Amazon shoppers will reportedly have to wait a few extra months for their midsummer deals.
The e-commerce giant will shift Prime Day, its giant deals event usually held in July, to September, people familiar with the matter tell The Wall Street Journal. The reported shift comes as Amazon attempts to maintain its usual high-speed shipping service and as workers say the company is failing to keep them safe.
The two-day sales event will be postponed because Amazon is still trying to catch up with skyrocketing demand amid the COVID-19 pandemic, sources told the Journal. Amazon will also let nonessential goods resume shipping to warehouses, letting the company "lay the groundwork for shipments of a wider variety of products," the Journal reports.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Amazon's massive catalog relies on thousands of individual sellers, who send their items to Amazon warehouses to allow for speedier shipments. But the company stopped letting sellers of nonessential items restock amid the pandemic, while increased demand on essential products led to slower shipping speeds as well. Sources told the Journal those one- and two-day delivery speeds may not be re-established for months.
Amazon warehouse workers have protested working conditions and a lack of hazard pay, saying not-so-essential items are still going out and requirements for calling out sick, even after potential exposure to the virus, were way too strict. One protesting workers' firing even prompted a vice president at Amazon to quit the company over its "climate of fear."
-
What to know before turning to AI for financial advicethe explainer It can help you crunch the numbers — but it might also pocket your data
-
Book reviews: 'The Headache: The Science of a Most Confounding Affliction—and a Search for Relief' and 'Tonight in Jungleland: The Making of Born to Run'Feature The search for a headache cure and revisiting Springsteen's 'Born to Run' album on its 50th anniversary
-
Keith McNally' 6 favorite books that have ambitious charactersFeature The London-born restaurateur recommends works by Leo Tolstoy, John le Carré, and more
-
New York court tosses Trump's $500M fraud fineSpeed Read A divided appeals court threw out a hefty penalty against President Trump for fraudulently inflating his wealth
-
Trump said to seek government stake in IntelSpeed Read The president and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan reportedly discussed the proposal at a recent meeting
-
US to take 15% cut of AI chip sales to ChinaSpeed Read Nvidia and AMD will pay the Trump administration 15% of their revenue from selling artificial intelligence chips to China
-
NFL gets ESPN stake in deal with DisneySpeed Read The deal gives the NFL a 10% stake in Disney's ESPN sports empire and gives ESPN ownership of NFL Network
-
Samsung to make Tesla chips in $16.5B dealSpeed Read Tesla has signed a deal to get its next-generation chips from Samsung
-
FCC greenlights $8B Paramount-Skydance mergerSpeed Read The Federal Communications Commission will allow Paramount to merge with the Hollywood studio Skydance
-
Tesla reports plummeting profitsSpeed Read The company may soon face more problems with the expiration of federal electric vehicle tax credits
-
Dollar faces historic slump as stocks hit new highSpeed Read While stocks have recovered post-Trump tariffs, the dollar has weakened more than 10% this year
