Last week Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) announced that its third annual Prime Day will be next Tuesday, July 11, 2017. Expanding to China, India and Mexico this year, Prime Day will be available in 13 countries, so Prime members in those countries will get access to hundreds of thousands of deals for 30 straight hours, starting at 6 PM Pacific Time/9 PM Eastern on July 10. Amazon says that nearly 40 percent of lightning deals worldwide will come from small businesses and entrepreneurs on Prime Day too.

“Our members love Prime Day and we have been thrilled by the response over the last two years. It is inspiring us to make it even better this year for Prime members,” said Greg Greeley, Vice President, Amazon Prime, in a statement. “Every part of our business is working to deliver more deals for a record number of shoppers. This year’s Prime Day is too big for 24 hours – so we’re giving Prime members 30 hours to shop!”

Take a peek at how Amazon is preparing its team for Prime Day in this YouTube video:

Prime Day will be an epic day of deals, according to Amazon, and it will include some new features this year:

• 30 hours of shopping
• Deals organized by the 20 most-shopped-for themes like pets, gardening, technology and art
• Alexa-exclusive deals available via Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Show and Amazon Tap
• Get early deal watching and mobile notifications via the Amazon app
• Prime members in China and Mexico can shop local deals and deals from other countries
• Deals on TVs
• A sneak peak at The Grand Tour, Season 2

To kick things off, on June 29, Amazon began exclusive promotions and deals:

• Four months of Amazon Music Unlimited, Amazon’s new streaming music subscription, with tens of millions of songs for $0.99
• Get a $10 shopping credit when you stream a video via Prime for the first time.
• Prime members can get a Kindle Unlimited membership for 40 percent off.
• 40 percent off the first six months of an Audible membership ($8.95/month)
• Save up to 35 percent on everyday essentials in Prime Pantry.

Simply Gum was one of the small businesses that participated in Prime Day last year.

“Prime Day provides young brands like ours the opportunity to reach new customers and gain greater exposure through deals and increased traffic,” said Caron Proschan of Simply Gum. “We are really excited to offer customers our best deals of the year and expect to see a huge sales lift that will help us prepare for the upcoming holiday season.”

Insider Take:

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a Prime member. I have not yet participated in Prime Day, but I might this year. Amazon offers plenty of reasons to do so. Regardless of my personal interest in Amazon Prime, Amazon does so many things right as a subscription/membership brand, including:

• Consistently adding incremental value to keep customers happy, improving retention
• Making the Amazon app and website easy to use with simple navigation, video tutorials and FAQs
• Launching a 10-day promotional blitz to ensure that Prime members and potential members know about Prime Day well in advance of the big day
• Promoting smaller e-commerce brands, so members can shop locally or globally
• Growing the event every year, adding new locales and features
• Giving members and prospective members the opportunity to try Prime features they might not have sampled before (e.g., Audible, Kindle Unlimited, Prime Video, etc.)

The countdown to Prime Day 2017 begins!