Amazon Creates Prime Day, Its Own Global Selling Holiday

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Move over, Black Friday. Here comes Prime Day. Amazon has created its own selling holiday.

[RELATED: Why Prime Day Makes Perfect Sense for Amazon]

On the eve of its 20th birthday, July 15, Amazon will launch Prime Day, a global shopping event, with more deals than Black Friday, exclusively for Prime members. Amazon said in a press release that it will offer more deals on Prime Day than it does on Black Friday, exclusively for Prime members in the U.S., U.K., Spain, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, Canada and Austria.

“Prime Day is a one-day only event filled with more deals than Black Friday, exclusively for Prime members around the globe. Members tell us every day how much they love Prime and we will keep making it better,” said Greg Greeley, Vice President Amazon Prime.

While not unheard of globally, Prime Day appears to be the first self-created selling holiday launched by a U.S.-based web merchant. Selling holidays have shown to be successful in China: Alibaba’s Singles Day (November 11) in China brought that marketplace $9.3 billion in one-day sales. And last month, JD.com announced record-breaking one-day results from its June 18 JD.com Anniversary Sale.

#PrimeLiving Photo Contest

As part of its Prime Day promotion, Amazon also invites members to experience Prime Photos, one of the latest benefits and enter for a chance to win a $10,000 Amazon Gift Card in each Prime-eligible country, by participating in the #PrimeLiving Photo Contest. Members simply sign into Prime Photos by July 15 to submit a photo on the contest page amazon.com/primeliving. Photos will be selected and featured daily on Amazon’s social channels leading up to Prime Day. One winner will be selected in each country based on the image that most creatively captures a happy moment of #PrimeLiving. Winners will also be invited to have their photos become screen savers on Amazon Fire TV.

Celebrating Prime Day

To launch the photo contest and celebrate Prime Day, local artists were commissioned in Prime-eligible countries, with locations ranging from Toronto to Milan to Seattle to Berlin, to create their interpretations of #PrimeLiving. These artists fully immersed themselves in Prime and then created public art that could be enjoyed locally as well as used by customers as inspiration for the #PrimeLiving Photo Contest.