Amazon Prime Day inspires rival retailers to offer discounts

Wednesday, July 15, 2015 - 13:01 by Graham Miller

July 15th 2015 shall be remembered as Amazon Prime Day, a 24 hour period of major discounts, offered by one of the UK’s biggest providers of safe shopping online. And perhaps unsurprisingly, this widely advertised event has inspired competing companies to set up their own short term offers, to steal some of Amazon’s thunder, according to the Independent.

The biggest threat to the success of Prime Day comes in the form of US retailer, Walmart’s bid, to outdo it in terms of deals. And although it will be offering discounts only to customers in the US, its actions could have international repercussions.

While Amazon operates solely online, Walmart has a huge chain of stores across America, as well as being the owner of Asda in the UK.

What sets Walmart’s day of deals apart from Amazon is that it will not be offering them only to subscribers, but to any customers.

Meanwhile, those who want to take advantage of Amazon’s bargains will need to have signed up to its Prime delivery service, at a cost of £79 a year.

Amazon’s global reach will mean it is offering lower prices to a larger audience than Walmart, but other copycats are expected to jump on the bandwagon and Prime Day could, ultimately, become an annual event that spreads beyond the company that founded it.

The risk for Amazon’s rivals is that the day will, of course, draw attention to the anniversary of its foundation. But the battle for customer loyalty is difficult in the age of the internet and so getting any kind of attention will be preferable rather than simply allowing the best known e-commerce brand in the world to hog the limelight.

UK shoppers should look out for Amazon’s offers today and also see what its rivals are doing to increase the pressure.