Amazon to focus on small towns this year with three-day Prime Day sale
Amazon India will extend its flagship Prime Day sale to three days in July with a deeper focus on small towns and cities, a top executive said, underscoring the importance of sale events for e-commerce platforms when the industry is facing slowing growth.
Prime Day will be held on 12-14. Prime members will get earlier access to new product launches across categories, including consumer electronics, groceries and essentials, and furniture and home improvement items.
'India is a country that has multiple-day events and sales events. We realized that every time we would finish Prime Day, there was always feedback from customers saying that they missed buying one thing or another. We also got great interest from brands and sellers on the platform,' said Akshay Sahi, director, Prime, delivery and returns, India and emerging markets, in an interview.
Despite touching nearly $60 billion in 2024, India's e-commerce market growth slowed to 10-12% during the year from over 20% seen historically, due to macroeconomic and consumption stress, showed a March 2025 report by Flipkart and Bain & Co.
According to the report, consumption growth in the country has declined from 11% in the pre-covid period (2017-19) to about 8% post-COVID (2022–24) due to inflationary pressure and stagnating real wages.
As a result, sales have become critical for e-commerce companies to drive revenue and increase purchase frequencies throughout the year.
The Indian arm of the global e-commerce giant will introduce a greater number of deals this year across products with additional discounts and no-cost EMI payment options for select credit and debit cardholders.
These deals are likely to increase traction in smaller towns, putting Amazon head-to-head with the likes of SoftBank-backed Meesho and Walmart-owned Flipkart.
Flipkart holds the pole position in e-commerce with a 48% market share, while Meesho is the country's fastest-growing e-retailer in terms of user base, according to January 2024 estimates by AllianceBernstein. Amazon lagged with a 13% growth in its user base, attributed to its relatively premium offerings compared to peers.
Prime subscribers from outside metro cities are growing every year, with sales events like Prime Day showing accelerated adoption, said Amazon's Sahi. 'We're seeing every year that Prime is no longer a metro phenomenon. Customers from smaller towns are increasingly enjoying Prime's offerings, and adoption is accelerated during sale events. Today, Prime members are shopping from 98% of PIN codes in India.'
Amazon introduced Prime in India in 2016, offering one-day and two-day deliveries, for ₹ 499 per year. Today, the membership costs ₹ 1,499 for a year and ₹ 299 for a month. The company is also doubling down on its tiered membership plans—Prime Lite ( ₹ 799 for 12 months) and Prime Shopping Edition ( ₹ 399 for 12 months) to capture a larger consumer base, Sahi said.
'Over the last year, we have tried to really push Prime to be more accessible to customers from all socio-economic classes. The tiered plans are a step towards that.'
Prime Day offers will include discounted prices on flight and hotel bookings as well as new shows and movies on Prime Video.
Amazon is also investing heavily in speeding up its delivery windows as it looks to catch up with quick-commerce turnaround times and compete with rivals like Flipkart, which has surged ahead in recent months.
Last week, the company announced that it would earmark ₹ 2,000 crore ($233 million) to strengthen its pan-India operations, including upgrading delivery infrastructure, improving safety and well-being programmes for delivery associates, and developing new tools and technologies for its fulfilment network.
'This allows us to build fulfilment centres and delivery stations closer to customers, and have great technology that allows us to place products and move products faster. At the same time, make life a lot easier for our sellers, delivery associates, and mid-mile operators who are helping us deliver everything fast and reliably to our customers,' Sahi said.
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