Amazon’s Prime Day Steals Rivals’ Black Friday Spotlight
- Covid-wary shoppers will flock online to avoid crowded malls
- Christmas spending creeps before Halloween with early shopping
Amazon.com Inc.’s two-day Prime Day sale kicked off on Tuesday and is expected to give the world’s largest e-commerce company an early advantage over brick-and-mortar rivals still contending with pandemic-spooked consumers wary of battling Black Friday crowds.
With Prime Day delayed to October from July this year, Amazon single-handedly could yank the pivotal holiday season forward -- a long-predicted “Christmas creep.” More than three in four consumers plan to shop earlier this year than a year ago, with a third citing health and safety concerns, according to an International Council of Shopping Centers survey released Friday. Meanwhile a Harris Poll conducted with Bloomberg found that almost half of consumers plan to do most or all of their shopping on the web.