Amazon Prime Day - Consumer Bonus or Defensive Act?

Amazon's "Prime Day" on July 15 will feature unprecedented deals throughout the site for Prime members and will aim to showcase Amazon Prime's ancillary features as well as maintaining and growing its customer base. With competitor sites such as Jet.com, Wal-Mart's ShippingPass and eBay's eBay+ launching later this year - all with cheaper membership fees - Prime Day could be seen as a defensive act. Amazon gets more members and convinces current subscribers not to jump to ship.