South Africa is the only country with an Amazon marketplace set to miss out on big Prime Day sales this week. (Amazon/Supplied)

• South Africa will miss out on a big Amazon sale this week.
• Amazon Prime Day will reduce prices across a host of countries where Amazon operates this week.
• The deals won’t be available through Amazon’s South African marketplace, where Amazon Prime is not available yet.
• For more financial news, go to the News24 Business front page.

South Africans are due to miss out on the massive Amazon Prime Day sales being run this week in every other country with a dedicated Amazon Marketplace.

The 10th edition of Amazon Prime Day will be held on 16 and 17 July, which will see millions of exclusive deals introduced on a broad swathe of products for Amazon Prime members, according to a company statement.

Products including school supplies, tech equipment and clothing will all be available at big discounts through the sale.

While Amazon launched a designated South African marketplace in May, it seems locals will miss out on the savings on Amazon.co.za this year. 

READ | Amazon’s South African website is officially live

Amazon published a list of countries where the sale would be available. this year. This included every region where a designated Amazon Marketplace has been launched except for South Africa.

India won’t have Prime Day sales this week, but Amazon said the sale will be run in the country later this year.

While Amazon.com ships to many countries around the world, the ecommerce behemoth has only recently launched a designated local marketplace in SA.

Amazon’s localised marketplaces span the globe with a host of marketplaces in Western Europe including Germany, France and the UK, a presence in the Middle East through Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, with Asian markets including India and Japan.

Other than South Africa, the only other African country where Amazon has a local offering is Egypt.

The most obvious reason that the Prime Day sales won’t be available in South Africa is that Amazon has yet to launch Amazon Prime subscriptions in South Africa.

Amazon Prime is a subscription offering that provides users with free deliveries, exclusive deals and access to the company’s streaming platform.

Amazon.co.za launched without an option to sign up for a Prime membership or with Amazon consumer electronics products like the Alexa Home virtual assistant or the Kindle e-reader. 

All signs point to the fact that Amazon’s start in South Africa has been slow.

READ | A month on, did Amazon’s SA marketplace debut fall flat?

The local marketplace doesn’t seem to be attracting nearly as much web traffic as its competitors and anecdotal experiences from local marketplace sellers indicate that sales were muted in the first few weeks of operating.

News24 reached out to a public relations representative for Amazon in South Africa, who confirmed that Prime Day discounts would not be available through Amazon.co.za as Amazon Prime is not yet available for the local marketplace. She said that Amazon did not want to comment any further on the matter.