Amazon (AMZN) has a tradition of offering killer Black Friday deals, but for Black Friday 2015 the online retailer is really setting the bar high.
The company just sent out a press release announcing three big markdowns leading up to Black Friday 2015 and even for Amazon deals, these stand out:
- Starting Nov. 22, the Kindle e-reader will be priced at $49.99, a 40% reduction.
- Staring Nov. 26 (Thanksgiving Day, with Black Friday 2015 following on the 27th), the Fire TV Stick video streamer gets a cut to just $24.99 (again, nearly 40% off).
- And the real jaw dropper — also starting Nov. 26 — is a $34.99 Fire tablet.
With these Black Friday deals, Amazon has effectively priced some of its best-selling consumer electronics at the level that they could be stocking stuffers.
Amazon Black Friday deals have a history of aggressive pricing, which have established AMZN as a dominant retailer. This is the time of year when its own devices also tend to see a sales surge, which helps to sell content further down the road.
In 2014, Amazon hawked a 50-inch LED TV for $199; in 2012, AMZN peddled $4 Blu-ray movies and a cheap Apple (AAPL) MacBook Air; in 2011 Amazon Black Friday deals included a $200 PS3 bundle; and in 2010, a Kindle 2 e-reader was slashed from $189 to $89. Penny smartphones (on two-year contracts) have also figured prominently in previous Amazon Black Friday deals.
However, that $34.99 Fire tablet really stands out, even given previous sales.
When Amazon first announced the Fire tablet, it was difficult to imagine the concept of a $50 tablet that was actually usable. There have been cheap tablets before, but most are in the $99 range and most are frustrating enough — crappy screens, abominably slow processors, shoddy construction — that they soon become indefinite tenants of a junk drawer.
The Amazon Fire, however, is a cheap $50 tablet with a rich build. By further discounting the device to $35 as part of its Black Friday deals, Amazon has priced the Fire tab so low that it firmly wandering around in impulse buy territory.
Look at it this way, at $35, you could buy seven of these for less than Apple’s cheapest, two-year-old iPad Mini 2 and still have enough cash left to order a few of those discounted Blu-Ray movies.
The new Apple TV and updated Chromecast are getting lots of buzz, but a Fire TV Stick at $24.99? Amazon clearly plans to use its Black Friday 2015 promotion — and its to ban Apple TV and Chromecast from the shelves of Amazon.com — to take some of the shine off the competition and ramp up market share.
This year, Amazon is offering early Black Friday deals in a move that’s stretching the event into the better part of month.
By announcing the door-crashers early, Amazon is clearly hoping consumers who might have been planning a visit to their local Apple Store or big-box electronics retailer will instead hold off and fire up their smartphone, tablet or PC browser for the big discounts on its online Black Friday deals.
As of this writing, Brad Moon did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
