While brands such as Walmart, Office Depot and Overstock already have opened the floodgates of early “Black Friday” sales, Amazon has extended its deal offers to nearly a month on either side of the actual day. The e-Commerce giant launched its “Countdown to Black Friday” sales event Nov. 1, with plans to update the site with new deals as often as every five minutes from now through Dec. 22.
The trend toward offering earlier promotional deals is one e-Commerce retailers are beginning to flock to as more consumers opt for earlier holiday shopping. Up to 41% of shoppers begin their holiday shopping in October or earlier, and the same percentage starts in November, according to a recent survey from the National Retail Federation. This means brands have already had to show more initiative in getting out in front of shoppers.
Although Black Friday takes place on Nov. 25, there appears be a decreasing consumer focus on traveling to stores and spending there during the actual day, further contributing to an emphasis on online (and mobile) deals in the weeks prior.
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As part of its holiday promotion strategies, Amazon also opened up “holiday gift guides” to educate consumers about the gifts they can purchase, including the Electronics Gift Guide, Home Gift Guide and gift guide for its Handmade section of handcrafted goods.
Amazon Prime members are also eligible for additional deals, such as a 20% discount on pre-order and new release video games, and two-day shipping on more than 30 million items. These subscribers also can use Alexa voice shopping if they have a device such as the Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, Amazon Tap, Amazon Fire TV, or Fire tablet.
Users of the Amazon mobile app will even have perks of their own this holiday season. Starting Nov. 15, customers who own an iPhone can use the Package X-Ray feature to see what’s in a box that has been delivered, without opening it and spoiling the surprise. Customers scan the barcode using the camera icon within the mobile app, and the items that are inside the box will pop up on their screen.
Shoppers can now use the camera icon to search for almost anything that is listed on Amazon. For example, if the users point the camera at a pair of boots, the app will pull up a list of similar items.
