China to enjoy world's longest Amazon Prime Day

Chinese consumers will enjoy 52 hours of Amazon Prime Day, the online retail giant's annual shopping event for its Prime members, and purchase discounted overseas products from the Amazon Global Store, which covers top destinations among Chinese customers for cross-border shopping, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan and Germany.

Prime Day, which includes exclusive and special-edition products that are available just for Prime members, will start at 11 am on July 16 and end at 3 pm on July 18 in China, the longest Prime Day among the 17 countries around the world that join the event.

At present, the total number of Amazon Prime members worldwide has reached over 100 million. Amazon is touting deals across categories, like baby products, toys, fashion, kitchenware, cosmetics, beauty and home appliance products.

Gu Fan, vice-president of Amazon China, said the number of orders during last year's Prime Day in China has surpassed those placed during Amazon's Black Friday in 2016. "The discounted items during this year's Prime Day are 15 times as many as those offered last year, and the paid membership service will be a trend for online retailers when competition in the e-commerce sector has intensified," Gu said.

In October 2016, Amazon launched Amazon Prime service in China, the first global membership program with unlimited free cross-border shipping.

Jamil Ghani, vice-president of Amazon, who is in charge of Prime's international business, said in an earlier interview with China Daily that subscribers to Amazon Prime service in China increased more than threefold, year-on-year, in 2017.

He is bullish on the prospects of the service in China, adding that China has become one of the fastest growing countries in Amazon's membership business.

In April, Amazon launched Prime Reading, the first entertainment benefit for Prime members in China. Prime members can now enjoy unlimited reading, at no additional cost, from a rotating selection of over 500 Kindle titles.

Gu added the company will bring entertainment benefits and digital content to Prime members in China in the future.