Subscriptions to Amazon Prime have been slowing down in the lead-up to Prime Day 2019, which is typically Amazon’s biggest shopping day of the year, according to a report by Fortune.
At the end of last month, there was a total of 105 million Prime members in the U.S., which is up 11 percent from the 95 million just a year earlier. However, growth was much more vibrant in 2016 and 2017, when membership grew 43 percent and 37 percent, respectively, according to market research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP). The study was based on 500 people who bought products from the company between April and June.
Prime Day starts on Monday and will run for two days. The company has promised discounts on millions of products.
For people to be eligible for Prime, they have to pay the annual $119 membership fee. The company has about 105 million subscribers, but that only covers about 57 percent of all Amazon shoppers. The rest, about 80 million, won’t qualify for Prime Day discounts unless they sign up.
CIRP co-founder Michael Levin said that people usually sign up for Prime leading up to Prime Day, but that hasn’t been the case this year. He said that part of the reason is that Amazon is advertising large deals instead of focusing on specific categories.
“Other Prime Day events served to encourage new products, most notably Amazon Echo and the entire family of smart speaker accessories,” Levin said. “This time, it looks a little more like a conventional retail promotion.”
Amazon is banking on a record number of orders during the promotion. Customers ordered over 100 million products last year, which made it Amazon’s largest shopping day ever. If this year doesn’t surpass that mark, it will likely be viewed as a failure.
Many other companies have plans to hold their own sales to piggyback on Amazon’s event.
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