*By Jacqueline Corba*
Amazon made [company history](http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2358868) in its biggest shopping holiday yet: during the fourth annual "Prime Day," the company lured more Prime members on a single day than ever before. So it's officialーPrime #FOMO is real.
Forrester Retail Analyst Sucharita Kodali said Amazon ー now valued at nearly $900 billion ー has a simple value proposition: "It's a good enough solution at a very attractive price," Kodali told Cheddar on Wednesday.
Amazon's discount day launched in 2015 and has since expanded to span 36 hours across 17 countries. In total, Prime members purchased 100 million products during the holiday this year.
Other retailers, eager to compete, are adopting the company's methods and creating their own shopping holidays.
Zulily, for example, will kick off its "Thrill Week" on July 23, featuring a scavenger hunt for consumers to find deals and steals.
"What we want to do is give them a 'Zulily on steroids' type experience, where every single day there's a treasure hunt on the site," Zulily Vice President of Brand Marketing Naama Bloom told Cheddar on Wednesday. "It's really about providing a fun, exciting, and entertaining shopping experience."
Even if Bloom isn't concerned, smaller companies may have cause to worry.
According to [Adobe Analytics data](https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/18/prime-day-boosted-other-large-retailers-sales-by-54-says-report/), large retailers with more than $1 billion in annual revenue saw a 54 percent increase in sales, while smaller niche retailers saw an 18 percent decrease in sales on Prime Day.
"The challenge for a lot of these brands is that if consumers want the brand, consumers are often agnostic for where the transaction happens," said Forrester's Kodali. "More of them, I expect, are going to choose to just have their best products available only direct-to-consumer, because that's where the margins are the biggest."
"Ultimately the question for Amazon is, how do you provide enough value to the brands so that you don't scare them away."
For the full segment, [click here.](https://cheddar.com/videos/amazon-wins-big-on-prime-day)
An independent watchdog within the IRS reports that while taxpayer services have vastly improved, the agency is still too slow to resolve identity theft cases. And National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins says those delays are “unconscionable.” Erin M. Collins said in the report released Wednesday that overall the 2024 filing season went smoothly, though IRS delays in resolving identity theft victim assistance cases are worsening. It took nearly 19 months to resolve self-reported identity theft cases as of January, and Wednesday's report states that now it takes 22 months to resolve these cases.
Amazon.com Inc. surpassed $2 trillion in market value for the first time in afternoon trading on Wednesday. The push higher for Amazon’s stock market valuation comes a little more than a week after Nvidia hit $3 trillion and briefly became the most valuable company on Wall Street. Nvidia’s chips are used to power many AI application and its valuation has soared as a result. Amazon has also been making big investments in AI as global interest has grown in the technology. Most of the company’s focus has been on business-focused products.
Climate change doesn’t just mean more extreme weather – it also leads to billions of dollars in lost productivity, tourism, and stresses infrastructure.
It’s an annual tradition: the Fed’s banking ‘stress test.’ A year after the regional banking crisis, there are good reasons to make sure they’re prepped.
Summer is upon us, which means weddings, trips overseas, and trips to see Taylor Swift. Avoid a “Cruel Summer” with these budget-friendly tips and tricks.
While Nvidia's meteoric rise led it to briefly dethrone Microsoft as the world's biggest public company, there's a lot more going on in this market than A.I.
