking aim at Prime Day, introducing its Crash Sale on July 15. There will be brand deals and free shipping from EBay on that day, and if Amazon’s website crashes on Prime Day, EBay says it will add even more deals.

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As for Amazon itself, the retail giant “may see a spike in purchases via voice-controlled devices,” notes Erin Jordan, retail technology practice area lead and partner at Walker Sands, a public relations firm that just released its Future of Retail report. “Amazon says the ‘biggest Prime Day deals ever’ will be found on Alexa-enabled devices. This may be a smart strategy – [our] report found two out of five consumers with a voice device (42%) have made a purchase with it in the past year, indicating an increasing comfort among those with devices. For consumers ages 26-35 that number is as high as 53%.”

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