Primed for Prime Day, Amazon@10 goes from 100 product launches to 45,000

E-commerce major Amazon will host Prime Day — its annual sale event — in India on July 15-16.

The company will launch over 45,000 products from over 400 Indian and global brands.

The announcement of the Prime Day event in India comes at a time when 900 workers at Amazon UK plan to strike for three days (July 11-13).

The e-commerce giant kicks off its flagship sales in the UK on July 11-12.

This year, Prime Day for Amazon is special as it completes a decade in the country.

“In India, we started Prime Day in 2017 with 100 product launches.

"This year, we will have over 45,000 such launches. The event has resonated with customers as well as sellers and brands,” says Akshay Sahi, director-Prime and delivery experience, Amazon India.

In 2022, the company launched 30,000 products.

Some of the global brands that will participate include the likes of OnePlus, iQOO, Realme Narzo, Samsung, Hopscotch, American Tourister, Maybelline, Tata, and Nestlé.

The two-day event will see products launched across categories like electronics, fashion and beauty, groceries, Amazon devices, and home and kitchen at discounted rates.

“Last year, 126,000 sellers participated in Prime Day, while 33,000 of them recorded their highest-ever sales during the event.

"That brought a new focus into Prime Day for us,” says Sahi, adding, “In the lead-up to every Prime Day, we see an uptick in our Prime memberships.

"Our sales run rate for these memberships increased 1.5fold last year.”

Although Prime Day has been a much-awaited event among Indian online shoppers, last year’s sales were marred by delays in delivery.

This year, the company is claiming that customers will enjoy its fastest speeds ever in India.

Prime members ordering from 25 cities will be able to enjoy same-day or next-day delivery of their orders.

These include Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi, Faridabad, Gandhi Nagar, Guntur, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kochi, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, Noida, Patna, Pune, Thane, Thiruvananthapuram, Vijayawada, and Visakhapatnam.

Prime members shopping from most tier II cities will have their Prime Day delivery within 24-48 hours, says the company.

Amazon Prime is a subscription membership that offers premium services to its customers. In India, Prime members get free one-day delivery on over 4,000,000 products and unlimited 5 per cent cashback on all purchases using their co-branded ICICI Bank credit card, among other benefits.

Although Sahi did not reveal the total number of Prime members in India, Amazon’s global Prime memberships crossed 200 million after last year’s event.

The company expects memberships to increase this year as well.

This Prime Day, over 2,000 of the new products will be from small and midsize businesses (SMBs), says Sahi.

The SMBs will launch these products under Amazon programmes like Launchpad, Karigar, Saheli, and local shops with discounts of up to 70 per cent on home and kitchen, up to 60 per cent on fashion and accessories, up to 50 per cent on food and health care, up to 70 per cent on electronics.