It used to be that if you wanted to save money, all you had to do was stay home for a few weeks until your bank account had been replenished.
It was easy, or at least easier, to avoid the spending temptations that awaited outside. Tasty restaurant meals, movie tickets, shopping malls, and impulse purchases: Most of those things existed outside the realm of our comfy confines.
Nowadays, saving money is much harder, even if you commit to going full hobbit mode for a few weeks.
That's because the introduction — and now omnipresence — of at-home services like meal delivery, fast goods delivery, streaming services and more make it terribly hard to stave off spending. Making it yet harder is that many of these services bake in recurring monthly or annual subscriptions just for the privilege of spending with them.
This trend accelerated during a months-long stay-at-home order following the onset of covid just four years ago. And while the virus has receded, spending big on delivery services has increased.
One need only stroll through a neighborhood to see who some of the biggest players are. Brown cardboard boxes likely grace the doorsteps of some — if not most — households. And many of those boxes are likely orders fulfilled and delivered by Amazon (AMZN) .
Amazon makes spending (and saving) easier
Amazon offers more than 12 million SKUs (or stock-keeping units, the industry term for unique products or inventory items) on its vast and colorful storefront, and the company's growth has ballooned since the early 2020s.
For fiscal 2019 revenue was $280.5 billion. In 2023, that number more than doubled to $574.8 billion. It's almost difficult-to-fathom growth in four short years, but we don't have to imagine it. In fact, most of its sales are right in front of us.
A major chunk of Amazon's profit comes from its cloud-services business, AWS, but its consumer-facing business, the dot-com store, rakes in far more publicity and excitement. Amazon's had great success with its now twice-annual Prime Day events, which the company says brought in record sales in 2023.
During the July Prime Day event, Amazon says customers purchased 375 million items, making the first day of the promotional period "the largest sales day in Amazon’s history." The Seattle e-commerce giant brought in $12.9 billion during the July event, and claims its promotions saved customers $2.5 billion in total.
Prime Days are obviously a hit both for Amazon and its customers, but the deals are limited to Prime members, who cough up $139 annually for the membership.
Now, Amazon just said that in March it would host its first-ever savings event open to both members and nonmembers, called the Big Spring Sale.
The event will be held across North America for six days, from March 20-25, and offer discounts on things like Amazon devices, fashion and accessories, jewelry, fitness products, outdoor furniture, cleaning, and home improvement tools.
Customers can expect deals on the following:
- Up to 50% off select beauty products
- Up to 50% off select sports and outdoors equipment
- Up to 40% off select home products
- Up to 40% off select spring apparel
- Up to 40% off select electronics
New sales will drop each day, and Amazon hopes the warmer weather will beckon customers to start spring buying as they also perhaps participate in spring cleaning.
Amazon promises that non-Prime members will also get fast shipping, though Prime members still get Amazon's fastest free shipping options.
Related: These 11 no. 1 bestsellers at Amazon are up to 51% off ahead of the Big Spring Sale
