Amazon Prime Day (and a Half) Will Be the Biggest One Yet
*By Max Godnick*
This year, Amazon's Prime Day is really more of a day and a half.
The thirty-six hour global shopping spree is the longest promotion in the event's four year history. While everything from light bulbs to luggage will be on sale, the made-up holiday is meant to drive shoppers to Amazon's own lines of products and devices.
"It's a really ingenious supervillain-type of idea by Jeff Bezos," said Matt Swider, the senior mobile and buying guides editor at TechRadar, in an interview with Cheddar on Thursday.
Prime Day's best deals have always centered around the company's own offerings such as the Echo, Kindle, and Fire suites. Swider says he expects the prices of those items to hit all-time lows when the event starts on July 16th.
"It's almost like the GoPros and the Playstations and the XBoxes are there to tempt you to the site, and then you'll buy Amazon products" he said.
This year, Amazon will extend the Prime Day deals to its brick-and-mortar Whole Foods and Amazon Go operations, bringing the day of savings into the real world for the first time ever.
Prime Day is Amazon's answer to the biggest shopping days of the holiday season: Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Swider said the company picked July because it's in a relatively quiet period in the national cycle of holidays and pop-culture events. While it hasn't quite lived up to the standards set by the end-of-the-year shopping rush, Prime Day fills a niche all its own: affordable home goods.
"It can't compare if you're looking for a Black Friday or a Cyber Monday," cautioned Swider. "If you're looking to pick up an item or two that you've been putting off, this is the time to buy it."
For the full segment, [click here.](https://cheddar.com/videos/everything-you-need-to-know-about-amazons-biggest-prime-day-yet)
Thomas Hayes, Chairman at Great Hill Capital, joined Wake Up With Cheddar to break down what to look for on the economic front in the coming months amid an Omicron surge and planned interest rate hikes.
Stocks closed lower Tuesday with investors initiating a broad sell-off, leading the Dow to have its worst day of 2022 so far as it had its biggest decline since November. Investors are eyeing treasury yields, which have surged to pre-pandemic highs, as well as looking ahead to the Federal Reserve's path forward when it comes to raising interest rates. Meanwhile, as earnings season kicks off, Goldman Sachs shares are under pressure after a lackluster earnings report. Goldman is weighing on bank stocks as a whole. Jeff Buchbinder, Equity Strategist for LPL Financial, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss today's close, why treasury yields are ticking higher toward pre-pandemic levels, big bank earnings reports, and more.
Mike McGlone, Senior Commodity Strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he says he believes we'll eventually see Bitcoin reach the $100,000 mark despite its recent struggles, and explains why Bitcoin will be less volatile than the Nasdaq.
Food waste is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Strella Biotechnology is trying to solve the problem by introducing new technology to a business that's been around for generations -- farming. The 24-year-old CEO created hi-tech sensors that interpret the shelf life of produce and alert farmers when fruits and vegetables are ready to be sent to supermarkets. The company says the process can help farmers make money, reduce food waste and increase the quality of produce. Strella Biotechnology's co-founder and CEO Katherine Sizov and co-founder and COO Jay Jordan joined Cheddar Climate to discuss.
Adele Shraiman, Campaign Representative for the Sierra Club’s Fossil Free Finance Campaign, joins Cheddar Climate, where she explains how Wall Street and climate change are related. She also elaborates on how decisions made by financial institutions are actually hurting the ability to reduce carbon emissions.
Hugh Odom, founder and president of Vertical Consultants, shared his expertise on telecommunications with Cheddar on the safety issue raised about 5G deployment by airlines. The installation was partially delayed again on Tuesday as the airlines warned of potentially catastrophic delays in a letter to the Biden administration. Later, both Verizon and AT&T relented and put a pause on some of the implementations. "The first thing the Biden administration needs to do is get everybody in the room and say, look, aviation industry, identify the problem — wireless industry, come up with a solution," said Odom.
