Prime Day 2022

Prime Day 2022

Amazon Prime Day Comes Amid Slowdown in Online Sales Growth

Amazon is heading into its annual Prime Day sales event on Tuesday much differently than how it entered the pandemic

Amazon Prime Day Comes Amid Slowdown in Online Sales Growth

Amazon is heading into its annual Prime Day sales event on Tuesday much differently than how it entered the pandemic

Amazon doesn’t disclose total Prime Day sales, though growth estimates for last year’s event had ranged from 7% to 9%. Research firm Insider Intelligence suggests sales could grow even more this year in part because of the event’s mid-July timing, which compared to last year’s June date would allow the company to capture more consumers doing back-to-school shopping

Amazon could use the boost amid a slowdown in overall online sales. Once the darling of the pandemic economy, the company posted a rare quarterly loss in April as well as its slowest rate of revenue growth in nearly two decades — at 7%. Inflation had added roughly $2 billion in costs

Amazon also acknowledged it had too many workers and expects its excess capacity from its massive warehouse expansion during the pandemic to total $10 billion in extra costs for the first half of this year. “It’s causing pain at the moment, and that pain is considerable,” said Neil Saunders, the managing director of GlobalData Retail. It’s quite a reversal from the early days of the pandemic when the e-commerce giant’s profits soared as homebound shoppers turned to online shopping to avoid contracting the coronavirus.

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The demand was so high that Amazon nearly doubled its workforce in the last two years to more than 1.6 million people. It also increased its warehouse capacity to match the avalanche of orders flooding its site. By the end of 2021, Amazon had leased and owned roughly 387.1 million square feet of space for its warehouses and data centers — more than double what it reported in 2019.

Then, the worst of the pandemic eased. Americans felt more comfortable leaving their homes, and demand also slowed across the board. The retail sector’s online sales growth in the U.S., which spiked to 36.4% in 2020, returned to more normal growth in 2021 and 2022, clocking in at 17.8% and 9.4% respectively, according to Insider Intelligence. Retail sales figures for June, due to be released Friday, will shed more light on how e-commerce is faring.

What makes Samsung's "The Frame" smart TV so coveted is its built-in motion sensor that activates your device to display your favorite pieces of art in 4K resolution whenever you enter the room. So, yes, long after you've used the smart TV's voice command to switch off an episode of "Real Housewives," you can enter your living room and see a stunning piece from Renoir -- and we mean stunning. This QLED TV produces 100% color volume in the DCI-P3 color space, which is the format for most cinema screens and HDR movies for television. (Translation: Colors on this TV will be vivid and true to life!)

The Samsung smart TV features 4K AI upscaling, and Samsung's Adaptive Sound+ technology (to automatically adjust the TV's audio).

Amazon has deals right now on certain models of Samsung's 2021 iteration of "The Frame." And the models that aren't marked down are still being offered at prices that are comparable to, if not the same as, previous sales.