Amazon is holding its second Prime Day shopping event in a year for the first time this week in a bid to boost its flagship ecommerce product and reverse declining sales.

The stakes for the $1.3tn group are high as it seeks to recruit new Prime members in saturated markets while cementing the scheme’s worth to existing subscribers globally — some of whom have seen the price of membership increase by more than 40 per cent this year.

Amazon’s online stores division, on which founder Jeff Bezos built his empire, has seen two quarters of declining sales in 2022 under new chief executive Andy Jassy. This is in stark contrast to the bumper pandemic period when demand reached record highs and sales increased by about 40 per cent compared to before Covid-19.