Amazon Prime Day 2018 begins July 16 & will run an extra 6 hours

Amazon’s 2018 Prime Day — the once-a-year event where Amazon offers exclusive deals to its Prime members — will kick off at 12:00 p.m. PT on Monday, July 16, and last for 36 hours, through the end of the day July 17. This year, the ecommerce giant is adding another six hours to the event after extending it from 24 to 30 hours last year.

In past years, Amazon’s Prime Day has proven to be a revenue driver for many small and medium-sized businesses that take part in the event. The company reported last year that thousands of SMBs on Amazon each  generated over $50,000 during the 30-hour event — and that more than 20,000 SMBs earned over $1 million on Amazon in 2017.

Along with the extra six hours, Amazon Prime Day is extending to four new countries this year: Australia, Singapore, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. A total of 17 countries now have access to Prime Day. And, with the company’s acquisition of Whole Foods in June of last year, Prime Day deals will also include Whole Foods-related shopping perks, bringing the online event into the brick and mortar realm.

“Prime members will also save big, from earning $10 to spend on Amazon for Prime Day when they spend $10 at Whole Foods Market, to 10 percent back when shopping Whole Foods Market using their Amazon Prime Rewards Visa card,” says Amazon Prime vice president Cem Sibay.

This is the fourth annual Prime Day event. According to reports from last year, Amazon’s 2017 Prime Day was the company’s biggest sales day ever — growing more than 60 percent over the previous year’s results and bringing in more new Prime members than in any other single 24-hour period in Amazon’s history.

Amazon has never shared its actual sales figures for Prime Day, but the company did disclose, during an April shareholder meeting, that it now has more than 100 million Prime members.

Among the “more than one million deals worldwide” Amazon is promoting this year, the company says Prime members will have access to Prime Day Launches, including a voice-activated faucet from Delta (“the first Alexa-enabled kitchen faucet”). As usual, Prime Day sales items will include products from private labels, SMBs and big brands alike.