Amazon Prime Day May Be Delayed This Year Over Coronavirus Pandemic
Amazon may be forced to delay its Prime Day event this year over the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which has caused a massive uptick in orders through its service. The company went on a hiring spree to keep up with the demand last month, also temporarily increasing pay rates for both warehouse workers and grocery packers. Amid all of that, the company had to pause its Prime Pantry service due to an overwhelming number of orders.
According to Reuters, Amazon is planning to postpone the Prime Day shopping event until August at the earliest, at least based on leaked internal documents. Delaying the retail event will impact the company itself, as well as third-party merchants, and leave Amazon with around 5 million extra products that were earmarked for sale during Prime Day sales, the report claims.
The Prime Day event lasted for two days in 2019 and took place in July. During this time, Amazon slashed prices across its service, offering discounts on a huge number of products while heavily promoting the event. Things are different this year, however, as Amazon struggles to keep up with the demand for its Prime service amid stay-home orders and widespread quarantining efforts.
Many consumers are turning to online delivery in order to avoid trips to physical stores, a number of which are now limiting how many people are allowed inside at one time. The demand for grocery delivery has strained an industry that was still largely working out the logistics of this aspect of the business, leaving many scrambling to fulfill orders in a timely manner.
Amazon hasn't commented on the Prime Day leak, which also allegedly notes that Amazon's on-demand video business is raking in far more revenue than had been expected due to the number of people who are staying home and watching more content than usual. Ultimately, the leaked documents allegedly reveal that Amazon anticipates around a $100 million hit as the result of these pandemic-related Prime Day changes.