Amazon Moves Prime Big Deal Days to October 6 and 7

SEATTLE — Amazon will hold its annual “Prime Big Deal Days” promotion on Oct. 6 and 7, opening the holiday shopping season earlier and intensifying the fourth-quarter retail competition. The 48-hour event is scheduled to begin at 3:01 a.m. Eastern Time on Oct. 6.

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Promotional pricing will span more than 35 product categories, with new discounts introduced three times daily under Amazon’s “Today’s Big Deals” banner. Featured brands will include Sony, Lego, Shark, and Anker. Amazon’s own hardware, including Echo smart devices and Kindle e-readers, is also expected to receive price cuts.

The October promotion follows Amazon’s flagship July Prime Day and arrives before the late-November Black Friday rush. Its timing reflects the broader retail trend known as “holiday creep,” as major retailers try to capture consumer spending before household budgets are depleted. Walmart and Target have responded in recent years with autumn promotions including Walmart’s holiday savings kickoffs and Target Circle Week, turning October into a major retail battleground.

Amazon began its mid-year sales strategy in July 2015 with the first Prime Day, held to commemorate the company’s 20th anniversary. What started as a one-day event grew into a multi-day global shopping phenomenon. In 2022, Amazon added a second major sales event in October under the name “Prime Early Access Sale,” then rebranded it as “Prime Big Deal Days” in 2023.

The second event is aimed at early holiday gift buyers and consumers seeking to spread out seasonal expenses. Amazon is also using the early October timing to promote a dedicated “Top 100+ Deals for Halloween” section, covering demand for costumes, decorations, and candy weeks before the holiday.

Discounts during the event will extend from fashion and beauty to kitchen appliances and home goods, positioning the promotion as an early starting point for winter holiday shopping. Amazon is adding voice-based shopping features through Alexa, the proprietary virtual assistant connected to a segment the company has developed since launching the Echo speaker in 2014.

Prime members can ask Alexa to create deal alerts for particular categories or set maximum target prices for specific items. When a product reaches the designated price during the sale, Alexa is programmed to complete the purchase automatically. The assistant can also scan existing customer shopping lists for real-time price reductions.

Consumer advocacy groups and retail experts caution that prices at major sales events can fluctuate. Amazon’s dynamic pricing algorithms may change an item’s cost multiple times a day according to inventory, demand, and competitor pricing. Retail experts recommend independent third-party tracking services such as CamelCamelCamel and Keepa, which monitor historical pricing data for millions of Amazon products. Shoppers can use those records to determine whether a promotional price is a genuine historical low or only a modest change from the average retail price.