With the holiday season quickly approaching, savvy shoppers look for the best deals possible. Every Thanksgiving, shoppers wait in anticipation for a weekend full of frantic purchasing during Black Friday and the following Cyber Monday. This year, many online stores have opened their “doors” early to let people start shopping before the rush. Stores are also using incentive marketing to draw attention to their products during the busy shopping season. Incentive marketing is when companies use motivational items, such as promotional prices, to encourage consumers to purchase their product. This year, Amazon has taken advantage of incentive marketing by releasing a special ‘Prime Early Access Deal’ to members with Amazon Prime accounts.
Earlier this month, Amazon started allowing their Prime members to access select lightning deals before any other shoppers. Lightning deals are special discounts that are only offered for a limited amount of time. This gives every Prime member a jump-start on saving money and it gives non-Prime members another reason to create an account. Some other benefits of Amazon Prime include, free 2-day shipping, access to thousands of free movies and tv shows, access to more than 1,000,000 free Prime Music selections, and now early access to select lightning deals. The first 30 days of a Prime membership is free and then after that it’s just $99 per year. New lightning deals are being posted every day, but they appear to be getting better and better as Thanksgiving approaches.
Prime members also have access to early shopping at MyHabit.com, which was founded by Amazon.com. MyHabit.com is a free, members only, online fashion website where you can earn up to 60% off on designer clothes. While this website is known for their good deals year round, they are offering even more deals through the end of Thanksgiving weekend. On a daily basis, deals are posted on MyHabit.com at 9am, but now, Amazon Prime members can access these bargains early, starting at 8:30am.
By using incentives during the holiday season, Amazon will gain new members that will stay loyal for the rest of the year. People will see that signing up for Amazon Prime has added benefits and they won’t want to miss out. Some of these new members will choose to keep their membership, while others will simply forget to cancel it after the free 30-day trial period ends. Either way, Amazon will have added many new Prime members after this holiday season. So whether you become a member for the holiday lightning deals or for the year-long benefits, Amazon has successfully found a way to reel in new members through their incentive marketing strategy.
– Hannah Rodgers
IMC Hawks Blog 
I really enjoyed that you are discussing holiday shopping by relating it to something that people use year round. I am a prime account holder and I was not aware of these deals being offered by Amazon this holiday season. So i think it this post is more then fitting given the time of year and the amount of people that are prime users year round.
This was an interesting article. I have seen a surplus of Walmart commercials lately, however, they have not made me want to shop there. I believe that if you are on the fence about a brand such as Walmart, then a commercial like this, may convince you. I, however, am not a fan of the Walmart brand. My allegiance is to Target and it will remain that way, regardless of Walmart’s advertising. I believe that stores this season have no choice but to offer better and longer lasting deals to keep up with their competitors. With so many stores opening early on Thanksgiving, other stores feel the need to keep up and consumers get the impression that everywhere is opening early. They feel like they have to shop on Thanksgiving day, because everyone else it, and they will steal all the good deals.
Hannah,
I am Prime this Holiday Season! 🙂 I absolutely love Amazon Prime! I love their two day free shipping and special deals. It makes purchasing something a little more fun! I used Amazon Prime last Christmas and I’ll be using it again this Christmas. I like how you touched on their special deals. I didn’t know it was called “lightening deals.” That’s kind of cool to learn. I also had no idea about http://www.myhabit.com! What a great website! I can’t wait to start using that! Great blog post! It was very infomative!
I think what’s so great about incentive marketing is that not only does it give special deals to those savvy shoppers but it also makes these consumers feel special. The brands know that by creating a relationship with their customers that they will strengthen that consumer loyalty while also appealing to new customers. Personally I signed up for a similar website called JustFab. This site offers better deals to its members than they do to the general public. They also gave me a credit just for signing up. I also have the option to skip a month so I don’t get penalized for not purchasing, but I can keep my membership even when it is not the most convenient.